Though Art Mine Love Hina

Love Hina more or less defines love for me. It is the story of a guy, Keitaro Urashima, who spends over fifteen years of his life trying to keep a promise he made when he was five to a girl whose face and name he can't even remember. They were separated as kids and promised to meet again as adults at Tokyo University. Our story takes place those fifteen years later. Keitaro is still crazy in love with his promise girl and is on his third attempt to pass the Tokyo U entrance exams when he gets a call from his grandmother. She asks him to come to her inn in Hinata, little does he know that he has actually inherited the inn which has been renovated into an all girls dormitory. Now he has to handle his job as landlord of a building full of foxy females and study for his exams.
The story was original told in a manga (comic) by Ken Akamatsu that was published in Monthly Shonen Magazine in Japan. The Love Hina ran 14 volumes and was insanely popular. It was eventually developed in to an anime series that ran for twenty-five episodes with two tv specials and an adaption series.
In comparison the manga's story and plot lasts much longer. The finale of the anime which is the adaption series, Love Hina Again, ends more or less where volume twelve of the manga ends. None of the story lines from volume thirteen or fourteen are included in the animated series. Also though everything up to the end is changed around.
In the manga when Keitaro firsts arrives at Hinata House all five of the main female characters are presently rooming there. In the anime only three of them are there to greet our hero, and what greeting it was: mini-tanks, laundry theft, false groping, martial arts, crucification. One of the other two tenants, Motoko Aoyama, is away at a kendo training camp. The other, Shinobu Maehara, is still living with her parents who are going through a pretty brutal divorce. In the manga her parents divorce is only briefly mentioned but the anime takes a whole episode on the divorce and to move Shinobu into Hinata House, referred to as the Hinata Apartments in the anime.
Many of the story lines from the manga were omitted during production of the animated series. Others were just changed though. For example, in the manga when Keitaro and Naru Narusegawa, our heroine and a resident of Hinata House, go on there first date it is planned. In the anime it is the result of their attempt to avoid Naru's legions of fans as she has become a pop idol through winning a contest. Then there's the story line where Kanako Urashima, Keitaro's sister, comes to Hinata House to vie for her older brother's love with Naru. The result of such in the manga is an all out chase scene across the nation of Japan by the entire main cast, pretty crazy, huh? The story in the anime involves Kanako accidentally using the old annex on th Hinata property to put a curse on Keitaro so that his love for Naru is hindered. Both have the same end result. Though at that climax of that story in the anime Keitaro's mentor, Noriyasu Seta, flies by in a bi-plane and plucks Keitaro up from the sky off on another adventure. That was the end of the anime. This doesn't happen in the manga till the Kanako story is over in volume thirteen. Plus the story line is actually carried through.
Before Kanako is introduced Keitaro decides to study abroad and in the manga is absent for a full year, volume eleven. His absence only lasted three months in Love Hina Again. Still the same old classic gag of Keitaro bring the girls lingerie as souvenirs is in both versions. Though the orangutan from the manga Keitaro was supposedly dating wasn't in the anime.
I feel it an injustice to right a paper on Love Hina without describing Keitaro's charcter further. All growing up he never had good grades, couldn't play any sports, and wasn't that popular. In fact, aside from his promise girl, he was never able to talk to a girl. So he was pretty much considered an all around loser and failing the Tokyo U entrance exams an eventual three times didn't help. He always continued to strive forward though, never giving up. His perseverance and optimism was what attracted me to him so much. Even now I still have this image of him burned into my head. He's scrubbing the outdoor hot springs to try and prove to the girls he can work. His determination was very impressive.
Watching the anime for the first time after reading the first eight volumes of the manga I was most surprised by the voice acting. Kitsune, the lazy free lance writer of the Hinata House, had a southern belle accent that I never would have expected in a million years. Later I learned she had a Kansai accent. Kansai is a region of Japan where the typical accent is like the Japanese version of our southern accent. Seta's was also much more suave and manly then I had pictured. I learned to love all the voice acting from the series though. Dorothy Melendrez, who does the voice of Naru, is probably my favorite actress.
Well, I could most certainly ramble on about the greatest story ever told but it's late and I don't want to write anymore. As I am sure you've read more than enough. So I'll end with this: KEITARO AND NARU FOREVER!

RtheO