Anime Review - To Love-Ru

Hello everybody! Today I am going to be reviewing an anime known as To Love-Ru. For those who dislike spoilers I am going to straight up say this. There might very well be spoilers in this, for those who don’t know what To Love-Ru is about just sit down and I’ll tell you. For this article I’ll be reviewing the first season of three.

To Love-Ru

To Love-Ru is an anime that aired in 2006, the story revolves around the nonsensical life of Yuuki Rito. This is not a series to be taken completely seriously and indeed it doesn't put forward the idea that you should. It is strange, has tons of fan service, and is overall light hearted. For a drinking game you should take a shot every time there is fanservice in the series. You’ll be dead before you leave the opening song.

Synopsis

Rito Yuuki, an average football playing teenage boy has problems with women. He gets so shy when trying to talk to them that he freezes up and ends up in a pool of his own sweat. He has found himself in love with a classmate named Haruna Seiranji, but every time that he tries to confess his love something happens to stop him, from a pot knocking him out to being ran over by elephants.

That is until one day while trying to confess a space ship crashes into the front terrace of their high school almost hitting Rito and ruining this confession attempt. Later that night while taking a bath a strange light comes from his tub and a naked woman appears before him, his hands cusped on her chest. This woman turns out to be Lala the princess of Deviluke a warlike space faring race that is known for their cruelty and military might. Now before you go thinking this is another premise for one of my fanfiction please not that all forms nudity are purely softcore and nothing more (even if there is tension building).

After that he finds out that via groping her, and later telling her that he loves her while looking her in the eye. (Another failed confession to Sairenji, I need to make this quick) That he has proposed to her and is to be the next king of Deviluke, if he can survive the crazy antics caused by the strange space princess Lala.

That’s the basic plot of the show, there are other details but you’ll just have to watch the show yourself to see them.

Now onto the actual review process.

Story [ 3 / 10 ]

The story is interesting enough but it isn’t the main focus of the anime. Though I found myself interested in what would happen it was still your standard harem, weak male protagonist anime. You can generally guess the way the plot will go from looking at the tags that describe this anime. I will note that the beginning did throw me off into thinking this was going to be much more serious than it really was.

Art [ 7.5 / 10 ]

The woman look fantastic and you might need tissues for certain scenes. Aside from that the anime had the nostalgic feel with it’s drawing. It isn’t hyper stylized like newer animes (which I consider better), but it isn’t trying to be super detailed either. For the time it’s about the average style that you got whenever you watched anime and I  personally like it.

Sound [ 3 / 10 ]

Really I cannot even remember much of the music in this show (perhaps I was too busy staring at the fanservice). But I can say that it didn’t really have a unique sound feel to it. The sound matched the scenes but I wouldn’t be able to tell it’s music out of a crowd. It’s no Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo but it’s ok.

Character [ 3 / 10 ]

As likable as the characters are, I find most of them to be really shallow and two-dimensional. Honestly they each play their role but there is not a whole lot of development, whenever it seems like there might be it turns about to be temporary at best. Lala is the fun oblivious genius, Haruna is the romantic interest, Zastin is the white knight… you get the point. They each fill their roles nicely but don’t expect them to develop beyond them.

Enjoyment [ 10 / 10 ]

The show is genuinely enjoyable to watch, it’s light hearted with sprinkles of tension placed around to make it more interesting. It’s silly and funny with many interesting but random events that keep it fun to watch. The amount of fanservice was not at all annoying as it can get in many other animes (I’m looking at you Seikon no Qwaser) and it made sure to not even take itself seriously so that I wouldn’t get the wrong impression on why I was watching it.

Overall [  5.3 / 10 ]

Don’t let this overall speak for the series itself, there are several things wrong for it but I still consider it to be a worthwhile watch. I did not at all feel robbed of time from my experience with it and I went on to watch the two next seasons and all of the OVA’s. I will say that if you are the kind of person that is looking for a serious anime to sit down and scowl at for twelve hours then it is not for you. But if you are a person looking for an anime to help lighten you up after having suffered from a serious and heart wrenching show then it might be the cure for you. It’s not perfect, but as long as you don’t expect it to be this glorious masterpiece then you’ll probably enjoy it.