To Love-Ru / Motto To Love-Ru REVIEW

With the second season of To Love-Ru Darkness (the 4th installment) airing, I'll be making a review on the first two seasons of THE MOST FAMOUS HAREM ECCHI (debatable) series for the past half-decade. To Love-Ru is a homophone (words that sound alike) of the Japanese pronunciation "toraburu" which literally means "trouble." So let's get on it shall we?

Synopsis: Yuuki Rito is a goody two-shoes high school boy whose only problem is his sheepishness towards girls and especially the one he likes, Sairenji Haruna. One night in the bathtub (while pondering over how to confess) a naked girl crash lands through the roof and into the tub with him. Her name is Lala, the princess and heir to the throne of planet Deviluke, rulers of the universe. Little did he know that he is in for the ride of his life.

• To Love-Ru : Harem-Ecchi-Comedy ONLY

Despite what it looks like at first, To Love-Ru has minimal elements of Romance, and is purely Ecchi Comedy. Every episode except the last were fillers and stand-alone stories that only develop small parts of the characters' personalities (mostly feelings for the main character, Rito). There's no big plot (not PLOT, genuine plot) that covers the series (unless you consider Rito's Harem building up one) and if you're looking for an anime with a serious story or a real Romance series I advise you check my other reviews, because this isn't one.

But if YOU DO LIKE COMEDY fillers or have some free time to spare watching Ecchi Comedy, To Love-Ru is perfect.

The main character, Yuuki Rito, is a good-morals guy from head-to-toe: he's nice to everyone (which is what they like about him) but he always, ALWAYS accidentally gets into Ecchi situations (gets his face in someone's pantsu, his hand accidentally grabs boobs, he walks into girls dressing up or bathing, he battles an octopus tentacle-ing the characters) you name it, he's done it (not willingly though). It's a running gag in the show (yep if you're wearing a skirt there is NO WAY he's NOT gonna get under it accidentally) and it actually makes you laugh or want to facepalm (or both) depending on your type of humor. Oh, did I mention he turns beet red/faints whenever he gets in an ecchi situation?  He's just a regular boy who doesn't want to get tangled up in a harem, but when it comes to facing a problem that involves the characters, he's ready to stand up do what's right (making the gurls fall hard).

There are two main heroines, so we'll start with the princess of another planet: Lala Satalin Deviluke. Lala is esentially the center of the show, as it's always her alien high tech inventions plus her upbeat, optimistic, energetic personality that gets Rito into trouble. She loves Rito (duh harem) and wants to marry her so she can stay on Earth and while Rito the new heir of the Deviluke throne, Rulers of the Universe. Of course, it's too much for Rito but he slowly develops her feelings for Lala. The other main heroine is Sairenji Haruna, an osanajijimi (childhood friend) who's really really really nice, shy, and has also liked Rito for years but none of them had the confidence to confess. Haruna's simply a girl that confuses Rito and the only reason she's even in the series is to keep Rito from devoting himself to Lala, thus allowing the series to pan out 4 seasons without Rito ending up with either of them.

Season 1 Rito w/ Lala
(better hair)

Season 2 Rito w/ Haruna
(hair art rework)

Together all three of them get in ecchi-comedy situations for 25 episodes, and the only part with a deciding storyline is the 26th. Overall, the art is good, the OP and ED songs were wonderful, characters are stereotypical, but the ecchi comedy can be funny depending on your taste. What bothers me is the dragged out season; the anime was 26 episodes, and since it was a 22 minute long stand-alone, there were times where I just got bored. Good thing they fixed this in the next season, Motto To Love-Ru.

• Motto To Love-Ru

Motto To Love-Ru is actually identical to the first season with few changes; Lala's twin younger sisters come into play (and add into Rito's harem), the minor characters are given more detail and develop deeper feelings for Rito, and the anime plays out in a three-stories per episode format. This is the fix I was taking about: by putting three filler stories into one episode, the anime becomes a lot more fast paced and overall entertaining. Sadly it ends after 12 episodes, but hey, that gives us 36 different quicker short stories without changing the feel and ecchi comedy class of the first season.

Art was also cleaned up (personally I didn't like the eyes at first, it looked kind of dead to me), the anime was also went deeper into the ecchi genre (lighter censors, more service kind of thing), and OP and ED music fantastic as ever. If you liked To Love-Ru, there's no doubt you'll like the second season too (no pun intended).



That's all, I'll be doing a review on Darkness and Darkness 2nd Season when I finish them. Also, I like the debate about the anime being borderline hentai; true, the ecchi scenes are too revealing and that is perhaps the closest you get to h-scenes, but the anime's focus IS comedy and fanservice, not !sex. Comment below and I'll read/ reply to your thoughts on the topic =))
P.S. remember the URL change to lolzneko.blogspot.com on Sunday

Here's your daily dose of Moe P.S. All images not mine