LOVE HINA AGAIN

DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME ComedyLove Hina

REVIEWS

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  TheRealKyuubey

  20/100
  Roses are Red, Violets are Blue. Love Hina's still awful, so what else is new?

  It’s the dawn of a new semester at Tokyo University, and Keitaro Urashima is finally ready to live his dream! Not that long ago,convinced that he’d bombed his entrance exams yet again, he had run away to a foreign island nation like a coward, leaving his friends from Hinata Inn... The brutish Naru, the reserved swordswoman Motoko, the mischievous Su, the diminutive Shinobu, the sly Kitsune and a flying turtle, to chase after him with the news that he’d actually got in! After an adventure involving lost civilizations, leaf bikinis and a tanned doppelganger of his 13 year old friend, the gang finally makes it back in time to seal the deal on his attendance! And then he breaks his leg on the first day. He has to go home because his parents don’t believe him, a couple minutes after which he comes back recovered and declares he’s going to spend some time away with his mentor Seto, and a mysterious figure starts to run around groping and impersonating everybody, there’s several love confessions and some incest and a magical annex and just throw this OVA in the trash and read the manga.

  Like the rest of the Love Hina franchise, this OVA was produced by the infamous anime studio Xebec, which at least one entire generation of otaku will remember as the last name they wanted to hear attached to an adaptation. Yes, it is true that their output did start to improve by quite a bit toward their demise in 2019, but in the nineties and two thousands, this studio was known as the producers of the ugliest, stiffest, cheapest looking anime on the market, and while Love Hina Again may be one of their better looking titles from that specific time, that’s still not very high praise. Actually, the overall visual quality of this OVA is really inconsistent... Sometimes, it’s the stiff, cheap fare you’d always expect from Xebec, exploiting key frames to their fullest while all onscreen movement appears limited in scope, and stilted in it’s presentation. Other times, the animation is fluid and graceful, showcasing an almost anatomically faithful range of character movement.

  Other times, it looks like a little too much money was poured into a scene, resulting in movement that’s way too fast and incoherent for the viewer to keep up with. I’ve said in previous reviews that this series was produced by Xebec AND Production IG, and I don't remember where I got this information... I can’t find any other source to back this up, and in its listing on AnimeNewsNetwork, it only has Production IG listed as taking part in the localization, and doing in-between work for episode 2. Still, I’m tempted to believe this assertion, because there are some parts of the OVA that look as good as if the IG powerhouse were behind them. I’m also not fond of just how much of the OVA’s run time we spend within the boundaries of Hinata Inn, which is a pretty boring set piece overall, especially when the manga travelled to a ton of interesting locations around this point in the story. Even the interior of the evil cursed annex was boring and claustrophobic. It might look slightly better than the previous series, but there’s nothing impressive about this OVA’s visuals.

  The English dub hasn’t lost a step since the original TV series, by which I mean it’s still one of the worst I’ve ever heard. Pretty much everyone who has enough screentime to leave an impression is either annoying, miscast, or both. In all fairness, Derek Stephen Prince does sound like Keitaro logically would sound, as a spineless, whiny punching bag. He’s doing the role as written, and I can’t knock him for reading the assignment, but that doesn’t make his eternally cracking voice sound any less irritating. Dorothy Fahn isn’t terrible as Naru, but she’s far too restrained to hit the emotional high and lows of her character. Mona Marshall is voicing Motoko with the same voice she uses when she plays little boys. Barbara Goodson is still playing Kitsune with a terrible southern accent, Wendee Lee is still playing Su with a terrible Indian accent, Bridget Hoffman makes thirteen year old Shinobu sound like a 1950’s milf, and as for the newcomer? We’ve got Kanako, Keitaro’s winkwink little sister played by Melissa Fahn. Yes, she still sounds like Ed from Cowboy Bebop, and yes, it’s still distracting. Watch in Japanese.

  So recently I started doing that anime challenge thing where you answer a new question every day, and the question I answered today(at time of writing, not at time of publishing) was, “Favorite mangaka?” And somewhat ironically, the very day I was planning to review a Ken Akamatsu adaptation, I acknowledged Ken Akamatsu as my favorite manga author. I have read most of his work... Negima, UQ Holder, Love Hina, AI Love You... And there are some very strongly auteurish qualities about him that have made his work nearly impossible to adapt faithfully over the years. If I had to describe Akamatsu’s main genre, I would call it “Epic Ecchi.” He writes these long, involved and intricately woven tales populated by tons of fully realized and fleshed out characters, intense lore and meticulous and creative world-building. His stories are full of twists and turns and exciting surprises, with more than enough memorable moments to make it worth the journey for any reader who followed along with the story.

  He also uses a ton of fanservice. To be fair, his content straddles the line between PG and PG-13, as they’re full of underwear shots and nudity, but the kind of mostly censored nudity where you see a constant string of bare bottoms, but everything else is somehow obscured. From what I can tell, he seems to use this cheeky fanservice and silly ecchi hijinks as a crutch to keep the readers invested in the story, waiting for the next bit of exposed flesh, while he draws them deeper into the story like a frog in boiling water, earning their patience while laying the groundwork for the epic developments that he’s planning out, sometimes years in the future. This doesn’t work in anime form for two reasons. First of all, as relatively tame as his brand of fanservice is, it’s still too explicit for most TV anime, so there goes his crutch. Second, his work is nowhere near mainstream enough to justify the lengthy runtimes he would need in order to do his work justice. Either they end early, they have to force multiple story arcs together, or both, and none of these options ever work.

  Hell, I consider the second Negima series to be the best Akamatsu anime in existence, and that series only succeeded by scrapping the story of the source material and going off in its own direction that preserved the spirit of an Akamatsu narrative while telling a unique story. As for Love Hina, it is famous for being one of the worst anime adaptations out there. I’ve already reviewed the series itself and the Christmas movie, so look up those reviews if you’re curious, but for Love Hina Again, it is stuck with the unfortunate distinction of being the ending to the anime adaptation, because after the series ended early and the Christmas and Island story arcs were blessed with thir own movies, it was Again’s job to squeeze several volumes worth of story into a three episode finale that, to it’s very minimal credit, is the first and only piece of Love Hina anime that has been able to present the same level of fanservice that the manga had.

  Now I should take this time to point out that I’m not going to have a lot to say about the accuracy of this adaptation, because I haven’t read the Love Hina manga for around ten to fifteen years, and while I remember some highlights, the events of the manga around this time are kind of vague to me. Besides, I don’t necessarily consider accuracy to be a mark of quality in the first place. What I do remember is that the portion of the manga that’s being adapted here could accurately be described as the best of times, and the worst of times. It was the best of times because Keitaro and Naru’s relationship had finally made some progress, and we were finally getting a break from Keitaro as he takes off with Seta, and like a Saiyan in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, he later comes back a much stronger character. It was the worst, however, because Keitaro and Naru‘s relationship still had a few highly tedious hurdles to clear, and one of them was the worst character, Kanako. His little sister, but I’m gonna call her his Imouto, because this shit is too fucking common now.

  Has somebody ever written a book about anime’s obsession with the imouto trope? The one where an incest-obsessed little sister pops into a story to stalk her brother, who it turns out she’s gasp not really related to? Why is this exact situation so damn ubiquitous in the medium? Is it the taboo of it that’s so exciting, and the step-sibling reveal is just to smooth out any moral hang-ups? Is it like an offshoot of pedophilia or something? I mean it’s always an older brother and a younger sister, and the few times that it’s the reverse, it’s only played for laughs. I know this whole situation is fictional, and that I shouldn’t take it too seriously, but because I am who I am, here’s why this trope is unrealistic: When two children grow up together in close proximity, especially during their formative years, they develop a familial bond that sexually and romantically desensitizes them to each other. So no, your little sister isn’t going to suddenly want to sleep with you just because she found out you’re adopted. It’s actually more likely for a blood related sibling you were raised apart from to find you attractive later in life, because that bond was never formed, and we intrinsically trust those similar to us.

  I’m not the first anime reviewer to bring up the phenomena of Genetic Sexual Attraction and the Westermark Effect, but once you learn about them you can't help bringing them into the conversation about incest in anime.

  It’s also worth pointing out that for someone to tie their entire romantic future to a promise they made when they were a drooling toddler is the most pathetic red flag since nice guys wearing fedoras, I don’t know how the manga made it work so well. I also don’t like thinking about how Keitaro’s obsession with going to college as his destination in life, despite having no clear career path or major in mind and nobody bringing up the issue of payment reminds me of how shameless American media is about advertising expensive colleges to impressionable youths. Maybe it’s just easier to notice issues like that when the story is just ramming event after event into each other so frantically and incoherently that you can’t form a connection to anything that’s happening on screen. I’ll reiterate that I’m not a stickler for accuracy, but the manga was paced well enough that no matter how ridiculous the story beats got, they all had time to sink in. No matter how horribly a character acted, there was some nuance to them, and enough time to get into their heads and sympathize with them a little bit. This is just play-by-play story-telling that has no heart to speak of.

  On top of all that, there’s just nothing to latch onto here. Most of the cast is pretty useless in this OVA, and while the narrative does TRY and give them stuff to do... Getting harrassed by Kanako, or having to fight Naru at the annex... It’s fair to say that this story didn’t actually need anybody in it other than Keitaro, Naru and Kanako. What’s even worse is that in regard to the story surrounding those three characters, all we really have is an annoying imouto who wants to force her brother into a relationship based on a vague promise he made like a decade or more ago into a relationship against his will(although he DOES start thinking impure thoughts about her at one point) and the entire reason she’s doing that is to drag out the will-they-won’t-they aspect of Keitaro and Naru’s relationship even farther, but since there’s no nuance to either character in the anime, nobody WANTS them to get together in the first place, which makes this entire plot point tedious. Can a talking warthog and a human punching bag overcome the power of incest to live happily ever after? Who fucking cares? Hell, didn't the Christmas movie already cover Keitaro's broken leg?

  Like I said before, I don’t remember a lot of the manga, but I remember enough to acknowledge that this final stretch of the story... Everything presented in this OVA, essentially... Was awesome, not just because I genuinely liked both Keitaro and Naru, which I did, but because the closer they got, and the more they defied the forces that felt like they were trying to keep them apart, the more epic it felt, like they were battling the forces of fate itself, and I’m pretty sure I remember the relationship the annex had to all of this being up for interpretation, as it didn’t have any obvious magical powers like it kind of lazilly does here. Honestly, the way the OVA incorporates the annex into its climax should be right up my alley in terms of creativity, but it still just bored me. Honestly, this whole jumbled mess of deconstructed and rearranged subplots did nothing but bore me, and I know the franchise well enough to follow it. Imagine watching this crap blind, because you just happened to be curious about the franchise as a whole. There are people out there who dip their toes into a series by watching a sequel movie/OVA first, and it’s not always a terrible idea, but if you try it with Love Hina Again, then Lord protect your soul.

  Love Hina Again was available from Bandai, but is now out of print along with the rest of the anime. The original manga by Ken Akamatsu is available from Tokyopop.

  I’m honestly kind of surprised that Love Hina hasn’t received a reboot, as popular as the manga still is to this day. I even know exactly who should adapt it, the same people who did Monogatari and every installment of Negima from the second series and onward; It should be produced by Shaft, and directed by Akiyuki Shinbou, because even though I’m not a fan of his work in general, he would still be the perfect director to breathe some life into it, and every single one of his aesthetic quirks would feel right at home with the material. But alas, we have the anime we have, and unfortunately, that anime has the conclusion that it has. Whether I look at it on its own merits or as an adaptation of one of my favorite manga titles, I can’t see it as anything other than an incoherent trainwreck whose only bright spots are a few well animated segments and a smattering of fanservice that’s finally free of TV restrictions. If that’s all you got, that’s not a lot.

  Roses are Red, Violets are Blue.
  Out of 10, I give Love Hina Again a 2.

  Heppy Valentines Day.

  Continue on AniList

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