Rating: 
Summary: Welcome to Hinata House
Review: "Did you know if two people who love each other go to Tokyo University, they'll live happily ever after?" That's what an unknown girl tells young four-year old Keitaro Urashima while they're playing. She kisses him and before running off, tells him that they need to go to Tokyo U.
Fifteen years later, Keitaro is struggling at a prep school, being a ronin-someone who didn't pass his college entrance exam-for two years. He decides to look up his grandmother, who owned a hotel, to see if he could stay there. However, due to accidental circumstances that are both unintentional and due to his clumsiness, he nearly gets lynched by a group of girls, one of whom he sees naked in a hot spring. Fortunately, his aunt, Haruka, comes to his rescue. It seems that his grandmother has gone off on holiday and turned it into Hinata House, a dorm room for high school girls. A small lie on his part, that he's trying to get into Tokyo U. turns into the misconception that he's already at Tokyo U's law program, which gains him the respect of the girls.
He is found out and is forced to leave, only to find out his grandmother has legally entrusted him with Hinata House, making him landlord! This is a dream come true for Kei, surrounded by five pretty girls. However, they plan to get rid of him by overworking him. Plus his clumsiness leads to circumstances that really gets his foot deep in. For example, despite being warned against anything perverted, such as peeping on them (which he wasn't in the first place), the railing he's leaning against breaks. His fall is broken by a branch, but that breaks and he falls splash into the hot springs, where all the girls happen to be bathing. And it's just one disaster after another with him, which doesn't help his standing any.
Poor Kei tries to get his act together, studying at his prep school so he can get into Tokyo U. So far, the guy's got nothing going for him. He's not smart, handsome, or athletic. And his tenants are determined to give him the hardest of times. Foremost of his detractors is the long-haired, pretty but studious Naru Narusegawa. She can't stand him, but she does reluctantly help him study, as he discovers she's attending the same prep school as he is. The tallest and the most vicious is the black-haired Aoyama, an expert at kendo (Japanese stick fighting). Kaolla Su is a darker-complexioned foreign student of undetermined origin. And the short-haired Mitsune Konno, nicknamed Kitsune (fox in Japanese) is also dead set on getting rid of Kei. The 12-year old Shinobu, however, initially looks up to him, that is until she discovers the truth, and being at the age where she takes lies very personally, ends up hating him. Kei's attempts to help her end up in more disasters. Remembering her birthday seems to help, until...
The question thus remains, can Keitaro remain landlord of Hinata House without Naru or Aoyama killing him? And will he ever find that first love of his after all these years? As I just got started on this series, I don't know on the first. As for the second, I sure hope he does.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent in Every way!
Review: Keitaro Urashima is trying to get into Tokyo University, the most prestigious college in Japan, because of a childhood promise. Unfortunately, he doesn't quite have the smarts, so he's failed twice and is studying to take it a third time (and doing horribly). His parents are sick of it, so they kick him out of the house. He goes to seek refuge at his grandmother's hotel, but he doesn't know it has been converted into an all-girl's dorm. So, through a series of misunderstandings and unfortunate events, he becomes manager to a group of girls who hate him, overwork him, and think he's a pervert.
"Love Hina" was originally intended to be filler for a weekly shounen manga anthology, meant only to run until they could find something better to use up the space. Somehow, it managed to run long enough to take up 14 full graphic novels and was popular enough to spawn a twenty-four episode TV show, an OAV series, and a music video. The reason it did so is obvious: "Love Hina" succeeds in so many ways.
The premise is a familiar one: a hapless college student (or ronin...or high school student...) somehow stumbles into a situation in which he is surrounded by a bunch of gorgeous girls. More shounen series than I can count have the same basic plotline. Some, like "Hanaukyo Maid Tai" are thinly disguised excuses for fan service. Others, such as the "Tenchi" saga, "Oh My Goddess!" or "Saber Marionette" have genuine heart and sincerity. Love Hina, fortunately, falls into the latter category. While fan service abounds, there are many more reasons to read besides that. Keitaro is a genuinely goodhearted person, as are the residents of the Hinata.
Speaking of which, that's another thing done right in the series. Each character has their flaws and strengths, and is all-around endearing. Keitaro is a nice but chronically unlucky protagonist. He means well, but he just does so many things by accident that he's labeled a pervert. Those labels are justified, but completely inaccurate. Of course, the residents of the dorm are all fun and interesting. There's Naru Narusegawa, the pretty but slightly dorky girl with a violent streak; Mitsune Konno, a tricky, voluptuous and rather lazy woman whose nickname "Kitsune" comes from more than her fox face; Shinobu Maehara, a sweet, somewhat shy junior high schooler with excellent housekeeping skills; Motoko Aoyama, a boy-hating high school kendo master; and Suu Kaolla, a strange, foreign child genius with an endless arsenal of strange inventions. Like everything else about the series, each starts as a stock character, an anime staple. If you look at them and think about it, chances are you will be able to think of at least two other similar characters. However, each is developed so that they become truly endearing and seem like someone you might know in real life. Naru actually reminds me of myself. I found myself rooting for each in their personal struggles and I sympathized strongly with them.
Of course, characters aren't the only thing that makes this series work. From beginning to end, it is laugh out loud hilarious. Keitaro's misinterpretation of certain actions on the part of the girls (especially Kitsune) and chronic bad luck land him and the others in several comedic situations. But of course, comedy isn't the only thing. As I have said before, there is a great deal of character development, plus plenty of emotional moments that should keep shoujo fans happy as well (or at least this one). The story is mostly episodic in nature and you can jump around without much trouble. Nevertheless, there is a story and when read in order, each episode lends itself to further your understanding of the story and its characters.
All in all, "Love Hina" is an excellent series for something for most. Being shounen, it caters to fanboys with fan service, ecchi humor, and cute girls. But for everyone else, there is an interesting plot, fun characters, lovely art, and a story you can truly invest yourself in.
Rating:
Summary: Love Hina Forever
Review: An inspirational and well thought out romantic comedy, about a geek and the women who all fall for him. Loved it. Gives geeks of the world hope. Favorite Manga Series of all time! Though Mr. Akamatsu hasn't made many hits since.
Rating:
Summary: 14 Volumes Of Hard-Working Silliness
Review: At the beginning of Ken Akamatsu's fourteen-volume *manga* (Japanese
comic) LOVE HINA, we meet Keitaro Urashima, a high-school graduate who
has flunked the entrance exams for Tokyo University -- Tokyo Daigaku,
the "ToDai", Japan's most prominent university -- and has become a
"ronin", an old term originally meaning a "masterless samurai" and now
meaning a "student who is cramming to take his entrance exams again."
Welcome to Nippon's "examination hell". Unfortunately, our hero Keitaro just doesn't seem to be ToDai material
-- he's just not all that sharp. But he is determined to do it,
because when he was very little he made a promise with a little
girlfriend he knew that they would go to the ToDai together, and he
will bend heaven and earth to keep that promise. (Now if he could
only figure out just who that girl was ... ) Discouraged, thrown out of his house by his parents, he goes to the
inn run by his grandmother, Hinata House, in the Tokyo metropolitan
area, only to find that it has become a girl's dormitory. After a
violent collision with the residents (a sign of things to come) he
learns that his grandmother has gone on a world tour and left
instructions that he is to run the place. Now Keitaro has to deal with the females of Hinata House: suspicious
martial arts master Motoko; manipulative and sexy Kitsune; sweet
little adolescent Shinobu; crazy genius exchange student Kaolla Su;
and last but not least, pretty but violent Naru, who is also trying to
get into the ToDai and willing, if somewhat reluctantly, to help that
"clumsy pervert" Keitaro get in as well. Alas, although Keitaro is
not really a pervert he *is* clumsy, with a nasty tendency to walk
in on the girls at the unluckiest times, or trip and accidentally grab
onto, say, a halter top and rip it off. They punch him into orbit. OK, as windy as that is, it sets up the scenario for LOVE HINA,
bringing the roller-coaster to the top of the lift hill for a
14-volume wild ride. A lot of anime and manga that tries to be funny
falls flat because the writers don't know how to let go, but Ken
Akamatsu doesn't have that problem. LOVE HINA takes its cue from Matt Groenig's (of SIMPSONS fame) little
bit about "romance is doomed to failure because men are stupid and
women are crazy." In LOVE HINA, the men are definitely stupid, the
women are definitely crazy, and they act out parts in a wildly
elaborate story consisting of a racy soap opera with all the wonderful
skewed logic of Looney Tunes and the harmless brutality of the Three
Stooges. Whether you like this sort of thing depends on how much you enjoy
sheer silliness, and I suppose on your level of tolerance of a great
deal of "fan service" -- *manga* slang for gratuitous skin, racy
lingerie, a little bondage here and there, and so on. LOVE HINA
almost seems to parody fan service, and there are some scenes that go
over the edge into crude and crass. However, though I find gratuitous sex in stories irritating, in this
case it all seems to work perfectly well and is in fact central to the
humor. The fan service, though extensive, is soft-touch, and if this is a
sex farce, it's sex of the clumsy, adolescent,
I-could-just-die-of-humiliation kind, relationships resembling "a
three-legged giraffe on a tightrope." Besides, in the end this is
still a romance; True Love Conquers All, even the gross clumsiness of
the players, and in being wildly silly it tells the story much more
believably than if it had tried to play it straight and suffocated
the reader in mush. Underneath all the silliness and fan service,
LOVE HINA has a lot of heart. As far as the artwork is concerned -- though it's nothing
ultra-sophisticated, there's no particularly need for that in a farce
like this, and it fits the flavor of the series. Incidentally, VIZ
Comix retains Japanese layout conventions in the volumes, though
reading "backwards" through the books really doesn't amount to much
trouble. The translation also retains some Japanese vocabulary --
Shinobu calls Keitaro "sempai", which sort of translates as "honored
surrogate big brother" -- but it's no bother either, and gives the
story some of its charm. Like I said, this is the sort of thing that you will like if you enjoy
complete, hard-working silliness. If you do, with over 100 episodes
in the series, you get all that you want and then some. At the end, I
wanted the cast to all come out and make a bow. Of course the stage
would then collapse on top of them ... Incidentally, an anime (video) series was also made of LOVE HINA, and
I checked out one of the volumes. It's actually not that far off the
*manga* series, with much the same humor though the plot is
rearranged. If you're into anime you'll probably like it. My
feelings about anime are mixed and I thought it gave too much away to
anime conventions to match the manga. Somehow, I think it would be best
done as a musical comedy.
Rating:
Summary: Only the beginning to a manga series worth owning
Review: Buy this book, and you'll be hooked before you finish the first chapter. It's a romantic comedy, so it suits the likings of many people, although people who aren't fans of romantic mangas/shows will probably really get into the romantic part of the story. If you're a fan of reading, you'll probably enjoy this more than the tv show since the characters have much more depth to them and much more is explained and added to the story. The manga also has an important part that fans that only watch the tv show will seriously be missing out on which is an actual ending to the story. The tv series (which is based on the manga) never really gets finished, only ending somewhere around book 11 or 12 of the manga...which has 14 volumes all together. That's 400 more pages for an ending which is the equivalent of an hour or an hour and half (possibly more) of animation anime viewers will be missing out on, plus much more within pages of the other books in the series. In addition to that, the mangas 11 and 12 are done much better in the books than in the series, so consider this the better buy. Don't get me wrong, I bought the entire series and loved every minute of it, not regretting one penny I spent. It's almost a completely different experience due to many changes in various parts, although the main story remains the same. If you enjoyed one, the other is a must buy...so get ready to spend a lot of money.
Rating:
Summary: A great romance story disguised as a comedy
Review: Don't get me wrong, this series is one of the funniest that I've read and I plan on buying the anime soon. It kinda reminds me of the Tenchi Muyo animes, another of my favorite animes. Even though it's full of humor, some which people might not get right away because of cultural differences, it's a love story at heart. Don't get me wrong, I like my Gundam and other action mangas, but this is a great story. I do think that the sexual themes kinda go overboard sometimes, but it's not really that bad because it plays within the humor. Many people can really relate to the characters. I really like mangas because the stories can really be fun and full of action, yet deep and heartfelt. If only Hollywood would take pointers from animes, instead of all that ... they churn out every year. This manga series is no exception. If you're looking for a good manga, I would definitely recommend this one to anyone. It's a really entertaining comedy with a deep love plot in it.
Rating:
Summary: AMAZING!!!
Review: Get ready for the best comedy manga ever, the first in this revolutionary series by Ken Akamatsu. This relatively down to earth story is about a nineteen year old, second year ronin (someone who has failed to pass the entrance exams to a university) who is attempting to get into Tokyo university, one of the most prestigious colleges in Japan. Why trouble himself with such a difficult feat you ask? Well when he was younger, about four, he made a promise with his girlfriend that when they got older they would go there together because everybody says that any couple that goes to Tokyo University so that they will live happily ever after. Now back to the present. Keitaro (the boys name) goes to his grandmother's hotel/spa the Hinata House. When he gets there however he discovers that it has become a girls dorm! To make matters worse he gets a letter from his traveling grandmother. This letter includes the deed to the Hinata House. So now that he owns it he has to balance his studying while simultaneously taking care of the girls. That of which include a samurai, an over exuberant foreigner, a twenty year old alcoholic, and many others (...). All of the characters in this novel have their own unique little quirks that the poor old Keitaro has to deal with. This is possibly the strongest point of the story, how the characters develop through the tale and how their designs are all contradictory to each other. This helps you to relate to at least one person in the book. Another great part of Love Hina is the artwork. Ken Akamatsu gives a great sense of detail in each drawing. Anybody can tell what the environments and the people would look like in real life just by Ken's astounding artwork. One more thing that I admire about the book is the originality of the plot. Never before have I heard of a nineteen-year-old boy taking over a place under such circumstances. All of these are just the main points of the story. Every thing else that you can possibly think of has been revised and fine-tuned to a point where it's somewhat difficult to find a flaw. This is the best manga and quite possibly the best book that I have ever read (about one hundred mangas in the past year alone. I can't wait to read the rest of the series. If everyone and get past the frequent sexual references (and most of us can) (...). So just go to you're local bookstore and flip through it. Not recommended for children under 10 years of age or any body that has not had the talk abut the birds and the bees. All opinions expressed in the book Love Hina are that of the author. Amazon.com cannot be held in contempt for any views that this book expresses.
Rating:
Summary: Perversions of an Otaku
Review: I believe this series was created for nothing more than so its mangaka could read all the hentai doujin that came from it. The manga is very fun to read until the 11th book when he has obviously warped the story and characters to fit his sexual fantasies. Be warned; the guy who made this is nothing more than a pathetic pervert and the anime of this series is complete garbage.
Rating:
Summary: A Truly Impressive Manga
Review: I didn't really start to follow "Love Hina" until my friend pointed it out to me in the stores. From here I began to pick up my first book and was absolutely astounded. The hilarity of the series and enjoyable story really is the basis that keeps me inside the "Love Hina" fanbase for so long. It follows the crazy antics of Keitaro Urashima, who, after failing the entrance exams to Tokyo University for the second time, seeks refuge in his grandmother's hotel, Hinata House. Little does he know that now the entire place has turned into a GIRL'S DORMITORY, and now he's got to survive the poundings, punches and pinches (not to mention screams) of the five beautiful girls who live there! A childhood promise and unlikely (okay, very likely) romance ensues in this wonderful series that definitely deserves your attention.
Rating:
Summary: Love Hina Book1
Review: I found this book very fun to read and if your looking for a good manga Love Hina is the book for you. This book has comady and romance and is a real page turner. So here is some advice BUY IT!
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