Anime/Manga Review
“Love Hina” by Ken Akamatsu

Oboy, a young boy, Keitaro Urashima (Yui Horie/David Umansky), is trying to pass the university exams to get into Tokyo University so he can keep a promise he made when five-years-old, to a girl who kissed him. But this isn’t the first time nor the second time Ketaro has attempted this feat, thus he is a second year ronin (a student who didn’t pass the college entrance exams). His parents have kicked him out of their home and he is forced to go to his grandmother’s hotel, the Hinata House, only to discover its been converted to a girls dorm and he is now the new owner/manager. The girls don’t want him, he is a man and a pervert (what nineteen-year-old boy isn’t) and even after using every means possible to get him out, they are stuck with him and him with them.

And what girls, they could give the Tenchi ladies a run for their money in the strangeness department. You have high school student Naru Narusegawa (Yuji Ueda/Dorothy Melendrez) who has an Ayeka level temper, junior high school student Shinobu Maehara (Masayo Kurita/Ellen Arden) who is a shy and moody twelve-year-old, high school kendo captain Motoko Aoyama (Yu Asakawa/Mona Marshall) who doesn’t want the distractions a man’s presence will produce in her ordered world, junior high school student Kaolla Su (Reiko Takagi/Wendee Lee) who is ditzy foreign exchange student (I’m betting she is either from India or California), freelance writer Mitsune “Kitsune” Konno (Junko Noda/Barbara Goodson) who is a foxy gold-digger, and former house-mother Haruka Urashima (Megumi Hayashibara/Jean Howard) who owns the Hinata Tea House. In the manga there is a lot of fan service on a level I haven’t seen since Ranma 1/2 but it is balanced with very WFFY moments.

When you watch the anime series, there are some differences between it and the manga. Shinobu isn’t at Hinata House in the beginning (a very good episode is used to introduce her character), Naru has an Akane level punch, Aoyama is a mystical samurai, Su is even weirder, Kitsune speaks with an Osaka accent (Southerner in the dubb) and Haruka doesn’t like being called aunt by Keitaro (she is twenty-seven and unmarried, a no-no in Nihon). Each episode gives you a deeper view of each of the character along with a healthy dose of slapstick and tender moments.

Love Hina is translated for the anime by Erica Yano Arrendondo and Daniel Kanemitsu (the manga is translated by Anita Sengupta), character design by Makoto Uno (who stays very close to the manga version of the characters), series structure by Kurou Hazuki, the producers are Keisuke Iwata (TV Tokyo), Shinichi Ikoda and Yukinao Shimoji, directed by Yoshiaki Iwasaki (Wendee Lee does the dubb version for ADR), opening/ending theme (“Sakura Saku”/“Kimisae Ireba”) by Ritsuko Okazaki, arranged by Tomoji Sogawa and performed by Megumi Hayashibara.

If you like Tenchi Muyo OAV or Ranma 1/2, you will like Love Hina.