• Title: To LoveRu
• Studio: XEBEC
• Genre: Shounen/Romantic Comedy

Ratings (out of 5):

• Story: ♥♥½

• Animation: ♥♥½
• Characters: ♥♥♥
• OP/ED Themes: ♥♥½
• Overall: ♥♥½ (Not bad, will have to try again.)

Thoughts:
In some ways, To LoveRu is as much a throwback to Urusei Yatsura as Itazura na Kiss is to Marmalade Boy, except that To LoveRu is a currently-running series and Rumiko Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura finished up in 1987.

Still, the plot similarities are striking: a boy who has a crush on a classmate finds himself suddenly engaged to a hot alien princess and has wild adventures. In the case of To LoveRu, though, our hero is a little more appreciable– Rito is a good kid with a bad reputation (as opposed to UY’s Ataru Moroboshi, a lecherous chaser of females). It remains to be seen whether our alien princess Lala– who also has the added bonus of being an impressive inventrix –will prove as possessive as UY’s Lum, and her outfit is certainly way less sexy, but we can work with it.

Moving along…the animation is pretty standard, not particularly bad or good. The OP and ED are cute but also not particularly outstanding. The only thing I gave the show a slightly higher-than-average credit for is the characters, largely because Lala is independent-minded and a good inventor, which is kind of cool. And also because Rito is actually an interesting character with his own problems…or at least, he’s not a complete wuss like Kanokon’s lead (or a dozen other shounen romance heroes).

The show is pretty heavy on the fanservice, but unlike Kanokon, it’s sprinkled here and there instead of everywhere. When they do go for it, though, they put the pedal to the metal– just wait until you see Lala’s transformation scene. Rawr.

So, the short version: cute, fanservicey, but not amazing. May be worth a second look when the next ep is released.

Posted by gia in Commentary, Spring '08 Series • Comments (1)