Final Impressions / First Impressions / To LOVE-Ru

「ララ」 (Rara)
“Lala”

Episode at a Glance:
Making his way towards Gid’s spaceship, Rito is left wondering if it’s okay for him to be helped, but Saruyama doubts that anyone’s going to criticize Rito about this unreasonable game. Yui on the other hand is surprised she’s doing something this reckless and is envious of how Lala has a “prince on a white horse” type of hero, so she tells Rito to make sure that he makes it to the goal. The road in front of them is then suddenly destroyed, but Saki, Aya, and Rin come along in a small chopper and offer to help. Onboard the spaceship, Lala wants to leave and help Rito, but Gid orders her to stay, claiming it’s her duty as the imperial princess. With everyone uncomfortably stuffed inside the chopper, Saki reveals that her motivation for helping Rito is because she feels beating Gid is akin to beating Lala. Their chopper is then bombarded with attacking spores causing them to crash, but Yami comes along and bails everyone out, claiming that she’ll be the one that kills Rito.

Meanwhile, Risa and Mio drag Haruna out to help Rito as well, so the three of them take off in Ren’s futuristic, transforming, space taxi. Forced to proceed on foot, Rito’s group soon runs into a clothes dissolving, female molesting slime, which Yami decides to help out with. With everyone stalling the slime so that Rito can continue on, Gid takes notice of Rito’s judgment, guts, and number of friends he has willing to risk their lives for him. Lala is only concerned about her friends though, so Gid reveals that the slime won’t endanger their lives and that the purpose of this game is to make Rito an example for others. Nearing the spaceship, Rito gets paralyzed by spore gas that causes him to fantasize about Lala and Haruna calmly having their way with him. While Rito suspects that this is a dream, he’s overwhelmed by the thought of having both girls to himself and slowly gets sucked into the delusion.

Outside in the real world, Lala and Haruna call out for Rito, which brings him to his senses and makes him realize what he has to do. With everyone cheering him on, Rito manages to make it to the goal just before sunset, where Lala tearfully greets him. Having acknowledged him as the greatest man in the universe, Gid instantly gets Rito to marry Lala, but Rito is hesitant about it with Haruna on his mind. Realizing this, Lala lies about it being a problem with her –- how she wouldn’t be happy marrying Rito without taking his feelings into account –- and annuls the marriage engagement. This comes as a shock to Gid, since the repercussions of annulling a Deviluke engagement would require the destruction of the Earth, but Lala explains that she’ll erase everyone’s memories of her with her Bye Bye Memory device. Despite everyone’s protests, Lala tearfully tells Rito that she knew he’s the nicest person on Earth all along and that she loves him, before pulling the trigger.

At school sometime later, Lala transfers into Rito’s class as a new student, but quickly finds out that her device didn’t work. With everyone welcoming her back as if nothing happened, Lala starts tearing up in relief. Rito then tries to tell Haruna how he feels about her, but she simply stops him with a smile. Unable to hold back the tears any longer, Lala jumps into Rito’s arms.

 

Epilogue:

Impressions:
For a final episode to a series that started off well but quickly lost wind in the middle, I would say that it was a lot better than I was expecting. First off, they brought in the entire cast at some point (including Ren and Run this time!), plus had everyone get involved with helping Rito. To me, this is almost a necessity for a two season series with a cast this large. Next up, they gave us the obligatory fan service in the form of some alien slime bondage, which admittedly comes off as a form of tentacle rape, but will surely please those with such fetishes. (Yui is looking particularly good there in my opinion…) In an unexpected turn of events, the finale also gave us a glimpse at the potential harem ending that everyone pretty much figured wouldn’t happen. While it was only a delusion Gid placed on Rito to test him, I can’t help but wonder how many guys out there would be able to resist this kind of predicament. That’s right Rito, you keep your hands down there!

While nothing was really resolved in the (26 episode) long run between Rito, Lala, and Haruna, I can’t imagine anyone expecting some closure from a harem anime. It’s usually the angst of the ongoing perverted interactions that this genre revolves around, so having any form of serious closure would only defeat that purpose. With that said, I was happy to see them add some drama the best they could, with Rito’s valiant struggle to the finish line backed by everyone cheering him on being one of the most prominent. The other of course being Lala deciding to erase everyone’s memories on Earth about her existence and trying to win over Rito anew. With Lala so serious about her decision that it even shocked Gid (mainly due to the repercussions of annulling a Deviluke marriage), I was naturally taken back a bit by it as well. It’s almost as if Gid didn’t want to see the Earth destroyed after he just acknowledged Rito as the greatest man in the universe, so I really wasn’t really fond of that idea either. Of course, it would be simply wrong to end on such a depressing note, so let’s all be glad that Lala’s inventions never work for a change! I know Lala is.

 

Final Impressions:
While To LOVE-Ru was met with a lot of opposition when it first started airing, I found it as an ample opportunity to try and show the other side of harem anime. i.e. The simple realization that it’s meant to be kind of idiotic, comedic, ecchi, but most of all fun. Keeping those goals in mind, this genre never aspires to be overly profound with its plot, so if you come in with unreasonable expectations, you’ll undoubtedly leave disappointed. Evidently, lack of a thick plot turns some viewers away instantly, as does any signs of a series being overly fan-service, but there are a lot of people out there who enjoy their To LOVE-Rus with their CODE GEASSes and Macross Frontiers—myself included. In a real world analogy, if you go into McDonald’s expecting a gourmet burger, you’ll probably end up giving up on fast food chains altogether. However, if you look at McDonald’s for what it is, you may find that it’s pretty good in moderation. Much like our diet, I find that having a well-balanced selection of anime to watch really helps diversify one’s tastes and opens one’s mind to the other shows out there. When everything’s seen in the broader sense, one might even grow to like a genre they usually simply disregarded without giving it a chance.

With that said, there is of course varying degrees of quality within a genre so I’m not advocating To LOVE-Ru in particular here. In fact, I was disappointed with how several episodes were completely devoid of the love triangle between the main characters. While I don’t mind that the anime strayed completely from the manga, I wish it focused a bit more on the love triangle theme rather than the new aliens they kept introducing week after week. Because of this, I almost wish they took the good portion of the series and compressed the number of episodes down to a single season instead of dragging it out for two. However, unlike a lot of people though, I actually didn’t mind the Saruyama-centric episodes, as I found him rather amusing being played by Yoshino Hiroyuki (Allelujah Haptism in Gundam 00, Treize in Allison & Lillia). To me, he was sort of the unsung hero in the series as he was always openly perverted, but never really acted on those urges despite being the only other male close to Rito’s harem.

Looking back, I felt that this series had a lot of potential (which is why I was pretty excited about it after reading the synopsis), but fell short in terms of what I was hoping for from a harem anime. It did have its moments though, but unfortunately the inconsistent quality of the content week to week had my anticipation of each new episode declining. We can’t expect every harem anime to turn out into a Love Hina, so to be objective about it, I would say that the series was “fun” but by no means “great”. I did like it more than Kanokon though, which started airing at the same time. If anyone has checked out the DVD versions of Kanokon, you can see exactly what kind of show they were going for, so To LOVE-Ru was a much better series in comparison.

Overall, it’s been fun covering To LOVE-Ru (with some weeks being a lot more fun than others), so if nothing else, I hope you enjoyed all the ecchi screenshots I included. =P

 

Cast:
– Yuuki Rito (結城 梨斗) / Watanabe Akeno (渡辺 明乃)
– Lala Satalin Deviluke (ララ・サタリン・デビルーク) / Tomatsu Haruka (戸松 遥)
– Sairenji Haruna (西連寺 春菜) / Yahagi Sayuri (矢作 紗友里)
– Gid Lucione Deviluke (ギオ・ルシオン・デビルーク) / Nakamura Hidetoshi (中村 秀利)
– Zastin (ザスティン) / Koyasu Takehito (子安 武人)
– Saruyama (猿山) / Yoshino Hiroyuki (吉野 裕行)
– Tenjouin Saki (天条院 沙姫) / Kawasumi Ayako (川澄 綾子)
– Momioka Risa (籾岡 里沙) / Yuzuki Ryouka (柚木 涼香)
– Sawada Mio (沢田 未央) / Chiba Chiemi (千葉 千恵巳)
– Kotegawa Yui (古手川 唯) / Nadzuka Kaori (名塚 佳織)
– Ren/Run (レン／ルン) / Ooura Fukuya (大浦 冬華)
– Peke (ペケ) / Arai Satomi (新井 里美)
– Konjiki no Yami (金色の闇) / Fukuen Misato (福圓 美里)
– Mikado Ryouko (御門 涼子) / Jou Masako (城 雅子)
– Yuuki Mikan (結城 美柑) / Hanazawa Kana (花澤 香菜)
– Kujou Rin (九条 凛) / Hashimoto Mai (橋本 まい)
– Fujisaka Aya (藤崎 綾) / Mizuhashi Kaori (水橋 かおり)
– Honekawa-sensei (骨川先生) / Asou Tomohisa (麻生 智久)

43 Comments

  1. ha it was not the same as the manga, but it ended like it Ch 48 in the manga, although i with that they would have showed chapter 49 parts of it at least in the ending credits.. u know the Iruveu part.would have been great…, still i guess i liked it cause all i wanted to do is see Lala.

    Chimasternmay
    Reply

  8. Out-Code:
    I would probably say this weekend, as Omni’s been busy working on it every chance he gets. He’s doing all the writing for it and I’ve been only helping out with odds and ends (PVs, editing, etc). As for blogging the entire list, I would say that’s highly unlikely. 😛

    divine
    Reply

  9. the ending is similar to chapter 48 and chapter 49. there might be season 2 of this series as soon as the manga finished.

    thnx so much divine for putting a summary for this type of anime show. I’m one of those people that got tired watching of so many mech series. I’m a person that likes to have some laugh while watching these types of show.

    bigger_is_better
    Reply

  11. quote/
    so if you come in with unreasonable expectations, you’ll undoubtedly leave disappointed. Evidently, lack of a thick plot turns some viewers away instantly, as does any signs of a series being overly fan-service, but there are a lot of people out there who enjoy their To LOVE-Rus with their CODE GEASSes and Macross Frontiers—myself included. In a real world analogy, if you go into McDonald’s expecting a gourmet burger, you’ll probably end up giving up on fast food chains altogether. However, if you look at McDonald’s for what it is, you may find that it’s pretty good in moderation.
    /quote

    What turn ppl away is not that we expect a gourmet burger but because the manga is so much more enjoyable to read and watch, and when you got a great manga and some idiot decide to turn it into an anime, I think everyone of us manga reader expect them to follow the manga storyline for what is worth, but when they make it into some anime original and mess the whole thing up, then it is doing such a great manga no justice. Remember how kick ass Claymore was the first 20 episode when they were follow closely with the manga or the recently SEKIREI, viewer enjoy these anime because they follow the manga very closely but once Claymore episode 21 comes and start doing original stuff, I totally skip watching it all together, even to this day I still have not watch Claymore episode 21-26 because I refuse to trash my precious memories that I have from the manga storyline with this garbage anime original. So same instance for To-Love-Ru, anime is totally garbage and not worth my time. I always feel that if u goner do something, u better do it right or not do it at all, or else you cause more harm than good.

    Tom
    Reply

  15. my only deception was the fact that to love ru is from the same guy who did black cat, and seeing how i loved black cat, i expected a little bit more of action or ability from the characters…………or even maybe a few apparitions…….

    pietro
    Reply

  16. Tom:
    Hmm, I’ll refrain from going into the whole manga-to-anime debate as Natrone already covered it pretty well in his editorial, but I’d like to point out how a lot of people hate an anime that strays from a manga, but those same people don’t seem to mind if they watched the anime first. Now I wonder why that is…

    divine
    Reply

  19. hey divine ya, i like the point u just made… i have experienced what u are talking about too, in the past i only saw the anime, and later on when i read the manga for it i initially thought that man this manga weird and questioned why they change it from the anime and stuff like that and in the end i didn’t seem to mind. And so now days when i have read a manga and an anime comes out for it i like the other do bass it a little sometimes mainly for character changes, but i accept it.

    I guess people who read the manga first and have lots of knowledge in in the anime and manga culture, they develop a ORIGINALITY COMPLEX, as i like to call it; where they only like the Original material and don’t changes to it… basically its like how a certain Party today who don’t like change.

    Chimasternmay
    Reply

  20. @Chimasternmay

    a.k.a. PURISTS….

    Yup, that is what they call us. Those who have read the original story and wants the anime to go the same way. Basically that is why I never really completed negima after Don Hudson presented me with the manga. The manga of TLR was a bit random, as is the anime so I have no complains.

    moondoggiebuiscuit
    Reply

  23. man i was told my senior project Proposal was due at 10 pm today this after noon, its 8pm now, and still now done cause i spent the last 4 and a half hours thing what my research question should be and reading manga ch’rs… sry i just had to let someone know of this…

    waa Lala jumping on Rito and crying was great. sry.

    Chimasternmay
    Reply

  31. Chillpill asked me in ep.25 of episodes similar in To loveRU and Urusei Yatsura.
    I did write an exhaustive message of it
    in ep.25 comments, so if you`re interested, please read it there. That message should be here instead, but it`s too much to write again.

    Kari Manninen
    Reply

  33. with over 100 chapters, To To LOVE-ru “did” have alot of potential to be a top anime…

    but o___o;; sadly, that retarded studio picked it up… they did a fair job (well a pretty nice job) on the art and stuff, but if could have been so much better if then only stuck to the manga plot… >___> didn’t anyone learn from “Black Cat” the anime? The manga was made into the anime for a reason! The plot! (the art is just a bonus) And when they keep and art, and take away the central core (er… the plot I mean) all that’s left is… fanservice… and fail xD

    I wish that Sunrise picked this up. (’cause they did a great job on Gintama so far)

    If only if only…

    AznCoffee
    Reply

  34. So who does Rito really loves? I think he was going to confess to Haruna at the end before she stopped him. And why it the earth not destroyed? Her invention failed and her marriage was annulled with everyone remembering. What happens in the manga at the end? who did Rito picked there?

    xdotx
    Reply

  35. I read the manga, and it’s going to be a never ending cycle of ecchiness and indecision from Rito… though I feel bad that in the manga, Show Spoiler ▼

    If they are going to do an anime that veers from the manga, they better make it original by ending the damn thing! My main complaint isn’t so much that they went down a different route… but that they went down a different route, only to cop-out with a non-resolution ending from the manga — which just feels cheap! I just wish that the anime studio had the guts to make an ending (you take up 11 hours of our lives (of pure watching time — more if you include commercials or download times) but of course, that would prevent them from making a million and one sequels, ovas, etc.

    That being said, even though the manga isn’t going to end soon, I’ll probably still follow it to the end. Same with the anime. I’d probably let them jerk me around (Lala… Yui…) if they make a second season. 😀

    elfboy
    Reply

  37. Chillpill: i meant thet in many episodes have similar ingredients in the plot, while not being exactly like. They`re too many to list everything here, but if we say the situation setup in the school is very like. Lala/Lamu has very confident and free-minded attitude to everyone, all boys in school are charmed by her & very jealous to Rito, Rito/Ataru have still hots for his old flame Haruna/Shinobu, School nurses are very like despite this one being alien doctor instead of shinto miko, Lala/Lamu have somewhat dangerous cooking abilities, both have electrifying bodies, Little dirty old man Pricipal/Buddhist monk Cherry, Lala/Lamu`s father is The King of respective planets, first a small gaki, other giant, Lala/ Lamu have old friends(sexy girls), and enemies which have superpowers from home planet, and so on endlessly. Following eps. have similar ones in UY: 1,3,4,9,10,12,17,19,21,25. Don`t ask me to name eps in UY, but i remember them clearly, and feel when i see them in new form. The staff in ToLOVEru can their stuff.

    Kari Manninen
    Reply

  43. i wish that they extend this into 2nd season and focus on the love triangle of the three, or make it a harem ending like ep. 11
    of school days….and more ecchi content..lol…

    chiken
    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *