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Love Hina - Moving In (Vol. 1)
Bandai // Unrated // February 19, 2002
List Price: $34.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie
I have been waiting a while for Love Hina to come out on DVD. This series has a bit of a history to it. Wildly popular in Japan, the American fansubs were one of the first digitally downloaded fansubs in existence. Most of the people I know in the anime community downloaded the whole series and the legality of such a thing sits on a fence. On one hand the show was not announced as licensed by Bandai yet. On the other hand they were downloading a series that was obviously destined for an American DVD release. So now this series is upon us and from the first volume it looks to be somewhat interesting, but also seems, at first, very flighty in execution.
This anime was created by Production I.G., one of the premier Japanese animation studios. They have done work on such things as Jin-Roh and the upcoming FLCL along with many others. The animation displayed here is crystal clear with vibrant colors throughout this disc. Love Hina is the story of Keitaro, a 20 year old boy who has failed to reach Tokyo University two times and feels down on his luck. Back when he was a child he and a girl, who he does not know the name of, made a promise that they would meet each other at Tokyo University when they were older. At the very beginning Keitaro is dreaming about being in Tokyo University and meeting the girl and then marrying her. In fact, Keitaro seems to dream a lot in these initial couple episodes, but it is easy to know when he is in reality and when he is dreaming.
Unfortunately he is not in Tokyo University though and he feels he will never meet the girl again. Keitaro's grandmother sends for him and he goes to the dorm that she is the manager of. It seems this dorm is all-girl and Keitaro has just been given the manager position. A guy in an all-girl's dorm with a hot tub, this could open up a lot of comedic situations obviously. The girls in the dorm are initially all against having a boy manager, but eventually agree to it.
The second episode hones in on a shy girl, Shinobu, who Keitaro met outside of the dorm in the first episode. Keitaro drew a picture of her with a smile on her face instead of a frown. These 3 wise men, who show up a lot during the telling people what they truly feel, throw the sketchbook to the girl and she runs off embarrassed. We now hone in on what happens with Shinobu after that incident. It seems her parents are divorcing and Shinobu is not a popular child at school. She is going to be moving away and Keitaro gets the sense that this girl may be the one that he made the promise to when she comes by to drop off the sketchbook.
The third episode hones in on a girl that left the dorm for training in the first episode and is now just being introduced to Keitaro. Her name is Motoko and she just happens to be a samurai master and is none too excited for a boy running the dorm. The cool thing about this episode is that it actually beings like an old silent movie until Keitaro says, "let's stop this".
The final episode has Keitaro accidentally seeing Naru's diary alluding to a "promise" and "a boy". Keitaro automatically equates that Naru is the girl from the past, but nothing truly comes of it as of yet. This is also the episode where the tenants figure out that Keitaro is actually not a Tokyo University student and demand that he tries harder to get into the university and that he will have to do all the chores around the dorm and act like a real manager.
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. This ranks right up there in presentation with Cowboy Bebop.
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. I was a bit shocked by some voices on some characters such as Kitsune, who has a decidedly bad southern accent. Sometimes it is better to leave a straight regular voice than attempt an odd dialect. This is also one of the first dubs I know that has a decidedly different sound in the Japanese track outside of the voices. The Japanese track seems to have more full sound and more use of the surround speakers than the English dub has. I may have to watch this show all over again after it is done in Japanese to get the full effect of the music and sound in the rear speakers.
Menus: A basic menu with a song being played. One of the things many Love Hina fans hate is that Bandai decided to create a new logo for the show that gives it a decidedly 70s style to it. Luckily this is only on the cover, the insert and the menu not the presented series itself.
Extras:
Trailers: Saber Marionette J, Escaflowne, Haunted Junction and Pilot Candidate. These are all previously released series, so they are showing nothing truly new.
Keitaro's Sketchbook: Shows the girls Keitaro thinks might be the young girl he made a promise to. It has a little story behind it with some of Keitaro's SD (Super Deformed) and regular sketches of himself and the girls and talks about his dreams. It is a pretty useless extra.
Photo Gallery: Stills of Naru and Keitaro from the series. It also includes a small bio about the two characters and in the upper right corner of the bios, names both the Japanese and English voices of the characters. This is something not commonly seen in anime, the English voices usually never get credit with their character.
Credits: Gives credits to both the Japanese and English voices in the series as well as who worked on the DVD and series. This is a welcome extra as the English voices rarely get credit for the characters they do. I would also like to point out that the ending of the even episodes the Japanese song is sung, while on the odd episodes the English version is sung.
Final Thoughts: Like most anime releases, the extras are not the greatest, but at least we have Love Hina in a DVD form finally. This opening disc is very funny and reminds me a lot of Tenchi in a higher comedic level. I wish they had given Kitsune a different voice instead of a southern accent in the English track though, that really hurts this series for the dub watchers. Overall I am looking forward to the rest of this series. It will be interesting to see if any of the girls is going to end up being the young girl that Keitaro made the promise to. They have built up a good foundation in this first disc and hopefully more great things will come. Highly recommended for now.
I have been waiting a while for Love Hina to come out on DVD. This series has a bit of a history to it. Wildly popular in Japan, the American fansubs were one of the first digitally downloaded fansubs in existence. Most of the people I know in the anime community downloaded the whole series and the legality of such a thing sits on a fence. On one hand the show was not announced as licensed by Bandai yet. On the other hand they were downloading a series that was obviously destined for an American DVD release. So now this series is upon us and from the first volume it looks to be somewhat interesting, but also seems, at first, very flighty in execution.
This anime was created by Production I.G., one of the premier Japanese animation studios. They have done work on such things as Jin-Roh and the upcoming FLCL along with many others. The animation displayed here is crystal clear with vibrant colors throughout this disc. Love Hina is the story of Keitaro, a 20 year old boy who has failed to reach Tokyo University two times and feels down on his luck. Back when he was a child he and a girl, who he does not know the name of, made a promise that they would meet each other at Tokyo University when they were older. At the very beginning Keitaro is dreaming about being in Tokyo University and meeting the girl and then marrying her. In fact, Keitaro seems to dream a lot in these initial couple episodes, but it is easy to know when he is in reality and when he is dreaming.
Unfortunately he is not in Tokyo University though and he feels he will never meet the girl again. Keitaro's grandmother sends for him and he goes to the dorm that she is the manager of. It seems this dorm is all-girl and Keitaro has just been given the manager position. A guy in an all-girl's dorm with a hot tub, this could open up a lot of comedic situations obviously. The girls in the dorm are initially all against having a boy manager, but eventually agree to it.
The second episode hones in on a shy girl, Shinobu, who Keitaro met outside of the dorm in the first episode. Keitaro drew a picture of her with a smile on her face instead of a frown. These 3 wise men, who show up a lot during the telling people what they truly feel, throw the sketchbook to the girl and she runs off embarrassed. We now hone in on what happens with Shinobu after that incident. It seems her parents are divorcing and Shinobu is not a popular child at school. She is going to be moving away and Keitaro gets the sense that this girl may be the one that he made the promise to when she comes by to drop off the sketchbook.
The third episode hones in on a girl that left the dorm for training in the first episode and is now just being introduced to Keitaro. Her name is Motoko and she just happens to be a samurai master and is none too excited for a boy running the dorm. The cool thing about this episode is that it actually beings like an old silent movie until Keitaro says, "let's stop this".
The final episode has Keitaro accidentally seeing Naru's diary alluding to a "promise" and "a boy". Keitaro automatically equates that Naru is the girl from the past, but nothing truly comes of it as of yet. This is also the episode where the tenants figure out that Keitaro is actually not a Tokyo University student and demand that he tries harder to get into the university and that he will have to do all the chores around the dorm and act like a real manager.
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. This ranks right up there in presentation with Cowboy Bebop.
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. I was a bit shocked by some voices on some characters such as Kitsune, who has a decidedly bad southern accent. Sometimes it is better to leave a straight regular voice than attempt an odd dialect. This is also one of the first dubs I know that has a decidedly different sound in the Japanese track outside of the voices. The Japanese track seems to have more full sound and more use of the surround speakers than the English dub has. I may have to watch this show all over again after it is done in Japanese to get the full effect of the music and sound in the rear speakers.
Menus: A basic menu with a song being played. One of the things many Love Hina fans hate is that Bandai decided to create a new logo for the show that gives it a decidedly 70s style to it. Luckily this is only on the cover, the insert and the menu not the presented series itself.
Extras:
Trailers: Saber Marionette J, Escaflowne, Haunted Junction and Pilot Candidate. These are all previously released series, so they are showing nothing truly new.
Keitaro's Sketchbook: Shows the girls Keitaro thinks might be the young girl he made a promise to. It has a little story behind it with some of Keitaro's SD (Super Deformed) and regular sketches of himself and the girls and talks about his dreams. It is a pretty useless extra.
Photo Gallery: Stills of Naru and Keitaro from the series. It also includes a small bio about the two characters and in the upper right corner of the bios, names both the Japanese and English voices of the characters. This is something not commonly seen in anime, the English voices usually never get credit with their character.
Credits: Gives credits to both the Japanese and English voices in the series as well as who worked on the DVD and series. This is a welcome extra as the English voices rarely get credit for the characters they do. I would also like to point out that the ending of the even episodes the Japanese song is sung, while on the odd episodes the English version is sung.
Final Thoughts: Like most anime releases, the extras are not the greatest, but at least we have Love Hina in a DVD form finally. This opening disc is very funny and reminds me a lot of Tenchi in a higher comedic level. I wish they had given Kitsune a different voice instead of a southern accent in the English track though, that really hurts this series for the dub watchers. Overall I am looking forward to the rest of this series. It will be interesting to see if any of the girls is going to end up being the young girl that Keitaro made the promise to. They have built up a good foundation in this first disc and hopefully more great things will come. Highly recommended for now.
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