Love Hina Recommended

Publisher
Tokyopop
Country of origin
Japan
Length
9
Year
2002

Love Hina Volume 4

By Joseph (Joe) Wood
19th May 05

Love Hina is still a fan favorite and volumes of the manga are always in demand and specialist shops are constantly re-ordering the volumes in due to the popularity of the title. Even regular bookstores who have recently taken to selling manga have found Love Hina to be a popular seller. This review for volume four may contain spoilers for past volumes of Love Hina, and possibly the anime.

Having searched across Japan for Keitaro and Naru the Hinata girls finally bring them back home. The falling cherry blossoms give the girls another excuse to party; while Keitaro and Naru think about wither they want to try for Tokyo University for another year. Tama-Chan does a disappearing act with Naru’s watch; Motoko tries to become more feminine, after being defeated by Keitaro in a battle. Then Keitaro begins to look for work still undecided about wither to attempt Tokyo U. again and ends up working for a rather eccentric professor who works at the university.

Volume four introduces a couple of new characters first theirs Seta, the Tokyo U. professor mentioned previously, and his daughter Sarah. Seta also has a bit of a history with Hinata, and his arrival chucks more than a few spanners into the works of Keitaro’s attempts at gaining Naru’s affections. Sarah on the other hand is a bit of a mischievous tomboy who also causes trouble for Keitaro whilst he is working for Seta and for many of Hinata Apartment’s residents when she visits it.

The introduction of these new characters and their interaction with the existing characters certainly keeps the story seeming fresh, even though the comedy is still the same repetitive format. Also the introduction of Seta and Sarah is quite different to the way in which they are brought into the anime, and so should keep those who have already seen the anime entertained. As will the increased amount of character development for these two, and existing characters, stop the people who’ve seen the anime from getting bored with the similar plotlines.

Once again the artwork is still great quality, with the comedy or action elements sometimes taking a more simplistic (or less detailed) style but by no means less effective. While the comedy and action moments do use over the top expressions etc to convey emotion, it can still be seen in the situations when this method is not used to show anxiety or displeasure.

-- Joseph (Joe) Wood 19th May 05