Love Hina

I want to start this by saying that Love Hina was my first "Harem". I saw the Anime adaptation on Tv, it aired at night and I remember waiting patiently for the next episode every day, I really loved it. That was nearly 20 years ago. Recently I got back into manga, and saw a Box Set of Love Hina with all the volumes in nice 2 in 1 editions. As you can guess, driven by nostalgia and the fact that the anime wasn't the complete story, I bought it. It took me about a month to go through it and honestly... I think the anime, or at least my memories of the anime, were better.

Fair warning, this review contain spoilers.

For about the first half I was enjoying it quite a lot. I think the comedy still holds up and the cast is really lovable. But right around the part where Keitaro finally approves the Todai entrance exam, the series takes a nose dive and, sadly, it never recovers from there. What happens after that and until the last Volume is, I'd say, 80 to 90% filler. Reused jokes, reused scenarios, reused situations, reused dramas. You have one volume completely dedicated to exposition about the promise Mutsumi, Naru and Keitaro made when kids and discovering who was the girl, which, to no one's surprise, was Naru. By the way, after that, Mutsumi as a character become 100% irrelevant to the story, only appearing, out of nowhere, here and there as a deus ex machina to save the cast from X situation.

When Keitaro is about to enter the Todai, on the entrance ceremony, everything bad that could happen, happens and in the most absurd way. Literally cars rain down the sky to crush him, the whole thing culminates with the top of a building falling into him, breaking his leg and thus forcing him to miss school for about 6 months. This is the chapter/volume on which things started to go downhill for me, as it is painfully obvious the Mangaka is just padding the series. Entering the Todai was Keitaros main goal and driving force for half the series, so having it robbed from him in the most bullshit and absurd way actually pissed me off. From there on, like I said, is a repeat of everything from the first half but in a worse way. It all culminates in the worst last 4 manga Volumes I've read so far. Now, don't get me wrong, in the last 4 volumes there are scenes and chapters that are good, however its those are really small compared to the bullshit that plagues them. Starting in Volume 11 Keitaros sisters appear, a character not even once was mentioned nor hinted until then, and guess what, she has a s sister complex, wants to marry Keitaro, and of course, they are not blood related. Now, I don't care about incest in anime/manga, I really like Oreimo (except the end) and KissxSiss (is a guilty pleasure), but the one in Love Hina pissed me off because it comes out of nowhere, serves literally 0 purpose and it is handled in a really garbage way. With Keitaro literally showing no signs of seeing Kanako as anything more than a sister, telling everyone he loves Naru, to suddenly having wet dreams about Kanako just because he saw her half naked in the bathroom. 2 Volumes are devoted to that garbage. In those same Volumes, the mangaka decided that making Naru the most indecisive piece of trash was also a good idea. At this point, we are 85ish% into the series. Keitaro has confessed to Naru easily like 5 times or more, have reassured her over and over that he loves her. So, what does Naru do? Escapes. Runs away, goes on a trip because she can't decide if she loves him or not. I need to add that, by this point, Keitaro has been waiting on Narus answer to his confession for about 3 to 4 months. Anyway, the only saving grace about Volume 11 and 12 is the last chapter on which Naru finally tells him she loves him and then they kiss. Okay, with 2 volumes left we can finally get ready for a nice happy ending, right? ... right? Nope. Volume 13 is one giant detour to Kaolla's home country on which is revealed she's a princess and wants to marry Keitaro, oh, but at the end is also revealed that the whole thing was a set up so that Seta and Haruka could marry. Worst thing about this Volume is how all the girls say over and over again how much they support Naru and Keitaro, only for them to try to force him to marry them because of some letter Keitaro's Grandma wrote. Plus there's a really awful scene on which Keitaro has to choose who to walk with to the altar in the Todai ruins (yeah, apparently the legend about walking with your lover to the Todai and living happily ever after referred these ruins and not the University) and Keitaro, for some bafflingly stupid reason, is about to choose Shinobu. I say stupid, because, again, we've know that he loves only Naru since halfway into the series. During this whole adventure he's been trying to go to the altar with Naru to fulfill their promise, so why the flying freaking hell is he about to choose Shinobu? Oh right, so that we can have pathetic attempt at a emotional moment where all the girls guide Keitaro's hand to Naru. Just, awful. With this done, and only one volume left we can finall- Nope. Volume 14 has a extremely forced and downright moronic drama about who was the girl Keitaro made the promise to go to the Todai. With Naru going full on depressed because "I¡m not the girl she made the promise with so he doesn't love me and he will be better of with that girl". It was already stablished that Naru was the girl back in the exposition Volume in Mutsumi's home town. Not only that, but it was already stablished before that that Keitaro no longer cares about who was the girl of the promise, his goal was to fulfill the promise he, as an adult, made to Naru about going together to the Todai. He literally tells that to Naru 2-3 times across the series, so again, why the flying freaking hell are we having this bullshit drama right now? and it ends exactly how everyone already knew, Naru was that girl. AFter that chapter, we have the epilogue. And, again, that's the only saving grace of Volume 14. Seeing all the girls 3 years later, all grown up, changed and fulfilling their dreams was great, same with watching Naru and Keitaro marrying.

So what else can I say. If the series was about 10 volumes long instead of 14, it would have been great, sadly, that's not the case. What started really good ended up as something mediocre in my opinion. Yes Naru's confession scene was good. Yes, the epilogue was amazing. But those are just some shiny, clean spots on a really dirty floor. The extremely forced and dumb drama, the massive amounts of repetitions, all of that almost killed the series for me. I am giving it a 6.5/10 only because of the first half and those handful of nice scenes/chapters after that. If it wasn't for the epilogue the I would be giving it a 5/10 or maybe even lower. This review or maybe rant was already too long and there's stuff I didn't touch upon, like how some characters serve no purpose for the overall story and are just there for the sake of being there. Like Sarah, Kitzune, Kanako and Mutsumi after the first half. So that's it for me.