Title - "Love Hina"
Alternative title(s) - "Love Dolls" (if you want a rough translation)
Genre(s) - Comedy, ren'ai, drama, etc.
Well, if my first review was on the "Love Hina" anime, I might as well say that "Love Hina's" manga will be the first manga to be reviewed. ^_^
"Love Hina's" manga - a lot can be said here.
I already mentioned that Akamatsu Ken-sensei introduced the series to us in 1998. What I have to mention now is that there are a few games out there, 14 volumes of the manga, a "Love Hina Zero", an April Fools special volume...well not a real volume, but rather a joke volume which the fan translators at the time brought out at the time, and "Love Hina Infinity" which came out back in July of last year. There are also a few magazine novels, which I found out just now.
Here's an interesting fact. When the bilingual versions of the novels, the ones with Japanese text on one side and English on the other side, were released, they only went up to volume eight. You might think that they were not selling well, but that's not it. Too many Americans and people outside of Japan were buying these novels. Sure, Akamatsu-sensei was glad people outside of Japan were buying them, but those books are actually supposed to be for the Japanese. By reading those books, the Japanese will also learn English, but since many people outside of Japan were buying them, the bilingual novels were stopped being made.
I have already explained the story. Just look at my review of the anime. On with the scores.
Fun - 10
The anime is good. The manga is better. Really better.
So, why is it that manga is better than the anime? Sure, I will laugh once in a while with Konno Mitsune's/Kitsune's gigs and being able to hear her Kansai accent or seeing Akamatsu-sensei in the anime, but the manga goes beyond in terms of quality overall. I'm not saying the anime was pretty bad, but I am saying that the manga carried an aura that made me feel all floaty and really attracted to the series. The manga shows change, while the anime remains the same. Change can easily be seen in Aoyoma Motoko.
What else? The manga has a lot of events going on. I don't want to give away anything, but I know what I can say. Some events in the manga: you won't see them even in "Love Hina Again".
There's no Kentar
. Remember that Kentar is an anime-only character. There are some interesting characters here in the manga that you don't see in the anime.
Flaws: other than the fact that the series as a whole lacks originality, regardless if I talk about the manga or the anime, if you can get past the few mess-ups in the translation when the series as a whole got here, there's not much else that you can say. I guess that's it. Yeah.
Life - 10
Gee. I should read the manga again sometime. That's for sure.
Story - 9
Yeah, I know it's a lot like "Maison Ikkoku". At least the story is solid. Oh and if you're wondering why I gave a 9 here and only an 8 in the anime's story section, the Fun section spoke for itself.
Art - 10
The art here is fabulous overall. Really nice indeed. The characters look great, especially Maehara Shinobu. Why did I mentioned her? Just read the manga yourself. =P
Overall - 10
Well, what can I say? "Love Hina's" manga is really great. So go out and read it if you haven't done so by now.
Oh! There are some last statements to say before I go on to the summary. I'll give notes after.
Wai! "Rabu Hina" daisuki yo! Arigat gozaimasu Akamatsu-sensei! Oh! Omedet gozaimasu!
(Wai! I love "Love Hina"! Thank you very much Akamatsu-sensei! Oh! Congradulations! [If you don't know, he got married last year on the 13th of July.])
+
It's the manga! The art is great and you'll have a blast with the manga.
-
Manga, anime, the series as a whole lacks originality.
Date of creation - 11/28/02 (11/22/02 is the real date.)
Last update - 8/10/04