Love Hina Again

[the_gneech]

Well, lythandra and I have now watched Love Hina Again, completing our viewing of the animated series and ancillary, erm, stuff. :)

My thoughts...

• Anime Episodes 1-24: Great! Fun, romantic, happy, really top-notch. Terrific ending, too. You could stop watching at the end of this and be content.
  
  
• Christmas Movie: Good. Kinda draggy in the middle, and sort of a retread (after Episode 24, Naru and Keitaro should have been past the whole "Are you together? No! Why do you say that???" bit, but they keep doing it here). It does have some nice moments and by the end does actually move the overarching story forward a bit.
  
  
• Bonus Episode 25: Good, but out of place. Should have been episode 15, and is anticlimactic. Nice for Motoko fans, tho.
  
  
• Spring Movie: Decent but only that. The high point was Kietaro's reaction to hearing the entrace exam results. Again, has a retread problem. (Why are Naru and Keitaro back to wondering who's in love with who? The Christmas Movie resolved that even more than Episode 24 did!)
  
  
• Love Hina Again: Um ... weak. It's sorta like somebody was given Love Hina and told, "Do more of this." They capture the formula on the surface, but not the heart that makes you care. Keitaro's development into Mini-Seta (which makes sense thematically and is practically telegraphed from day one in the manga) is kind of neat, but the romantic elements are all overdone and, well, annoying. Between Naru's neurosis and Kanako's psycho-bitchness, I was rooting for Keitaro to give 'em both the boot and get back with Mitsume. (Okay, not really, but Naru's behavior and the reasons for it just didn't do it for me.) And speaking of Kanako's psycho-bitchness ... wow, what to say about Kanako? Do Naru and Keitaro really need somebody deliberately trying to break them up? With the aid of a Ancient Powerful Magic, no less? If Naru and Keitaro's love is strong enough to overcome malevolent supernatural influences, then for goodness sake, that story is DONE and it's time to move on to another one! The humor was also mostly absent, but with all the fantasy elements they threw in, it sorta sags under its own weight without humor to buoy it up.

So, final verdict: I love Love Hina! I heartily recommend the series. But unless you've a fan of the series, don't bother with the movies. They should only be watched if you get through to Episode 24 and just gotta have more. And dilletante, to answer your question: no, definitely don't start with Love Hina Again, it's the weakest part of the whole series.

NOTE: I'm still working on the manga. The good news is, as of Volume 8 of the TokyoPop collection, it's still just as good as it was in Volume 1, it's well into the same vague series of events that were depicted in Spring Movie, but the story is still going forward instead of grinding along in the same spot like the anime did ... and there are six more volumes still to go! Despite what I said here about generally disliking manga, I've really been enjoying this one a lot.

-The Gneech

Comments

[jamesbarrett.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking that most anime movies are just "one more for the true fans" kind of thing cause The Slayers series was great. The movies and other stuff that came afterwards was okay, but really had little or nothing to do with the series. What it did have was more Lina Inverse. While that can never be a bad thing, the great interaction between her and the rest of the Slayers gang is, sadly, missing. Every Dragonball movie ignores the series entirely and takes a neat bit introduced in the series and runs in another direction with it. Great fun for a true DBZ fan, but what does it really have to do with the show, other than have Goku being Goku?

-Frisk's two cents worth

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

You're probably on to something. Cowboy Bebop was the same way.

-TG

[kheetor84.livejournal.com]

YAY! You love Love Hina! *HUGS* You know I dressed as Naru at A-kon 13 and Robby dressed as Keitaro. ^^

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Got any pics? :)

-TG

[makovette.livejournal.com]

What TG said! :-D

CYa!
Mako

[frostdemn.livejournal.com]

Isn't the Spring Movie supposed to have come -before- the Christmas movie..? *thinks back..* Wait.. I watched both of those (but only saw up to episode 12...), and um..shoot, I confused myself.. Spring Movie was supposed to be the very end..? *headthrob* I'm too lazy to get my DVD boxes... x.x

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Nope, they run in the order I listed 'em. :)

-TG

[frostdemn.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's good, then. Wish I remembered enough.. Never time to work. XP

Happy Flying Turtles!

[welah.livejournal.com]

I have to agree. I've heard a lot of Hina-bashing, but overall, it's really enjoyable. I remember back when I first saw it, and my sister came over right at the end of episode 23 to go shopping. I made her wait. :-)
I don't think I'll be watching it again, because it is a little slow and all the irrational Keitaro-beatings get tired. But I'll always remember it well, and it gets my recommendation, too.

Have you watched much other anime? I've heard you talk about Bebop and Hina, but not much else, though my memory may be failing me. I just think if we have similar tastes, reccomendation exchanges might be in order.

-Welah!

Re: Happy Flying Turtles!

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Well, I started in the old days with Kimba, The White Lion, Speed Racer, and Marine Boy; later I graduated to Star Blazers.

Then for a long time, I didn't see much, but when I went to college I saw the first Vampire Hunter D, which I liked a lot, and Akira, which I hated.

Akira soured me on anime for a while; it wasn't until lythandra started getting into Cardcaptor Sakura, and then I fell in love with it myself (notice all the LJ icons) that I started thinking of anime as a good thing again. We have the entire series and both movies on DVD, which was a three-year project. Great show.

Didn't care much for Princess Mononoke, but liked Spirited Away.

I liked Ruin Explorers quite a bit and wish there was more of it.

The first three episodes of Ex-Driver are dumb fun; the last three are just dumb. I have the Ex-Driver movie but I haven't seen it yet.

Slayers was too weird for me to get into; Hyper Police was kinda neat but didn't hold my interest past the fourth episode.

Cowboy Bebop totally blew me away -- what a great SF series! I much preferred the silly episodes (such as the one where they found Ein) to anything at all involving Spike's backstory. Angst is crap and I want it to die.

Outlaw Star kept almost getting interesting, but not quite making it; we stopped watching around episode 15 or so.

I wanted soooo badly to like Captain Harlock, but I just couldn't do it.

L/R: Licensed by Royalty was mediocre, but as mediocre things go it was pretty good. Not half as slick as it thought it was.

Twelve Kingdoms got a high recommendation from smrgol_t_kirin, but that's because kirin were major characters. I didn't care for it myself ... too many plots, and only two likeable characters -- who were never around.

Sailor Moon was junk. I can't figure out why it's so popular. (At least the first disk was; I couldn't bring myself to watch any more.)

Real Bout High School is dumb fun, except when it's trying to be serious, at which point I just sigh and wait for it to become dumb fun again.

Legend of Himiko: Sacred Fire was something that I wouldn't object to watching, but I wouldn't do it deliberately either if I had a choice.

Rune Soldier would have been good, if they'd dumped all the main female characters (i.e., 3/4 of the cast). Louie was a likeable hero, who kept getting abused by the shrill harpy women he was supposedly comrades with. What irritated me most about the show was that it was almost good, except for that.

And finally, there's Love Hina, which I love. :) I think that's all I've seen...

-The Gneech