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Love Hina - Secret Lives (Vol. 3)
Bandai // Unrated // June 18, 2002
List Price: $29.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie
Love Hina - Secret Lives is the 3rd release of this series comprising of episodes 9-12. I talked a little about the history of Love Hina in my review of the 1st release, so I will not go into that very much here. I will start off by saying that this is the weakest of the releases so far and makes me start to question exactly what this series is trying to do.
Episode 9 starts out with the disappearance of the rental money envelope in Keitaro's room. Kitsune dresses up as Sherlock Holmes and decides to get to the bottom of it. She asks all the girls and Keitaro what they were doing when the envelope disappeared. It seems everyone has an alibi except for the turtle Tama. Tama has something on its belly and Naru sees it. It is evidently what Naru was frantically looking for earlier in the episode. We then find out that Kitsune actually was the one who took the money and planned everything out. She stole the money as a lesson to Keitaro to not leave the rent money out in the open where anyone could take it. At the end we find out that the thing stuck to the bottom of Tama was a picture of Naru and Keitaro that they took when they unaware of who each other was in Kyoto. She obviously did not want anyone to know that she may have some secret feelings for Keitaro as well.
Episode 10 revolves around Su and her sister. The moon is red and there is a woman that looks like Su that is terrorizing some people in the village. We find out that Su actually turns into an adult when the moon is red because she keeps talking about "big brother" and keeps calling Keitaro "big brother". Her love for "big brother" makes her change into an adult. We find all this out from Su's sister who has a pet alligator. Eventually Keitaro tells Su that he is not "big brother" and she supposedly will no longer turn into an adult. Boring episode and it really explained nothing about where Su is from or the full story of why she changed into an adult other than an illusion to "big brother" and her love for him.
Episode 11 is even more confusing. At the beginning Naru wins a pop star contest over Shinobu and she signs a recording contract. Naru is even offered a voice in an animated series about a boy managing a bunch of girls in a house. Keitaro calls that "perverted" even though it is a nudge to the Love Hina series itself. Naru decides she wants out of the pop star business and Kentaro (who is managing Naru) decides to start managing Shinobu and Motoko as the new pop stars. In the end everyone quits the new jobs and Keitaro actually pushes Naru into being a pop star. Naru then punches him and a cameraman catches it. Naru's pop star career is destroyed since she is now considered "violent". Naru says the real reason she came back was to complete the promise she made to Keitaro about passing the Tokyo University entrance exams this year. Keitaro does not think back to the young girl and the promise and actually remembers the quote from Naru last year. Another pretty boring episode, although there is a bit of core storyline movement in here.
Episode 12 centers around Motoko. We find out she is scared of turtles and therefore her and Tama do not see eye to eye. One day they find out everything is pretty much gone from the house and it looks like Tama is taking everything away. They find a secret passageway in the house and seek out Tama. Motoko is bothered that she can no longer use her Chi powers that she used to. She believes it is because she has had to dress up like a regular girl instead of her samurai uniform. We then find out that it was not Tama, but Mecha Tama (Su made the machine) that stole everything. Mecha Tama grows in size and does the Godzilla thing. Motoko finds out that it is her own mind that is depleting her Chi and she defeats Mecha Tama in the end. Another mostly wasteful episode, although it does give a little more human feeling to Motoko than what has previously been seen.
The DVD
Video: This is a television presentation, so it is displayed in Full-Frame. This series is from 2000 and is excellently displayed here. I saw no noticeable errors in the video presentation, much like the other releases.
Sound: Since this is a television show, this is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0. This has both Japanese and English audio. Being a dub listener I listened to the whole thing in English. Once again it seems the Japanese track has more full sound and more use of the surround speakers than the English dub has when I checked it at certain spots.
Menus: A basic menu with the theme song being played.
Extras:
Trailers: Betterman, Escaflowne: The Movie, Saber Marionette J to X and Cowboy Bebop. I am really looking forward to the Escaflowne movie and I plan on reviewing that next.
Interview with Director Yoshiaki Iwasaki: A short 5 minute interview/background extra. There are bits and pieces of an interview with the director, but the majority of it is narrated by an English actress (sounds like Naru). In the small interview parts he talks about how his view of anime was changed by Gundam and that he was glad to work with Mr. Tomino on Turn A Gundam. He also talks about how great it is that Love Hina is so popular in the US. He says everyone should experience the US convention scene to totally understand the popularity of anime here. He also talked about how Love Hina was done by digital animation and not cels. I think he has successfully blended the lines between the two as I thought there was a lot of cel work here.
Chracter Photo Gallery: Shinobu is the only character here. There is a short bio accompanied by various still shots of Shinobu.
Credits: Gives credits to both the Japanese and English voices in the series as well as who worked on the DVD and series.
Final Thoughts: The extras are slightly better than the previous release, but I wish the interview could have lasted longer. Love Hina – Secret Lives a rental at best. The comedy is still there, but I did not enjoy these 4 episodes as much as I did the first 8. With Episode 12 we are at the proper halfway point for the TV series (there are OVAs and some specials of this series as well) and I feel we have taken a huge step back in the overall storyline. The series seems stagnant at this time and I certainly hope the last half can rise above this rather bad streak (you can include Episode 8-12 in this streak, although 8 was marginally good). I am very disappointed in this specific release because none of the 4 episodes were memorable. I say rent it for this release, although you may want to have the complete series obviously.
Love Hina - Secret Lives is the 3rd release of this series comprising of episodes 9-12. I talked a little about the history of Love Hina in my review of the 1st release, so I will not go into that very much here. I will start off by saying that this is the weakest of the releases so far and makes me start to question exactly what this series is trying to do.
Episode 9 starts out with the disappearance of the rental money envelope in Keitaro's room. Kitsune dresses up as Sherlock Holmes and decides to get to the bottom of it. She asks all the girls and Keitaro what they were doing when the envelope disappeared. It seems everyone has an alibi except for the turtle Tama. Tama has something on its belly and Naru sees it. It is evidently what Naru was frantically looking for earlier in the episode. We then find out that Kitsune actually was the one who took the money and planned everything out. She stole the money as a lesson to Keitaro to not leave the rent money out in the open where anyone could take it. At the end we find out that the thing stuck to the bottom of Tama was a picture of Naru and Keitaro that they took when they unaware of who each other was in Kyoto. She obviously did not want anyone to know that she may have some secret feelings for Keitaro as well.
Episode 10 revolves around Su and her sister. The moon is red and there is a woman that looks like Su that is terrorizing some people in the village. We find out that Su actually turns into an adult when the moon is red because she keeps talking about "big brother" and keeps calling Keitaro "big brother". Her love for "big brother" makes her change into an adult. We find all this out from Su's sister who has a pet alligator. Eventually Keitaro tells Su that he is not "big brother" and she supposedly will no longer turn into an adult. Boring episode and it really explained nothing about where Su is from or the full story of why she changed into an adult other than an illusion to "big brother" and her love for him.
Episode 11 is even more confusing. At the beginning Naru wins a pop star contest over Shinobu and she signs a recording contract. Naru is even offered a voice in an animated series about a boy managing a bunch of girls in a house. Keitaro calls that "perverted" even though it is a nudge to the Love Hina series itself. Naru decides she wants out of the pop star business and Kentaro (who is managing Naru) decides to start managing Shinobu and Motoko as the new pop stars. In the end everyone quits the new jobs and Keitaro actually pushes Naru into being a pop star. Naru then punches him and a cameraman catches it. Naru's pop star career is destroyed since she is now considered "violent". Naru says the real reason she came back was to complete the promise she made to Keitaro about passing the Tokyo University entrance exams this year. Keitaro does not think back to the young girl and the promise and actually remembers the quote from Naru last year. Another pretty boring episode, although there is a bit of core storyline movement in here.
Episode 12 centers around Motoko. We find out she is scared of turtles and therefore her and Tama do not see eye to eye. One day they find out everything is pretty much gone from the house and it looks like Tama is taking everything away. They find a secret passageway in the house and seek out Tama. Motoko is bothered that she can no longer use her Chi powers that she used to. She believes it is because she has had to dress up like a regular girl instead of her samurai uniform. We then find out that it was not Tama, but Mecha Tama (Su made the machine) that stole everything. Mecha Tama grows in size and does the Godzilla thing. Motoko finds out that it is her own mind that is depleting her Chi and she defeats Mecha Tama in the end. Another mostly wasteful episode, although it does give a little more human feeling to Motoko than what has previously been seen.
The DVD
Video: This is a television presentation, so it is displayed in Full-Frame. This series is from 2000 and is excellently displayed here. I saw no noticeable errors in the video presentation, much like the other releases.
Sound: Since this is a television show, this is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0. This has both Japanese and English audio. Being a dub listener I listened to the whole thing in English. Once again it seems the Japanese track has more full sound and more use of the surround speakers than the English dub has when I checked it at certain spots.
Menus: A basic menu with the theme song being played.
Extras:
Trailers: Betterman, Escaflowne: The Movie, Saber Marionette J to X and Cowboy Bebop. I am really looking forward to the Escaflowne movie and I plan on reviewing that next.
Interview with Director Yoshiaki Iwasaki: A short 5 minute interview/background extra. There are bits and pieces of an interview with the director, but the majority of it is narrated by an English actress (sounds like Naru). In the small interview parts he talks about how his view of anime was changed by Gundam and that he was glad to work with Mr. Tomino on Turn A Gundam. He also talks about how great it is that Love Hina is so popular in the US. He says everyone should experience the US convention scene to totally understand the popularity of anime here. He also talked about how Love Hina was done by digital animation and not cels. I think he has successfully blended the lines between the two as I thought there was a lot of cel work here.
Chracter Photo Gallery: Shinobu is the only character here. There is a short bio accompanied by various still shots of Shinobu.
Credits: Gives credits to both the Japanese and English voices in the series as well as who worked on the DVD and series.
Final Thoughts: The extras are slightly better than the previous release, but I wish the interview could have lasted longer. Love Hina – Secret Lives a rental at best. The comedy is still there, but I did not enjoy these 4 episodes as much as I did the first 8. With Episode 12 we are at the proper halfway point for the TV series (there are OVAs and some specials of this series as well) and I feel we have taken a huge step back in the overall storyline. The series seems stagnant at this time and I certainly hope the last half can rise above this rather bad streak (you can include Episode 8-12 in this streak, although 8 was marginally good). I am very disappointed in this specific release because none of the 4 episodes were memorable. I say rent it for this release, although you may want to have the complete series obviously.
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