Customer Reviews

To Love-Ru: Collection 1

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In 2006, the series "To Love Ru" (which in Japanese "Toraburu" can be read as in English "Trouble") is a manga series by Saki Hasemi ("Moetan", "Pinky:st") and Kentaro Yabuki ("Black Cat", "Yamato Gensouki") was created and is currently featured in Weekly Shonen Jump. In the spring of 2008, Studio I.G. subsidiary Xebec, Inc. (known for working on "Love Hina" and "Martian Successor Nadesico") released a 26-episode anime series which was followed by video game releases for the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.

The anime series has been released in the US courtesy of Sentai Filmworks in Dec. 2009 with a first collection which features the first 13 episodes. "To Love RU" is directed by Takao Kato ("Buson Renkin", "Compiler", "Rockman. EXE Beast") and features a screenplay by Akatsuki Yamatoya ("Blue Dragon", "Digimon Frontier", "Inuyasha", "Fullmetal Alchemist"). Character designs are by Yuichi Ouka (who worked on "Over Drive", "Gurren Lagann", and "R.O.D. - The TV-") and music is by Tsuyoshi Watanabe ("This Ugly Yet Beautiful World", "Moetan").

"To Love RU" is about a teenager named Rito Yuki. Extremely shy and doesn't have many friends, he has always been in love with his classmate Haruna Sairenji but hasn't had the guts to tell her how he feels. Each time he tries, something bad happens. But while taking a bath, he has a dream of Sairenji and feels that he has the guts to finally tell her how he feels.

While Rito is dreaming, immediately a naked well-endowed girl ends up in the bathtub with him. While Rito is dreaming of Sairenji, he ends up grabbing the breasts of the girl in the bathtub and telling her "I love you". Is he dreaming or is it for real? Rito doesn't know what is going on. But while he goes to his bedroom, he realizes the girl is for real and learns that her name is Lala Satalin Deviluke. A girl from the Planet Deviluke and that she is an alien.

Joined by her robot creation Peke (who can change to her clothing or become a weapon), she tells Rito that she is being chased and that she has escaped from them and has ended up on Earth. Immediately, two men show up in Rito's bedroom and tries to take Lala back, in which Rito manages to save her and both escape from the rooftops. Meanwhile, Sairenji sees Rito and Lala running and wonders what is going on.

Meanwhile, a man in armor named Zastin comes to take her back but Rito tries to protect her. Lala uses a special weapon and manages to save herself and Rito but accidentally hurting him.

The following day, Rito can't believe how much trouble Lala has become but Rito is still determined to tell Sairenji how much he loves her no matter what. So, when Rito sees her while on his way to school, he is about to confess his love for her (with his eyes closed) and makes his confession, to find out when he opens his eyes that he has confessed his love to Lala and not Sairenji.

Now, Lala believes that Rito is in love with her and because Rito has proposed to her in Devilluke tradition (grabbing the woman's breast and telling her that he loves her), they are now officially engaged.

Zastin then reveals that he is her protector and that Lala is the princess of Devilluke and both are now engaged to be married. Now Lala has made her residence at Rito's home and expects Rito to be her husband. But Rito is in love with Sairenji, not Lala...what is a powerless, teenage boy going to do?

"To Love RU - Collection 1" features 13 episodes on two DVD's. Here is an episode listing featuring spoiler-less summaries of each episode:

DISC 1:

* EPISODE 1 - The Girl Who Fell From the Sky - Rito and Lala meet for the first time. Meanwhile, Rito wants to confess his love for Sairenji.

* EPISODE 2 - A Broken Engagement!? - While Rito thinks that he has his freedom at school, Lala decides to become a transfer student to become closer with Rito.

* EPISODE 3 - Love Triangle - Rito, his sister Mikan, Lala and Sairenji go to the aquarium together.

* EPISODE 4 - A Love Apron from Outer Space - Rito tries to think of a way to not be engaged and thus after tasting Lala's cooking tells her that he will never marry a person who can't cook. What will Lala do and is Rito free?

* EPISODE 5 - The Queen's Challenge - The richest girl in school Saki Tenjoin is used to guys gawking at her. But when she finds out that all the guys have their eyes on Lala, she challenges Lala in a beauty contest.

* EPISODE 6 - The Alien Assassin - A shapeshifting alien has come to Earth to propose to Lala but when he finds out that Rito has, the alien kidnaps Sairenji.

Disc 2:

* EPISODE 7 - All Men Should Be Like This - Ren Elsie Jewelria, a childhood friend of Lala comes to Earth to prove to her that he is the one for her to marry but he has one major flaw.

* EPISODE 8 - The Prefect of Spotless Integrity - A new student named Kotegawa Yui is tired of the pervertedness at school and wants to clean it up.

* EPISODE 9 - From a Shining Star, With Love - A man in a rocket suit is coming for Lala and tries to attack her.

* EPISODE 10 - A Space Entertainer - The president of the Lala fanclub wants her to make an idol CD.

* EPISODE 11 - Golden Darkness - An assassin named Golden Darkness has been hired to attack Rito.

* EPISODE 12 - A Frightening Field Day! - The perverted principal has a sports festival in which he makes girls do things. Meanwhile, Rito keeps touching Haruna accidentally in perverted ways.

* EPISODE 13 - The Greatest Man in the Universe - Lala's father is planning to visit Earth and find out if Rito is worthy of being a husband to Lala.

VIDEO & AUDIO:

"To Love RU" is presented in 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen. For a television series, the series features a lot of colors and artistic backgrounds feature a good amount of backgrounds from school settings, shopping/city settings, Rito's home, etc. Typically for a TV series from a smaller studio, I don't expect to see so many backgrounds or an over utilization of artwork but XEBEC did a wonderful job in the animation and Yuichi Oka with the character designs. I don't know how close his designs are actually to Kentaro Yabuki and Saki Hasemi's original manga but overall, character design and art backgrounds are well done.

Audio is featured in Japanese 2.0 with English subtitles. Voice acting by the seiyuu are well done as Akeno Watanabe (Taruru of "Sgt. Frog", Jo of "Burst Angel", Chachamaru Kamakuri of "Negima") does the voice of Rito. Haruka Tomatsu (Mileina of "Gundam 00', Misao of "Asura Cryin' 2') does the voice of Lala and Sayuri Yahagi (Chisato of "Sola", Hanaka of "Buso Renkin") as Haruna. Anime is front channel driven but if you have a receiver that allows for stereo on all channels, that was my listening preference.

There is no English dub track in this DVD release of "To Love RU".

SPECIAL FEATURES:

"To Love RU- Collection 1" features Clean Opening and Closing Animation themes and Sentai Filmworks trailers.

JUDGMENT CALL:

I have never heard of "To Love RU" before but after watching the first half of the series, I can tell you that I'm hooked. Each episode, I found myself laughing because of the crazy antics of the show. In some ways, it is reminiscent of "Urusei Yatsura" as a character ends up engaged to an alien. But in this case, Rito is nothing like Ataru (nor is he perverted). But "To Love RU" has its fair share of crazy antics, fan service and yes... nudity. Unlike Lum, Lala doesn't know how Rito feels inside, even though family and friends know that he's gotten himself into a mess.

For Lala, she's not at all to familiar with Earth customs and likes to be in the buff and its those crazy antics that keep you laughing as Rito and his sister try to keep her clothed, you have a high school principal who is very perverted and then you have Rito's classmates who never seen him as anything else but a quiet guy, now being a guy that everyone seems to be spiteful of because he is engaged to a cute alien (but also knowing he likes Haruna).

Whereas a series like "Urusei Yatsura" was further explored through many episodes, films and OVA's, it will be interesting to see how "To Love RU" goes in the second half. Will Rito get married to Lala? Will he find a way to break off his engagement in order to be with the girl he really likes?

As for the DVD release, I wished there were more special features than the clean opening and closing themes and I'm sure there are fans who wish there was an English dub included. But overall, "To Love RU" is a hilarious anime series that I just couldn't stop watching because each episode was very enjoyable. Each episode always had something odd and crazy that the characters are subjected to and for the most part, each episode is so crazy and so far out there, that you can't resist finding out what each episode has in store for them.

If you are looking for a series with comedy, action and fan service, "To Love RU" is the anime series you definitely want to watch! Recommended!

First, this is heavy into fan-service so it's probably not suitable for children.

This is a comedy romance of the boy-stuck-in-the-middle type. It's also sci-fi as the female lead character is a princess from another planet. Regardless of the fan-service it is a GREAT story. It deserved a great dub, but so far it's only subtitled. I look forward to seeing this corrected...

If you are a fan of the manga version, then this is a good DVD to buy. If you're just picking up on the story now, then it probably isn't a good investment. It would be hard to understand and most of the story is different/shortened to fit into 13 episodes. You can see how unpopular it is in America because there is no English Dub, it is in Japanese with English subtitles. Plus, there was next to no promotion for this collection so most people have little knowledge about its history and background.

lol, loved this show, when I started watching it I was in a bad mood, this show took that atmosphere away and put me in a good mood, only down side is the number of episodes, but that's okay, I can get the other half later and this half satisfies me.

While I can understand some reviewers distaste with the anime overall but if you've seen the trailers or some of the episodes online you can pretty much follow what's going to happened at the end of the series as it's a real no brainier when you think about it. I'll give it kudos for the voice cast and animation but the characters really have no development in plot as they seem to have the same characteristics we've seen in other hundreds of anime series done much better. I do want to point out one thing though, there really isn't any rape scenes so much as showing near hentai scenes with the usual tentacles or monsters but stops at the border of going over to the x-rating but just by a thread. I usually don't mind some fan service but when you get a series that over douses us with these kinds of scenes with no good hilarity in between to make it seem more comedic then anything else and just seems to want to show some skin it just becomes a wonder why they didn't just market this as a hentai movie instead. I can't say I despise this anime knowing what it was about for the most part but I just wasn't expecting as much of the near hentai scenes so much as I was expecting a more comedic series. So is this series worth getting?, if you love an overabundance of fanservice with a great deal of nudity and near borderline hentai scenes then yes but for anything else like endearing characters or a decent comedic storyplot then pass this one over

This anime is very funny and the fan-service makes this anime one of the best, even with no dub.

It's just a great & funny anime that has fanservice! What more could u ask for? Highly recommended

I love it love it love it. It is the cute little anime where the characters are greatly drawn (except for the slightly large breasts) basically the whole 26episodes is about a guy named rito who secretly loves this girl in the same class but is too shy to confess to her. Then one day, some cute alien girl named lala who was running away from home, warps into his bathtubs, and the episodes basically introduces one girl at a time and another episode for each of the character of how each one has a feeling for the main protagonist. oh yeah, and the last couple episode is possible end of the world. Watch it if you are between 15-24, you will enjoy it.

if you already seen it, please take your vote in this poll

[...]

what is your favorite character in toloveru

would only take about three clicks :P

thanks

This review was written almost two weeks before the release of the DVDs and the writer did not see the actual boxed product but had seen all the episodes.

There has been another series "To Love-Ru" ('''') reminds me of: Shuffle: The Complete Series Box Set. It is worth checking out reviews on that one too while there are not enough on this one.

Some facts: The whole anime series has 26 episodes plus 4 OVA episodes, so probably this is the first batch of two. (In this review, I'll refer to the whole series and won't limit myself to the first half.) Earlier I found disapproving mothers/fathers reviewing the series Please Twins!: Anime Legends Complete Collection for nudity. Those squeamish late-Victorians will surely be raving mad after seeing even the intro of this one, because "To Love-Ru"'s humour is strongly based on scenes where clothes fall off, are ripped open, or are shredded to pieces. Judging from this, the most probable target audience is young adolescents where this type of jokes sit well.

The basic story line (with some spoiler!): boy (Rito Yuuki) is in love with his beautiful but shy classmate (Haruna Sairenji) but he is too shy to say so. The girl has the same problem. One evening, a (naked) runaway princess (Lala or Rara, '') appears in Rito's bathtub and soon believes that she became engaged to him according to the customs of her planet (Deviluke, BTW she has a cute black devil's tale). Rara is exuberant and full of energy. She stirs up life around Rito and puts the two of them into the centre of attention. After the first episode, there is very little and slow character development on Rito's, Haruna's and Lala's part and none whatsoever in any other character. If you skip a few episodes you do not lose too much. (The main reason why I watched all the episodes was that Shuffle started the same way but took a serious turn during episodes 16-19. But there's nothing of that kind here.) Check out Wikipedia for more details about the series.

The genre: comedy anime, light love triangle, harem anime. Light entertainment.

Evaluation: I cannot imagine that many people would like to see this series more than once. If they had prepared only half as many episodes with a little more focus, the product might have been more fun. But try to watch the first two episodes online and decide for yourself.

Story: A little over average quality. Drawing: cute and cheeky.

This anime has some funny moments, but it doesn't have enough of them to make this anime worth buying. This anime also doesn't have enough character development between the main character, Rito and Haruna the girl that he really loves. This anime needs more funny moments as well as less stupid moments, because it has too much of them. This anime also needs to have more scenes of Rito and the girl that he loves doing romanticthings to each other, this anime also should have more than one ending to sweeten the pie. This anime should also have a hentai version of itself which would be about Rito and all of the girls that he meets all have sex with each other.

Anyway, this anime has it's funny moments but it's more stupid moments than funny ones. This anime also almost ends up trying to spread the same kind of humor that the Magical Play movie spreaded to it's viewers, that is a line that should never be crossed and this anime almost came close to that. Anyway, this anime is optional, it's not really worth checking out unless u want to see a really stupid, romantic comedy anime. 7.5/10