To Love Ru

After finishing Black Cat, I decided to check out some of Yabuki Kentaro's other works. Since I never found Yamato Gensouki, I figured I'd settle for To-LOVE-Ru, even though he only did the artwork and the premise was practically a carbon copy of Urusei Yatsura's. To be honest, I actually found the first few dozen chapters to be fine. The jokes were largely hit-or-miss, but Yabuki's artwork and the chemistry between the characters kept me reading. All-in-all, it was a typical ecchi harem that didn't really wear out its welcome. But then, at some point, writer Hasemi Saki lost steam. Her jokes grew more and more bland,losing any semblance of charm there may have been early on. In addition, what little drama there was, she didn't handle very well. Two scenarios in particular (Lala and Haruna becoming rivals but remaining friends, and Rito realising that he has feelings for both of them instead of just Haruna) could've been really good for character development, but their potential is squandered in her hands. Overall, the series never rises above mediocrity after its initial stretch. Yabuki's artwork is great and the fanservice is fine, but Hasemi never exploits any of her good ideas and her humour becomes repetitive and dull far too quickly. The ending is also extremely abrupt, and is ultimately an unsatisfying conclusion to an unsatisfying series. I personally wouldn't recommend it to anybody except die-hard ecchi fans.

A wise man once said of this manga, "How is this so popular? Is it the nipples?" and he was completely right. After going through like 6 different harem series to get a full idea of what the genre has in store I finally ended up on To Love-Ru. The plot is as simple as it it gets: alien comes from outer space and says she is going to marry the MC, but the MC already has a childhood crush and every girl they meet ends up falling in love with him. From there it's just random series of events where the MC ends up fondlingor seeing every girl naked pretty much. It's super generic and is about what you'd see in every other harem manga. So then are the characters any good? Well, everyone is super generic also. We got the classic airhead, shy girl, kuudere, tsundere, younger sister, younger twin sisters of the main girl, straight laced girl, and the list continues. Honestly, trying to fault a harem manga on it's characters just seems unfair, but the main thing To Love-Ru lacks is that it doesn't really build up nearly enough chemistry between the MC and most of the cast. We only see things building between like the two main girls but everyone else is just thrown in, so it's hard to see anyone winning in the end besides the two mains. And that brings me to one of my biggest gripes with the manga: that there is no ending. It was so disappointing that I spent 160 chapters seeing who the MC will end up with in the end only to have him end up with no one. There is a sequel to this that I will check out, but as a standalone series it ends up cheating all its readers. Maybe this is what it's like to be one of the side characters in a harem manga... The other thing I disliked was how much fanservice there was. Now, I'm not one to say that harem manga shouldn't have it at all, since that's one of the main appeals of it. But when it seems like every chapter had to have at least 3 pages worth of fondling or naked girls, it gets to be really tiring. There's such thing as overexposure, and this manga brings it to the max. And honestly how can you even find a way to add 5 separate slimy tentacle scenes in one manga? I wish there was a little more actual plot to hold this thing up, but it's just not there. So overall this was one of the most disappointing harem manga I've ever read, and the harem genre doesn't have the best rep for begin good to begin with. It just doesn't do anything right for a regular story and messes up what makes a harem manga good too, besides the fanservice. So honestly the only way for me to recommend this is if you're really only here for those uncovered nipples.

I liked To LOVE-Ru because it neither failed nor exceeded my expectations. I took it for what it was, a comedic ecchi harem, and nothing more. And I wasn't disappointed in the ending, like I was with Ichigo 100%. Story: 4 The story was more of a distraction (and at best a complementary element) to the overall read. It got pretty crazy and beyond explanation most of the time, but it wasn't anything I got upset over. However, if you want a manga with a good plot, you might wanna skip this one. Art: 9 The art style made this manga for me. The extremely well-drawn characters scenesthey were put into fit very nicely into this genre. The ecchi drawings also fit in nicely too, not crossing that invisible line but providing quite a bit of fanservice. Character: 7 Character development wasn't amazing, but it held its own. Although I thought the development between Haruna and Riko was entertaining (one of my favorites to date), some of the supporting characters were a bit lacking in quality. Overall though, it didn't ruin the mood of the manga for me. Enjoyment: 8 As I said before, I took this manga for what it was. I came into this with low expectations and came out lightly surprised. This is an ecchi harem, don't expect too much. Overall: 8 I can confidently say that this manga isn't as bad as you might think from a first glance. The story is ridiculous and absurd, the art is fantastic, and everything else is exactly what you'd expect from a harem. If your still not sure about giving this a go, I would recommend that you just dive in. I had been avoiding reading this one for a while because of some reviews that I read. But I think if you go into this with low expectations, it can be quite enjoyable. I'll end with this metaphor... Don't expect a knock-out homerun, but this standup double will do just fine.

I watched the anime for To Love Ru back in 2015, and now, two years after, I decided to pick up the manga so that I can take a look at the next sequel before it becomes an anime. And I have to say, I'm ashamed I didn't pick this up before. The anime was good, but the manga is also very good. The art style is great and the story is well worked. Each character has their development and we see how and why everyone got into the harem. It's a bit short for a review, but I don't think I need to say anything else.I highly recoment this manga if you like this types of story. The anime and manga have their diferences, but I think that both versions really work well.