Love Hina was this weird collective madness that afflicted the anime community. Everyone loved it. It was THE romcom anime for several years, and then all of the sudden everyone realized it sucked and it had always sucked. What happened? Why did it suddenly capture the Otaku community and what made the scales fall from our eyes?
I think what happened was the anime. The manga is still a pretty good read that has progress (even if it's slow) and it's one of the few romcoms that has a proper ending arc setup across multiple volumes. The anime though, removes even the small bits of progress, boils it down to a basic rinse and repeat formula while adding on anime-only storylines and characters (like Keitaro's new love rival in a rich guy). Most new people tried the anime, saw it was bad and that's their memories so it just hit that wall and manga readers moved on to talking about other series.
Ironically, it was Love Hina that first got me into anime and manga in the first place. Oh sure, I had first dipped my toes into anime back when I was a kid with Voltron, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and even Sailor Moom, but those were on-off things. My first real dive was with Love Hina, and it was first through the manga. Even back then, I did not think it was good, but I certainly found it entertaining. It was dumb, it was at least kind of badly written, hardly anything was noteworthy about it, and it was easily overshadowed - both in good and bad ways - by other anime of its day...but it was kind of fascinating to witness in one form or another, and that witnessing, for me at least, usually resulted in at least a chuckle at the sheer stupidity of it. Still, even I moved on once it wrapped up, and while I still have the moments that leave me laughing (which are admittedly few), I mostly just remember them rather than rewatch them.
Lol, literally just wrote a comment in that direction. I never watched/read Love Hina and cared about it and only heard about it that it was this ground breaking all-encompassing superhit in the harem genre and I always assumed it was like Ranma 1/2, taking the tropes and making them all a complete farce for comedic effect. Now I'm honestly baffled this shit ever got popular cuz jesus fucking christ, it sounds like every fucking harem manga ever, be it the loser protagonist, the domestic abuse played for laughs, unfortunate implications and all that jazz. Like if you distilled the generic harem manga into a series, what I heard from Geoff here sounds like Love Hina is that.
I think the answer is the TV Trope Seinfeld Is Unfunny. When Love Hina did it, all this crap wasn't completely overdone and there wasn't the absolute wealth of choice in anime. Just like isekai to a world that's literally just Dragon Quest wasn't completely overdone at one point, but if you go back to something that was original back then, it just looks generic and half-baked now. Tsunderes weren't a mandatory copy-paste set of characteristics in every anime until after Shinobu Miyake, Akane Tendo, Asuka Soryuu Langley, and Rin Tosaka basically defined the term, but people new to anime won't look on them with the same eyes as someone who hadn't seen generic tsunderes run the idea of a tsundere main girl into the ground. (Back then, the staple was a Belldandy-like doormat main girl who had to rely on side characters to actually make the show interesting.) And, I mean, look at what's popular NOW, and it's STILL stuff like Love Hina in a new coat of paint, like Rent-A-Girlfriend. This sort of harem rom-com is just always going to be popular with horny teenage males, it's only the production values that have improved since then. These sorts of things are a lot of people's first animes, and at that point, it's so new and exciting that you don't really care if the plot is just treading water, so long as it's content that does the thing you like. Hence, harem rom-coms are sort of the Nickleback of anime - things that always gets really popular no matter how much the critics pan it. EDIT: Also, JESUS CHRIST, listening to this in English, I am reminded of why the "Subs vs. Dubs" argument was so impassioned way back when. You whippersnappers don't understand, but back in the 90s and early aughts, EVERY heroine had the EXACT SAME VOICE in English because there was basically two companies that did dubs, they only hired like twelve people total, and they didn't bother changing their voices much between roles. I hope you're ready for Narusegawa Naru to be voicing at least one role in half of all English-dubbed anime released before 2008. (Seriously, look in the IMDB pages of some voice actors/actresses in anime, and they have over 500 roles in the span of 20 years...)
In any other anime, the smiling author cameo with hhis glasses shining in the dark makes it look like that we will never see those two again, only parts of their bodies
I unfortunately was friends with a girl who loved this series back in high school. Red flag kids. That said the phrase "secret government project to make the middest man imaginable" will stick with me even longer than her going on a spiel about how she was just like Naru.
14:50: To be fair to Keitaro, the fact that he _listens_ to the advice a middle schooler had to give him _still_ puts him above a lot of harem protagonists.
Well see, that's kinda the thing. The OG stuff is pretty bad, but the derivatives are even worse, to the point where you end up thinking "oh the original one was pretty decent" after seeing what new lows writers have gone to ever since. I used to think SAO was terrible, but seeing what lows isekai inspired by it have dropped to since makes SAO look amazing in comparison. Love Hina was never GOOD, but seeing some of the harem anime since, you realize that the Love Hina characters still almost had a semblance of character and humanity to them x)
@@ShadowWolfRising Is that because it's _worse,_ per se, or because of its external impact? (Or because most of the bad isekai are very obviously bad, while SAO showed some promise?)
@@timothymclean The former believe it or not, SAO is straight up garbage. If you've played MMOs alot, the amount of things it gets wrong about MMOs adds up quick and if you game seriously it starts pissing you off. Like TRULY pisses you off. And even ignoring that, it's problems outside of that are truly astounding. Most of the derivatives a least have the common sense not to put their settings in MMOs, so despite the MMO mechanics they are under no obligation to work on MMO logic whereas SAO does. Even Overlord has the conceit that while Ainz and those that came with him with Nazerik to the new world ARE bound by the MMO he played, the denizens of said world aren't necessarily (Although that's an unfair comparison, Overlord is actually good.). So to wrap it up, I hate it because it is genuinely terrible, and has a fundamental misunderstanding of the very setting it's in. There are alot of other issues SAO has that I haven't even brought up.
I’d love a Shojo focused episode! I feel like anime consumption - especially in the west - is focused around shonen primarily and it feels like Shojo is ignored at best, disrespected at worst. So I’d love to see your top Shojo pics and maybe it will encourage folks to give it a try!
Surprisingly, that’s something I noticed as well and try to correct on my side at least by watching/reading more shoujo works (Cardcaptor Sakura is pretty good).
That's true! (I know I add to the problem, but...) After ErynCerise quit anitube for actual plays, it feels like all we have is Colleen's Manga Recs. Hm...
I remember watching him talking about Raven of the Inner Palace and I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss in his Fall 2022 anime recommendation video. But I also love to see him talk about Shojo too.
"The original tsundere, the Grinch" You know, I wasn't expecting such a profound Epiphany from a roast of the Love Hina Christmas special. It's as though the world has unfolded before my very eyes.
You know, I had to watch the Star Wars Holiday special today and the by far best thing about it was that I got your joke about it. Thanks for giving this painful waste of my lifetime some semblance of a meaning.
The Star Wars Holiday Special is a part ofy holiday tradition. I watch it every year for Christmas. Just to feel something. Mostly regret, boredom, and disgust. But that's a good preparation for spending a bunch of days in a row with the family
There’s something about the “oops I got a handful and now I’m being beaten to death“ trope that’s always bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until you described the plot of Love Hina. If you grew up watching media that was all about women over reacting to well-meaning guys, and then a woman in real life told you that some guy grabbed her inappropriately, your first reaction would probably be “are you sure you’re not overreacting?” I’m not saying that’s the goal of jokes like this. I just think it’s one of the consequences.
I mean, is it even overreacting in the anime? The first few times, sure, but the intent of "well-meaning" kinda becomes irrelevant when some dude you are forced to live with fondles you 18 times a day due to harem gods making your lady bits magentic for his hands.
@@sleepysera It makes sense in that context. If on one hand he is actually in control of what he is doing, he is a massive creep and deserves what he gets. But on the other, if he is genuinely that accident prone then beating him is just...abuse? Either way should he be avoided.
I lowkey love that Keitarou is using his crutch in a completely wrong way. He's putting all of his weight on his busted ankle and using the crutch to take his weight off of his healthy one.
He's not! Doctors actually suggest to use the crutch on your healthy side :) The point is that while you are stepping with your injured foot, you can lean most of your weight onto your healthy side due to the crutch holding you up. In a normal walk cycle, you shift which side you put weight on with each step, but with a foot injury, you want to keep it on one side to keep most of the weight off the injured side, that's why the crutch is used on the "healthy" side, in tune with the injured foot's steps (which he does, as you can see at for example 19:55). A single crutch is just meant as a support tool, not a complete replacement :) For injuries grave enough to not allow ANY weight be put onto the injured foot, you get two crutches which then carry all of your weight in replacement of the injured foot, but that's not possible with a single one. I know it's counterintuitive, but I have to defend the anime creators on that one 😉
For me, Toradora has been the most christmas anime series. Most of it happens at other times, but I feel that because the culmination of the series happens around christmas, it fits.
I choose to find the shameless, flagrant self-promotion of Geoff's Youtooz in this video to be a thematically-appropriate riff on this Ken Akamatsu anime in which the author literally shows up in the middle of the special to hock his wares.
Sucks to be born in 2001 or later. Mostly because of the shit world boomers and elder GenXers left the younger generations, but that other thing doesn't help.
Ah, yes, I'd almost forgotten that the anime was that much worse than the manga. Not that the manga's superb, but it's still got more direct progression than the anime did.
Expanding on this, now that I'm not busy while watching: in the manga, it's made a bit clearer that while Keitaro is referred to as the "manager" he's closer to being custodian and maintenance, making sure the dorms are all clean and repaired. Mutsumi is introduced in volume three, after Keitaro and Naru have an adventure without their glasses, showing that they're both nearsighted enough that they can't actually recognize each other from a foot away (which, I guess means Naru wears contacts most of the time she's not wearing her glasses), and then they have an additional adventure getting Mutsumi home to Okinawa. The Christmas chapter of the manga in volume six is where Mutsumi suddenly remembers that she hung out with two kids when she was young, but only had time to actually say that one of them was Keitaro before Naru interrupts (thus somewhat disguising that Naru was the other one). And as I'm typing this, I'm now realizing how many of these major story beats happen every third volume, because it's volume nine (of fourteen) where both Keitaro and Naru confess feelings for each other, though Naru is a bit less certain of things. I also once counted each individual bit of damage done to Keitaro over the course of the manga, and it totaled 430 strikes, with Naru doing the most at 172.
@@Bardic_Knowledge Nice to see another manga enjoyer here. For all its faults - and there are MANY faults, let's be honest - I still found it enjoyable. Don't regret reading it and don't cringe at it years later unlike some other stuff I read when younger.
That, and the manga remembers that its supposed to be a romantic COMEDY. The fun is diluted to the point of being barely noticeable in the anime. They should have fired that director after two episodes.
That speech at the end after the “you never change” line. Is so raw. I never understood the purpose of harem anime, because if I wanted to project myself onto a featureless guy to date a bunch of girls I think are cute, I’d just play a dating sim.
Fun fact: Because Jujutsu Kaisen 0's climax takes place on the 24th of December, Christmas Eve, it's technically a christmas movie. Which is the excuse I had for making my family watch it this christmas.
It is usually 4 out of 5, one of the harem girls usual trait is just being the adult one And one has to not just be a child, but be practically a toddler and be the preteen little sister character in a harem anime Just the fact only 2 characters are underage, none of them are true lolis, and none are RELATED TO HIM, is a step up from most harem anime
@@charlx8979Oh, I have some bad news for you about Love Hina and the "none of them are related to him" thing. You see, Keitaro has a younger goth step-sister who has a thing for him.
I gotta admit while frustrating I think it is so hilarious to have all the characters frantically run around and putting in all this hard work and to have Keitaro limp around Tokyo just so Keitaro and Naru can finally profess their love for each other only to have Naru just call them friends at the end. My anger was overwhelmed by the laughter I made when it happened.
God, I forgot how insufferable Love Hina was. I was only there for Shinobu, being an awkward teen myself, so her little arc in this special kept me engaged, but you're right, the stakes in this climax were so trivial. And then they had the sheer nerve to walk back all emotional growth and plot progression. Thanks for the roast, it was deserved! Happy holidays! Looking forward to the worst of list!
Even though my mom knew the opening was a joke, Geoff, if you're ever in Montana please know she'd be happy to make you some latkes and make your Hanukkah bright. We watched this together and she literally cooed, "Aw, he needs a good meal and a nice gift. Maybe a blanket for when he watches anime in the winter."
Just putting this out there: Ai Yori Aoshi also had a full and proper Christmas special. The entire show was a direct counter to the garbage of Love Hina. It is a harem show done right, and it's Christmas special brought a bunch of real and good feels.
Ai Yori Aoshi as an Adaptation has the has same problems of Love Hina of taking too many liberties and switching stuff around and S2 being completely anime original
I remember being part of the community that streamed this series 24/7 on shoutcast back when streaming was cutting edge. We got so sick of this series so fast, and we couldn't escape it because people who would watch would come join the forums and just reactivate everything all over again. I can recite that God forsaken OP/ED by heart. Our community is STILL around today partially out of the shared trauma that is seeing Love Hina on repeat. On occasion we switched to Hellsing, but it was Love Hina 9/10 runs.
Love Hina was the first manga I'd ever read. It was fun, horny, and the characters were all stupidly memorable. I was so excited when I learned an anime existed too. I bought the DVD set and after watching three episodes instantly regretted my purchase. How Ken Akamatsu could let such a fucking travesty exist is beyond me.
Agreed the manga is super funny and great wacky scenarios and memorable cast. THE anime was biggest let down both visually and story wise given how fun and visually stunning many of scenes and art in the comic manga are.
Love Hina was weird for me. It was my first Harem Anime (or what I thought was a Harem) and it held a special place in my 16 year old heart who just wanted love in all the wrong places. They I watched Air Gear and saw my first Anime naughty bits. Downhill from there.
Remembering Love Hina makes me thank God that I discovered 100 kanojo to give me great harem romcom that I always wanted. Having wholesome and mad gigachad MC that is beloved by reader, being a real harem with every heroine winning, be it milf,loli,teacher etc and entering a giant polyamory family, endless interaction between each other, no stupid drama to derail the series, instead being a meta-comedy like Gintama and Bobobo. God bless 100 girlfriends!
Literally the entire manga mocks the tropes to the point of the loli only being a loli because of "science potions" and then the same thing with her grandmother who also joins the harem.
This made me remember watching Love Hina the first time, and how 20+ years later 80% or more romcoms still do the exact same thing. I’ll take Love Hina over Rent any day.
Japanese does have multiple ways to say "good bye"...I forget what she used there, but "sayonara" specifically has a finality about it, as in you don't plan on seeing the person again or at least not for a significant amount of time. Also manga spoiler alert: Mutsumi really was the girl he made the promise to.
Huh? No, the girl he made the promise with was Naru. It was some really contrived set-up though that also involved Mutsumi, because Naru was just a toddler at the time, so it was more of a...three-way promise.
Shoutout to the Christmas episode of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, which had such a huge tonal whiplash it’s still a meme in the fandom 6 years later. The first half is a light basic monster of the week plot where a kid hates Christmas because his mom is always busy, and then Poppy has an obnoxious cover of Jingle Bells during the fight. The latter half ends with a dour serious moment where a major character dies and gives his last words and hopes to the main hero in the pouring rain as he fades into the aether.
“Most anime Christmas specials are bland”. Kyouran Kazoku Nikki. Aside from being a criminally underrated series all around, the cast shoots down Santa with a surface to air missile. He gets back up and dukes it out DBZ style. It’s phenomenal.
Where i'm from Love Hina was never on TV, but they showed the Silent Eve Christmas Special every year on the 25th, with DAYS of hype like this was what we've been waiting for for YEARS.
Look, I'm gonna give you a gift this season. You don't need to read anymore Rent-a Girlfriend, I am lifting this witch's curse, let the shackles be broken.
Two notes for commenters: 1. The story eventually ends with them together, thanks to the OVA. You know, the one where his sister... tries to.. bang him... *cough* 2) If you guys want a much better Christmas-themed event in a RomCom, please consider Toradora and/or Kaguya-sama. The Christmas events are in the show, no movie, yet they'd be much more enjoyable to watch
I remember getting into anime and the early 2000’s anime boom, my friend called me from Best Buy and asked what he should get, I said “Not Love Hina” naturally he bought it and let me borrow it. Even as a fairly new anime fan I already knew I’d seen better harem anime. I literally fell asleep.
I never watched Love Hina, but seeing that, "we're just friends..." Bit made my eye start twitching. I cannot imagine how frustrating that would be to people that watched the series.
@@PhoenixFireZero "Today was a dark day in Japan as two horrible people died in a tragic murder suicide at a local hot springs/dorm. People who knew the couple described the event as in keeping with their image of the couple as there were frequent domestic abuse cases called that police described as, 'fucking baffling,' in their intensity." Crap, made myself sad.
Geoff's evil voices in this video were top notch. It's like a supervillain strapping a hero into their torture device, which is a fun change from the sophisticated trash sommelier we are usually met with.
Geoff I'm leaving a second comment to let you know my mom wants to get your YouTooz and put it with her Animal Crossing plushie collection in her office. You have one grandma in her 60's who is unironically a total fan, it seems.
Oh god, I remember when this was popular and people dared to call it a realistic romance anime. It was like a collective hypnosis in the anime community for a year or so. Now its just an uncomfortable memory everyone involved is trying to forget.
“How much more emotionally mature best friend: the middle schooler who’s in love with him” Might be the funniest sentence in this whole channel, and that’s saying something XD
If Otomen had received an anime, your heart might have grown three sizes while watching its Christmas episode. Too bad you have to suffer with your shriveled raisin.
I nearly woke up everyone in my house as I successfully stopped myself from absolutely screeching at the line, "Just like the original Tsundere, the Grinch". Hilarious!
At least Negima changed, given that it started as “what if Harry Potter was a high school teacher, with uncomfortable harem vibes given that the protagonist is 10 and his harem are most 14-15” and ended with him doing a fantasy adventure on Mars while using the girls like Pokémon
Yeah, some of these commenters seem to be unaware that Negima is a surprisingly good and creative shonen that's only pretending to be a rom com. Not that the rom com elements ever disappear entirely, but it becomes mainly a shonen about 30 chapters in. The first anime only adapts the rom com bits, and the second anime... Well they were smoking a looooot of crack while they made the second, but the result was weirdly good, though it has nothing to do with the manga.
love hina was one of my first manga, when I was 15. harém, and it was... fine i guess?. and then, I re-read it when I failed the entrance exam to get into university at 18. and it was HILLARIOUS. that's the only moment in your life you should read love hina. trust me.
I remember as a kid when I was obsessed with dating sims I found the love hina dating sim. Poor sweet innocent 8 year old me had no idea had no idea what was happening, and honestly I don’t blame them. The game didn’t explain its mechanics and just threw me in blind. Glad to know the anime it was based off of was shit as well.
Definitely have a massive soft spot for love hina since it is one of the first ecchi anime i ever recall watching. I actually recall having a nick website opened to the side so that i can quickly switch off in case one of my family members comes to the room. By today's standard, love hina is pretty tame all things considered.
@@stephaniesimpson-white3293 Hello there, Stephanie! Nice to meet you! How are you today? Also, any examples of those days that end with a "y?" Just curious! :D
I first learned of love Hina from Bennet The Sage, one of the OG anitubers who is still around and you should ALL go watch his stuff. I thought his hatred of it was, well, him hating any comedy that involves anyone speaking at a voice pitch higher than darth fucking vader But no. It was I who was the fool.
I still have the Pin l got with the Limited Edition Bennet T-shirt. I also have the shirt, somewhere, but l'll need to drop like 3 pandemic sizes to wear it again.
Despite his dumbass contrarianism when it came to Evangelion it was nice having someone back then that didn't automatically think every big anime was a masterpiece
I started reading The Love Hina Manga when I was wayy too young, now reading it as an adult and watching the anime It really annoys me how Ketaro is often times just misunderstood and what he's doing is almost always never his fault. He's just a punching bag and it's a trope i've grown to despise in anime and manga.
There is one thing I can say about Love Hina in its favor, and its that the artstyle is so solid. Even now, the character designs sit in an appealing yet physically proportionate area, that is not as common in generic romcoms in modern day. The girls faces are relatively human looking, and everything is solid, and the animation feels smooth in a held back way. I dunno, even as bad as the story is, and how contrived things are, I can't help looking at the characters and wishing modern bad romcoms still looked like this. It's nice in the way buttered toast is. Not some jaw dropping story, but sometimes I just like a solid piece of bread with butter.
the characters even felt like they were more realistic written despite you know, all the animesque stereotypes and shenaningans. all older anime harem romcoms feel that way tbh, they used to have some charm and soul despite some being a bit awful like the love hina anime (the manga is better tbh), its the reason why things like urusei yatsura, ranma 1/2, tenchi muyo and others from that time are still entertaining. new harem anime just feel like souless products made in the most awful ways and are only there to fullfill the creators pockets of weird incel otaku dudes money, ppl who would rather buy endless merch of their harem waifus and be shut into their rooms rather than actually improving themselves as people, bc if a shitty harem manga makes their protagonist the most awful dude ever possible get the hottest chicks in the world, why bother?
Love Hina was pretty much one of the more acceptable dubs of the day and the animation and symbolism of the first 2 episodes with the arrows and people pointing was neat attempt at being artistic, in a goofy harem anime that seriously didn't need it. Also I distinctly remember the animation was pretty decent quality for the time. Some money went into that series considering how gangbusters the manga sold.
Love Hina's dub is what turned me off dubs for literal decades. We went from the dubs for DBZ, Cowboy Bebop, Slayers, Evangelion, Nadesico, Macross Plus, even G Gundam to *this*. It represented a very noticeable decline in dub-quality that's only recently being reversed. The apparent age of their voices don't match their characters even on a remote level, a painful example of the horrible trend where Kansaiben = Texas, and the translation is notably distorted in English dub to attempt to match the mouth flaps.
I remember back when my brother got into anime, he would show me different shows. One of them was Love Hina and I watched because I was interested in anime myself but I just never got why it was popular. I always just felt sorry for Keitaro because most of the abuse he gets from the girls, it never seemed he deserved it. I guess "hahaha, man being hit by girls" is funny in Japan but I ended up hating just about everyone - especially Naru. I did not want her to get together with Keitaro, if anything the ditzy girl (forgot her name) was much nicer to him and I don't think she ever laid a hand on him. She should have been the one to end up with Keitaro even if she's not the lost childhood friend. If anything, I would have respected if Keitaro just realized how stupid he let his whole life change over a promise of a girl he hardly remembers, who doesn't seem to remember him anyway, and just let go of the past to be someone who treats him right and truly cares. But I know that's not what the anime is about.
The funny thing is we in the West have built up Christmas as some sort of incredibly important holiday event that absolutely must be magical, perfect, and something you go well into debt for, that its spilled over into cultures that never had Christmas as a tradition. And now they too must have a completely unrealistic perfect day or you're made to feel like a failure.
Somehow the phrase "Just like the original Tsundere, the Grinch" was unexpected but Incredibly painless for me. I was ready for the truth.
It's also absurd. Judas Iscariot predates him by nearly two millennia.
doesn't him saying the Grinch is the original tsundere and then pretending to be the grinch just confirm he's a tsundere?
He's not the second male tsundere I've seen in media.
gasp
I took psychic dammage from this
Tihi
@BestGirlYazy C/D Geoff is a tsundere.
N...NO!
...
baka...
If we can call the Grinch a tsundere, doesn't that mean we have to accept that Ebeneezer Scrooge was the true original tsundere?
Scrooge is the epitome of tsundere
Ojou-sama
I would argue Scrooge was a proto-tsundere
Is Squidward a tsundere?
Love Hina was this weird collective madness that afflicted the anime community. Everyone loved it. It was THE romcom anime for several years, and then all of the sudden everyone realized it sucked and it had always sucked. What happened? Why did it suddenly capture the Otaku community and what made the scales fall from our eyes?
I think what happened was the anime. The manga is still a pretty good read that has progress (even if it's slow) and it's one of the few romcoms that has a proper ending arc setup across multiple volumes. The anime though, removes even the small bits of progress, boils it down to a basic rinse and repeat formula while adding on anime-only storylines and characters (like Keitaro's new love rival in a rich guy).
Most new people tried the anime, saw it was bad and that's their memories so it just hit that wall and manga readers moved on to talking about other series.
By the Anime Pope, I remember that. I thought all of my friends had completely taken leave of their senses.
Ironically, it was Love Hina that first got me into anime and manga in the first place. Oh sure, I had first dipped my toes into anime back when I was a kid with Voltron, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and even Sailor Moom, but those were on-off things. My first real dive was with Love Hina, and it was first through the manga.
Even back then, I did not think it was good, but I certainly found it entertaining. It was dumb, it was at least kind of badly written, hardly anything was noteworthy about it, and it was easily overshadowed - both in good and bad ways - by other anime of its day...but it was kind of fascinating to witness in one form or another, and that witnessing, for me at least, usually resulted in at least a chuckle at the sheer stupidity of it.
Still, even I moved on once it wrapped up, and while I still have the moments that leave me laughing (which are admittedly few), I mostly just remember them rather than rewatch them.
Lol, literally just wrote a comment in that direction. I never watched/read Love Hina and cared about it and only heard about it that it was this ground breaking all-encompassing superhit in the harem genre and I always assumed it was like Ranma 1/2, taking the tropes and making them all a complete farce for comedic effect.
Now I'm honestly baffled this shit ever got popular cuz jesus fucking christ, it sounds like every fucking harem manga ever, be it the loser protagonist, the domestic abuse played for laughs, unfortunate implications and all that jazz. Like if you distilled the generic harem manga into a series, what I heard from Geoff here sounds like Love Hina is that.
I think the answer is the TV Trope Seinfeld Is Unfunny. When Love Hina did it, all this crap wasn't completely overdone and there wasn't the absolute wealth of choice in anime. Just like isekai to a world that's literally just Dragon Quest wasn't completely overdone at one point, but if you go back to something that was original back then, it just looks generic and half-baked now. Tsunderes weren't a mandatory copy-paste set of characteristics in every anime until after Shinobu Miyake, Akane Tendo, Asuka Soryuu Langley, and Rin Tosaka basically defined the term, but people new to anime won't look on them with the same eyes as someone who hadn't seen generic tsunderes run the idea of a tsundere main girl into the ground. (Back then, the staple was a Belldandy-like doormat main girl who had to rely on side characters to actually make the show interesting.) And, I mean, look at what's popular NOW, and it's STILL stuff like Love Hina in a new coat of paint, like Rent-A-Girlfriend. This sort of harem rom-com is just always going to be popular with horny teenage males, it's only the production values that have improved since then. These sorts of things are a lot of people's first animes, and at that point, it's so new and exciting that you don't really care if the plot is just treading water, so long as it's content that does the thing you like. Hence, harem rom-coms are sort of the Nickleback of anime - things that always gets really popular no matter how much the critics pan it.
EDIT: Also, JESUS CHRIST, listening to this in English, I am reminded of why the "Subs vs. Dubs" argument was so impassioned way back when. You whippersnappers don't understand, but back in the 90s and early aughts, EVERY heroine had the EXACT SAME VOICE in English because there was basically two companies that did dubs, they only hired like twelve people total, and they didn't bother changing their voices much between roles. I hope you're ready for Narusegawa Naru to be voicing at least one role in half of all English-dubbed anime released before 2008. (Seriously, look in the IMDB pages of some voice actors/actresses in anime, and they have over 500 roles in the span of 20 years...)
Describing anime Christmas episodes as Valentine specials that took a wrong turn at Albuquerque is spot-on.
I mean Japanese Christmas basically is their version of Valentine's Day so not super surprising is it?
They didn't call Saul
@@MCArt25 but so is every other holiday though. At least through the anime lense.
@Poi Lethe Even ‘MURICAN Independence Day?!?
“Let’s go see the fireworks together!”
Sweet Haruhi, you’re right….
@@UGNAvalon How about memorial day? "let's go remember the fallen together... Not that I want to or anything baka"
In any other anime, the smiling author cameo with hhis glasses shining in the dark makes it look like that we will never see those two again, only parts of their bodies
I unfortunately was friends with a girl who loved this series back in high school. Red flag kids. That said the phrase "secret government project to make the middest man imaginable" will stick with me even longer than her going on a spiel about how she was just like Naru.
Dude I think you dodged a cannonball with this person.
"I'm just like Naru" was the late nineties version of "I'm just like Vriska."
God help me, I would
@@c.cooper2877 who the hell would brag about being like Vriska of all things?
@@c.cooper2877 Who's Vriska?
14:50: To be fair to Keitaro, the fact that he _listens_ to the advice a middle schooler had to give him _still_ puts him above a lot of harem protagonists.
Well see, that's kinda the thing. The OG stuff is pretty bad, but the derivatives are even worse, to the point where you end up thinking "oh the original one was pretty decent" after seeing what new lows writers have gone to ever since.
I used to think SAO was terrible, but seeing what lows isekai inspired by it have dropped to since makes SAO look amazing in comparison. Love Hina was never GOOD, but seeing some of the harem anime since, you realize that the Love Hina characters still almost had a semblance of character and humanity to them x)
@@sleepysera that's the fault of the Adaptation
@@sleepysera I hate SAO more than the derivatives in this case.
@@ShadowWolfRising Is that because it's _worse,_ per se, or because of its external impact? (Or because most of the bad isekai are very obviously bad, while SAO showed some promise?)
@@timothymclean The former believe it or not, SAO is straight up garbage.
If you've played MMOs alot, the amount of things it gets wrong about MMOs adds up quick and if you game seriously it starts pissing you off.
Like TRULY pisses you off.
And even ignoring that, it's problems outside of that are truly astounding.
Most of the derivatives a least have the common sense not to put their settings in MMOs, so despite the MMO mechanics they are under no obligation to work on MMO logic whereas SAO does. Even Overlord has the conceit that while Ainz and those that came with him with Nazerik to the new world ARE bound by the MMO he played, the denizens of said world aren't necessarily (Although that's an unfair comparison, Overlord is actually good.).
So to wrap it up, I hate it because it is genuinely terrible, and has a fundamental misunderstanding of the very setting it's in.
There are alot of other issues SAO has that I haven't even brought up.
No matter the anime subject, we can always find time to dunk on how fucking terrible Rent-a-Girlfriend is. I respect that.
I've never seen that show, and I haven't even had a slight inkling to thanks to what I've heard about it 😅
My favorite part is that the news caster asks Naru why she’s alone on Christmas lmao
So rude
I’d love a Shojo focused episode! I feel like anime consumption - especially in the west - is focused around shonen primarily and it feels like Shojo is ignored at best, disrespected at worst. So I’d love to see your top Shojo pics and maybe it will encourage folks to give it a try!
Surprisingly, that’s something I noticed as well and try to correct on my side at least by watching/reading more shoujo works (Cardcaptor Sakura is pretty good).
That's true! (I know I add to the problem, but...) After ErynCerise quit anitube for actual plays, it feels like all we have is Colleen's Manga Recs. Hm...
I remember watching him talking about Raven of the Inner Palace and I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss in his Fall 2022 anime recommendation video. But I also love to see him talk about Shojo too.
@@SecretIdentityStudio I recommend you check out SGHope’s channel and I’m thinking of another one
I mean Shojo can get even more yikes than Shonen when it comes to gross pervert shit. Josei in particular gets really nasty.
"The original tsundere, the Grinch"
You know, I wasn't expecting such a profound Epiphany from a roast of the Love Hina Christmas special. It's as though the world has unfolded before my very eyes.
This special is like a how many misunderstandings tropes can you fit into one hour-ish”
Midsummer Night’s Hina
Much ado about Hina
Hina's Labours Lost
(...that might be a little on the nose...)
Geoff, you're not allowed to date a Gundam nut and then say there's no Christmas anime while completely ignoring War In The Pocket and Endless Waltz.
Oh shit, you got a point
War in the pocket is quite christmassy
A Christmas Special so terrible it physically maims those who watch it? AND an anime? They made the Star Wars Holiday Special into an anime?!
You know, I had to watch the Star Wars Holiday special today and the by far best thing about it was that I got your joke about it.
Thanks for giving this painful waste of my lifetime some semblance of a meaning.
It's so bad, that's it's funny as all hell.
The Star Wars Holiday Special is a part ofy holiday tradition. I watch it every year for Christmas. Just to feel something. Mostly regret, boredom, and disgust. But that's a good preparation for spending a bunch of days in a row with the family
I’m guessing this one doesn’t have any Wookiee VR porn, though.
oh my dad's gonna love this comment! thank you for your artistic genius
There’s something about the “oops I got a handful and now I’m being beaten to death“ trope that’s always bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until you described the plot of Love Hina.
If you grew up watching media that was all about women over reacting to well-meaning guys, and then a woman in real life told you that some guy grabbed her inappropriately, your first reaction would probably be “are you sure you’re not overreacting?”
I’m not saying that’s the goal of jokes like this. I just think it’s one of the consequences.
I mean, is it even overreacting in the anime? The first few times, sure, but the intent of "well-meaning" kinda becomes irrelevant when some dude you are forced to live with fondles you 18 times a day due to harem gods making your lady bits magentic for his hands.
@@sleepysera It makes sense in that context. If on one hand he is actually in control of what he is doing, he is a massive creep and deserves what he gets. But on the other, if he is genuinely that accident prone then beating him is just...abuse? Either way should he be avoided.
This would explain SO much
that's your big hang up? not the "heh heh, domestic abuse is funny"
@@kyriss12 my biggest hang ups are always going to be the ones that happen most often irl
I lowkey love that Keitarou is using his crutch in a completely wrong way. He's putting all of his weight on his busted ankle and using the crutch to take his weight off of his healthy one.
This video is the only exposure I’ve had to Love Hina, but that still seems like the most intelligent thing he does in the entire series.
He's not! Doctors actually suggest to use the crutch on your healthy side :)
The point is that while you are stepping with your injured foot, you can lean most of your weight onto your healthy side due to the crutch holding you up. In a normal walk cycle, you shift which side you put weight on with each step, but with a foot injury, you want to keep it on one side to keep most of the weight off the injured side, that's why the crutch is used on the "healthy" side, in tune with the injured foot's steps (which he does, as you can see at for example 19:55). A single crutch is just meant as a support tool, not a complete replacement :)
For injuries grave enough to not allow ANY weight be put onto the injured foot, you get two crutches which then carry all of your weight in replacement of the injured foot, but that's not possible with a single one. I know it's counterintuitive, but I have to defend the anime creators on that one 😉
That might be true but your giving the animators way to much credit to say that was intentional
@pufferfancyfish I don't know. Artists frequently use references and the reference material probably had the crutch on the proper side.
For me, Toradora has been the most christmas anime series. Most of it happens at other times, but I feel that because the culmination of the series happens around christmas, it fits.
A far superior Christmas episode in a far superior romcom.
Still pretty shite.
I agree! It even shows the spirit of the holidays better than most Christmas themed episodes.
@@spiraljumper74 Truer facts have never been spoken.
I choose to find the shameless, flagrant self-promotion of Geoff's Youtooz in this video to be a thematically-appropriate riff on this Ken Akamatsu anime in which the author literally shows up in the middle of the special to hock his wares.
Love Hina...was probably responsible for my old f***ed up sense of romance and relationships. Thank Gawd we get to grow up.
A Christmas special being unfathomably awful makes it the most adequate Christmas special, my guy.
the "It's always sunny in Philadelphia" cristmas special is pretty good though
Even the not painfull ones are okay at best. Chirstmas movies > christmas special episodes.
Regular Show’s Christmas special goes hard Af though!
the opening to this is ToRaDoRa erasure D
But... did you know that if you confess your love before midnight on Christmas eve in the year 2000, any wish you have will be granted?!
Sucks to be born in 2001 or later.
Mostly because of the shit world boomers and elder GenXers left the younger generations, but that other thing doesn't help.
Well damn, now I gotta live till 3000 ad
@@sarahcole9661 22,000
Ah, yes, I'd almost forgotten that the anime was that much worse than the manga. Not that the manga's superb, but it's still got more direct progression than the anime did.
Expanding on this, now that I'm not busy while watching: in the manga, it's made a bit clearer that while Keitaro is referred to as the "manager" he's closer to being custodian and maintenance, making sure the dorms are all clean and repaired. Mutsumi is introduced in volume three, after Keitaro and Naru have an adventure without their glasses, showing that they're both nearsighted enough that they can't actually recognize each other from a foot away (which, I guess means Naru wears contacts most of the time she's not wearing her glasses), and then they have an additional adventure getting Mutsumi home to Okinawa.
The Christmas chapter of the manga in volume six is where Mutsumi suddenly remembers that she hung out with two kids when she was young, but only had time to actually say that one of them was Keitaro before Naru interrupts (thus somewhat disguising that Naru was the other one). And as I'm typing this, I'm now realizing how many of these major story beats happen every third volume, because it's volume nine (of fourteen) where both Keitaro and Naru confess feelings for each other, though Naru is a bit less certain of things.
I also once counted each individual bit of damage done to Keitaro over the course of the manga, and it totaled 430 strikes, with Naru doing the most at 172.
@@Bardic_Knowledge Nice to see another manga enjoyer here. For all its faults - and there are MANY faults, let's be honest - I still found it enjoyable. Don't regret reading it and don't cringe at it years later unlike some other stuff I read when younger.
That, and the manga remembers that its supposed to be a romantic COMEDY. The fun is diluted to the point of being barely noticeable in the anime. They should have fired that director after two episodes.
Negima, UQ Holder, and even Ai Love You, Akamatsus work before Love Hina, have aged better in general, really.
@@godzilla4189 Negima and Holder are from after Hina. And their romance plots show that he has learned almost nothing.
I knew what the Love Hina hentai game was before I knew what Love Hina or hentai was.
For the love of Christ tell me I wasn't the only one. o-o
Lol you aren't 😂
You aren't the only one.
Thanks, Newgrounds!
Same. Also Galaxy Angel
@@theuncannydag Don't forget about Vandread.
That speech at the end after the “you never change” line. Is so raw. I never understood the purpose of harem anime, because if I wanted to project myself onto a featureless guy to date a bunch of girls I think are cute, I’d just play a dating sim.
Fun fact: Because Jujutsu Kaisen 0's climax takes place on the 24th of December, Christmas Eve, it's technically a christmas movie. Which is the excuse I had for making my family watch it this christmas.
So, Die Hard for weebs
AW HELL YES!!!
If 3 out of 5 girls arent children then I feel like that puts this series above most harems just by default
It is usually 4 out of 5, one of the harem girls usual trait is just being the adult one
And one has to not just be a child, but be practically a toddler and be the preteen little sister character in a harem anime
Just the fact only 2 characters are underage, none of them are true lolis, and none are RELATED TO HIM, is a step up from most harem anime
true but usually in those harems the MC is also a child, in this one the MC is an adult
@@charlx8979Oh, I have some bad news for you about Love Hina and the "none of them are related to him" thing. You see, Keitaro has a younger goth step-sister who has a thing for him.
look while still ick, step sisters arent related to him. this is still passing a bar most harems cannot.
I gotta admit while frustrating I think it is so hilarious to have all the characters frantically run around and putting in all this hard work and to have Keitaro limp around Tokyo just so Keitaro and Naru can finally profess their love for each other only to have Naru just call them friends at the end. My anger was overwhelmed by the laughter I made when it happened.
God, I forgot how insufferable Love Hina was. I was only there for Shinobu, being an awkward teen myself, so her little arc in this special kept me engaged, but you're right, the stakes in this climax were so trivial. And then they had the sheer nerve to walk back all emotional growth and plot progression. Thanks for the roast, it was deserved!
Happy holidays! Looking forward to the worst of list!
I'd just like you all to know that, while 36 year old me acknowledges the accuracy of this roast, 19 year old me is furious right now.
Huge props to you, Geoff, for that special spin you put on the "Wrong turn at Albuquerque" joke. I'm so glad I wasn't drinking anything just now.
The frequent use of the phrase "like ya do" was completely brilliant and make this Christmas video worth the time I spent watching it. Thanks.
He may have had an easier time walking around if he'd used his crutch correctly
But he is...?
@@sleepysera he is literally supporting his healthy leg and limping forward with the injured one LMAO
Did you notice he was holding the crutch on the wrong side in like every scene? Lol
I was staring at that and wondering if /I/ had it wrong the whole time... 😅
I know right!!!!
At least they got it right at 19:52
@@mangomage33 no they didn’t lmao
Not to mention, he's out in the snow without even a sock on that injured foot. Those would be some cold tootsies.
Even though my mom knew the opening was a joke, Geoff, if you're ever in Montana please know she'd be happy to make you some latkes and make your Hanukkah bright. We watched this together and she literally cooed, "Aw, he needs a good meal and a nice gift. Maybe a blanket for when he watches anime in the winter."
Nice warm Jewish mother
So wholesome.
i always love your comments about your mom, it's so cute :) wish her well from me :D
❤❤❤❤❤❤
Just putting this out there: Ai Yori Aoshi also had a full and proper Christmas special. The entire show was a direct counter to the garbage of Love Hina. It is a harem show done right, and it's Christmas special brought a bunch of real and good feels.
Ai Yori Aoshi as an Adaptation has the has same problems of Love Hina of taking too many liberties and switching stuff around and S2 being completely anime original
I remember being part of the community that streamed this series 24/7 on shoutcast back when streaming was cutting edge. We got so sick of this series so fast, and we couldn't escape it because people who would watch would come join the forums and just reactivate everything all over again. I can recite that God forsaken OP/ED by heart. Our community is STILL around today partially out of the shared trauma that is seeing Love Hina on repeat. On occasion we switched to Hellsing, but it was Love Hina 9/10 runs.
Love Hina was the first manga I'd ever read. It was fun, horny, and the characters were all stupidly memorable. I was so excited when I learned an anime existed too. I bought the DVD set and after watching three episodes instantly regretted my purchase. How Ken Akamatsu could let such a fucking travesty exist is beyond me.
*_Money_*
Look, we can blame him for making the original "Blue Haired Girl" and then also copying Ed from Cowboy Bebop, but like 10x worse.
Agreed the manga is super funny and great wacky scenarios and memorable cast. THE anime was biggest let down both visually and story wise given how fun and visually stunning many of scenes and art in the comic manga are.
He has bad luck with adaptations, Negima and UQ Holder animes are even worse.
@@DorrovianYeah the fact Love Hina was his best adaptation is sad
I'm glad you enjoyed it. I never ever could. It's the only manga l outright hate.
This sounds like if you took a Hallmark movie and shoved it in a blender with a harem anime.
This was a delightful, well seasoned roast, my compliments go out to the chef
To be fair, the ingredient is already hammered, marinated, pan seared before delivery to gran-gran's crock pot.
No offense to gran-gran's cooking tho.
It may be my simplistic sense of humor but the azure testicular implosion sent me howling, well done.
Don't steal my band name! Azure Testicular Implosion is going to have our breakout hit any day now!
Great band name.
What a wonderful seasonal treat! So well-timed. Thanks Geoff and happy seasonal greetings to you and your family, thanks for all your hard work.
Love Hina was weird for me. It was my first Harem Anime (or what I thought was a Harem) and it held a special place in my 16 year old heart who just wanted love in all the wrong places.
They I watched Air Gear and saw my first Anime naughty bits. Downhill from there.
Air Gear was something special. Namely, Beyblade with Tits.
Remembering Love Hina makes me thank God that I discovered 100 kanojo to give me great harem romcom that I always wanted. Having wholesome and mad gigachad MC that is beloved by reader, being a real harem with every heroine winning, be it milf,loli,teacher etc and entering a giant polyamory family, endless interaction between each other, no stupid drama to derail the series, instead being a meta-comedy like Gintama and Bobobo. God bless 100 girlfriends!
I love that series. It's literally one of my favorite manga ever made, it's no victim to tropes, it makes tropes its slave.
To me Love Hina is more or less the first slice of life harem, so it came out in a time when the wheel was still getting invented
I mean ideally a child wouldn’t be included in the giant anime gf harem
Literally the entire manga mocks the tropes to the point of the loli only being a loli because of "science potions" and then the same thing with her grandmother who also joins the harem.
@@alicethemad1613 true but in 100 kanojo everybody is a child because they're like in middle school
Video Idea: Best Nuns in Anime
Maybe on the second channel, but when I did one about witches it really bombed, so IDK if there’s a big enough audience for that on the main
@@mothersbasement you have a second channel
This made me remember watching Love Hina the first time, and how 20+ years later 80% or more romcoms still do the exact same thing. I’ll take Love Hina over Rent any day.
The Grinch being tsundere is a hilarious and accurate hot take.
I love Geoff's content. Merry Christmas everyone!
Japanese does have multiple ways to say "good bye"...I forget what she used there, but "sayonara" specifically has a finality about it, as in you don't plan on seeing the person again or at least not for a significant amount of time.
Also manga spoiler alert:
Mutsumi really was the girl he made the promise to.
It wasn’t that hard to figure out. That’s why both this anime and Manga were so shitty.
Huh? No, the girl he made the promise with was Naru. It was some really contrived set-up though that also involved Mutsumi, because Naru was just a toddler at the time, so it was more of a...three-way promise.
Shoutout to the Christmas episode of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, which had such a huge tonal whiplash it’s still a meme in the fandom 6 years later. The first half is a light basic monster of the week plot where a kid hates Christmas because his mom is always busy, and then Poppy has an obnoxious cover of Jingle Bells during the fight. The latter half ends with a dour serious moment where a major character dies and gives his last words and hopes to the main hero in the pouring rain as he fades into the aether.
I learned about this one from Bennett the Sage's very old video. I can hear that voice acting as ambient background music in my nightmares
“Most anime Christmas specials are bland”.
Kyouran Kazoku Nikki.
Aside from being a criminally underrated series all around, the cast shoots down Santa with a surface to air missile. He gets back up and dukes it out DBZ style. It’s phenomenal.
"The original tsundere, The Grinch"
-Geoff 2022
Where i'm from Love Hina was never on TV, but they showed the Silent Eve Christmas Special every year on the 25th, with DAYS of hype like this was what we've been waiting for for YEARS.
This entire roast is hilarious, but I nearly burst out laughing when you said "Kirito Pact"
Look, I'm gonna give you a gift this season. You don't need to read anymore Rent-a Girlfriend, I am lifting this witch's curse, let the shackles be broken.
Two notes for commenters:
1. The story eventually ends with them together, thanks to the OVA. You know, the one where his sister... tries to.. bang him... *cough*
2) If you guys want a much better Christmas-themed event in a RomCom, please consider Toradora and/or Kaguya-sama. The Christmas events are in the show, no movie, yet they'd be much more enjoyable to watch
they actually do end together? thats surprising almost
God damn it, i thought love hina was THE ONE HAREM ANIME WITHOUT INCEST
But the ovas gotta let me down i gues
The custom robo music gives me serotonin c:
That's why we include it ;D
Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a Christmas movie that definitively says that wishes are bullshit
Ah this video makes me nostalgic. Love Hina was one of the first dozen anime I watched with my sister back in the day.
Geoff clearly doesn't know about the Christmas version of Liru: wolfgirl with you. The greatest anime Christmas thing ever.
"The original tsundere: the Grinch"
I'm not gonna forget you said that, Geoff.
Santa no baka
Man I remember Love Hina being one of the staple anime to watch, my disappointment after watching it was immeasurable...
Dude, I survived the Star Wars 'Holiday Special' from back in the day, Love Hina isn't anywhere near as bad as that!
Me before this video: The Love Hina anime can't be *that* bad.
Me after this video: This Love Hina anime *is* that bad!
I remember getting into anime and the early 2000’s anime boom, my friend called me from Best Buy and asked what he should get, I said “Not Love Hina” naturally he bought it and let me borrow it. Even as a fairly new anime fan I already knew I’d seen better harem anime. I literally fell asleep.
I never watched Love Hina, but seeing that, "we're just friends..." Bit made my eye start twitching. I cannot imagine how frustrating that would be to people that watched the series.
Given how violent and unpleasant their relationship was, one can only imagine how it would have ended between them
@@PhoenixFireZero "Today was a dark day in Japan as two horrible people died in a tragic murder suicide at a local hot springs/dorm. People who knew the couple described the event as in keeping with their image of the couple as there were frequent domestic abuse cases called that police described as, 'fucking baffling,' in their intensity."
Crap, made myself sad.
I haven't heard of a roast that's this brutal since Bennett The Sage roasted Love Hina!
I eagerly await the next time Geoff tears the Intolerable Bitch a new one.
With every “ya kno, like you do” just made me laugh harder and harder
Geoff's evil voices in this video were top notch. It's like a supervillain strapping a hero into their torture device, which is a fun change from the sophisticated trash sommelier we are usually met with.
This guy does voices good I’ve noticed
(Maybe HE should be doing voiceover work in anime - he’s definitely better than a lot of actual dubs)
Geoff I'm leaving a second comment to let you know my mom wants to get your YouTooz and put it with her Animal Crossing plushie collection in her office. You have one grandma in her 60's who is unironically a total fan, it seems.
My first ever exposure to harem anime as a kid was Tenchi Muyo on Toonami. It preemptively raised my standards too high to suffer this nonsense.
thank you for pointing out that the grinch was the original tsundere all along.
Merry Chrysler, Jeff
Oh god, I remember when this was popular and people dared to call it a realistic romance anime. It was like a collective hypnosis in the anime community for a year or so. Now its just an uncomfortable memory everyone involved is trying to forget.
“How much more emotionally mature best friend: the middle schooler who’s in love with him”
Might be the funniest sentence in this whole channel, and that’s saying something XD
If Otomen had received an anime, your heart might have grown three sizes while watching its Christmas episode. Too bad you have to suffer with your shriveled raisin.
"she hates him now, because he fell off the roof" LOL
I nearly woke up everyone in my house as I successfully stopped myself from absolutely screeching at the line, "Just like the original Tsundere, the Grinch". Hilarious!
"her kind is immune to sense talking" had me dying
At least Negima changed, given that it started as “what if Harry Potter was a high school teacher, with uncomfortable harem vibes given that the protagonist is 10 and his harem are most 14-15” and ended with him doing a fantasy adventure on Mars while using the girls like Pokémon
Yeah, some of these commenters seem to be unaware that Negima is a surprisingly good and creative shonen that's only pretending to be a rom com. Not that the rom com elements ever disappear entirely, but it becomes mainly a shonen about 30 chapters in. The first anime only adapts the rom com bits, and the second anime... Well they were smoking a looooot of crack while they made the second, but the result was weirdly good, though it has nothing to do with the manga.
They're 14 to 15 inches?
"The original tsundere, the Grinch" Made me laugh like JK Simmons did when he played J Jonah Jameson
love hina was one of my first manga, when I was 15. harém, and it was... fine i guess?. and then, I re-read it when I failed the entrance exam to get into university at 18. and it was HILLARIOUS.
that's the only moment in your life you should read love hina.
trust me.
Hey, I really like the stills from this special. It looks great in stills out of context. I saw great AMVs of it back in the day.
I remember as a kid when I was obsessed with dating sims I found the love hina dating sim. Poor sweet innocent 8 year old me had no idea had no idea what was happening, and honestly I don’t blame them. The game didn’t explain its mechanics and just threw me in blind. Glad to know the anime it was based off of was shit as well.
"Nowadays we call that a Kirito Pact"
I absolutely love your commentary man, you really made my holidays with this one.
Definitely have a massive soft spot for love hina since it is one of the first ecchi anime i ever recall watching. I actually recall having a nick website opened to the side so that i can quickly switch off in case one of my family members comes to the room. By today's standard, love hina is pretty tame all things considered.
It's always a wonderful day where Naru constantly beats the shit out of Keitaro for no apparent reason! LMAO
If he's anything like modern harem protagonists (and I've heard that he's their most recent common ancestor), he deserves it anyways.
She only does it on days that end in "y".
@@stephaniesimpson-white3293 Hello there, Stephanie! Nice to meet you! How are you today? Also, any examples of those days that end with a "y?" Just curious! :D
I first learned of love Hina from Bennet The Sage, one of the OG anitubers who is still around and you should ALL go watch his stuff. I thought his hatred of it was, well, him hating any comedy that involves anyone speaking at a voice pitch higher than darth fucking vader
But no. It was I who was the fool.
I still have the Pin l got with the Limited Edition Bennet T-shirt. I also have the shirt, somewhere, but l'll need to drop like 3 pandemic sizes to wear it again.
_you sHould ALL gO wAtch his sTuff_ don't you tell me what to -- wait, crud, I've already watched his stuff!
Basically my thoughts as well.
Despite his dumbass contrarianism when it came to Evangelion it was nice having someone back then that didn't automatically think every big anime was a masterpiece
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 I highly recommend his new trilogy on Eva. He gives it a much fairer shake and really dives deep into it
I started reading The Love Hina Manga when I was wayy too young, now reading it as an adult and watching the anime It really annoys me how Ketaro is often times just misunderstood and what he's doing is almost always never his fault. He's just a punching bag and it's a trope i've grown to despise in anime and manga.
"Just like the original tsundere: the Grinch" has me dying
Watching this is like being back in high school and internally observing my classmates who wouldn't hear me if I started running the analysis.
There is one thing I can say about Love Hina in its favor, and its that the artstyle is so solid. Even now, the character designs sit in an appealing yet physically proportionate area, that is not as common in generic romcoms in modern day. The girls faces are relatively human looking, and everything is solid, and the animation feels smooth in a held back way.
I dunno, even as bad as the story is, and how contrived things are, I can't help looking at the characters and wishing modern bad romcoms still looked like this. It's nice in the way buttered toast is. Not some jaw dropping story, but sometimes I just like a solid piece of bread with butter.
the characters even felt like they were more realistic written despite you know, all the animesque stereotypes and shenaningans. all older anime harem romcoms feel that way tbh, they used to have some charm and soul despite some being a bit awful like the love hina anime (the manga is better tbh), its the reason why things like urusei yatsura, ranma 1/2, tenchi muyo and others from that time are still entertaining. new harem anime just feel like souless products made in the most awful ways and are only there to fullfill the creators pockets of weird incel otaku dudes money, ppl who would rather buy endless merch of their harem waifus and be shut into their rooms rather than actually improving themselves as people, bc if a shitty harem manga makes their protagonist the most awful dude ever possible get the hottest chicks in the world, why bother?
@Mayruh Forgot Kare Kano if you want good romance anime in general. Urusei's ideal form is the 2000 BBC dub though.
Love Hina was pretty much one of the more acceptable dubs of the day and the animation and symbolism of the first 2 episodes with the arrows and people pointing was neat attempt at being artistic, in a goofy harem anime that seriously didn't need it. Also I distinctly remember the animation was pretty decent quality for the time. Some money went into that series considering how gangbusters the manga sold.
Love Hina's dub is what turned me off dubs for literal decades. We went from the dubs for DBZ, Cowboy Bebop, Slayers, Evangelion, Nadesico, Macross Plus, even G Gundam to *this*. It represented a very noticeable decline in dub-quality that's only recently being reversed.
The apparent age of their voices don't match their characters even on a remote level, a painful example of the horrible trend where Kansaiben = Texas, and the translation is notably distorted in English dub to attempt to match the mouth flaps.
Oh, this is one of my mother's favourite mangas. I read the series as a kid because she just...had it.
For the record, I am currently 21 years old.
Thank you for bringing a smile to my face Geoff
This makes the Nyan Neko Sugar Girls Christmas special look like Rudolph.
Ah.. this takes me back (decades) - merry Xmas all
I remember back when my brother got into anime, he would show me different shows. One of them was Love Hina and I watched because I was interested in anime myself but I just never got why it was popular.
I always just felt sorry for Keitaro because most of the abuse he gets from the girls, it never seemed he deserved it. I guess "hahaha, man being hit by girls" is funny in Japan but I ended up hating just about everyone - especially Naru. I did not want her to get together with Keitaro, if anything the ditzy girl (forgot her name) was much nicer to him and I don't think she ever laid a hand on him. She should have been the one to end up with Keitaro even if she's not the lost childhood friend.
If anything, I would have respected if Keitaro just realized how stupid he let his whole life change over a promise of a girl he hardly remembers, who doesn't seem to remember him anyway, and just let go of the past to be someone who treats him right and truly cares. But I know that's not what the anime is about.
nice figurine. the blood splatter on truck-kun is a nice detail
The funny thing is we in the West have built up Christmas as some sort of incredibly important holiday event that absolutely must be magical, perfect, and something you go well into debt for, that its spilled over into cultures that never had Christmas as a tradition. And now they too must have a completely unrealistic perfect day or you're made to feel like a failure.