Love Hina ~TV Series~ DVD

Keitaro Urashima made a promise when he was very young — to a girl whose name he can no longer remember — that they would both get into Tokyo University together and find happiness there. It has become the organizing principle of his life. The problem is that he has failed the entrance exam twice, has no real direction, and has just been evicted from his apartment. His solution is to take up his grandmother's offer of free lodging at her property — which turns out to be the Hinata Inn, an all-female dormitory whose residents are not informed of the new male manager's arrival and who express their objections physically. The residents include Naru Narusegawa, a brilliant and short-tempered ronin student also aiming for Tokyo U who immediately assumes the worst of Keitaro at every possible opportunity; Motoko Aoyama, a kendo practitioner from a sword-wielding clan who considers Keitaro a walking moral offense; Mitsune Konno, a former journalist who drinks too much and finds the situation endlessly entertaining; Shinobu Maehara, a gentle first-year student whose feelings for Keitaro are immediately obvious to everyone except Keitaro; and Kaolla Su, a hyperenergetic foreign princess who builds mecha in her spare time and has no concept of personal space.

Love Hina is a 24-episode romantic comedy series produced by Xebec and directed by Yoshiaki Iwasaki, based on Ken Akamatsu's enormously popular manga serialized in Weekly Shonen Magazine. It aired on TV Tokyo from April to September 2000 and became one of the defining harem romantic comedies of its era — commercially dominant in Japan, where the television DVDs sold over one million copies and set consecutive number-one chart positions, and enormously influential in North America where it arrived during the peak of the early 2000s anime boom.

The series was one of the first anime productions created entirely with digital ink and paint, giving it a clean, consistent visual quality throughout.

Megumi Hayashibara performs both the opening theme "Sakura Saku" and the closing theme "Kimi Sae Ireba."

Released in North America by Bandai Entertainment across six DVD volumes from February to November 2002; later collected in the Love Hina Anime Legends Complete Collection (2006) and reissued by FUNimation (2009). 

Notable Staff & Voice Talent

Director: Yoshiaki Iwasaki
Original Manga: Ken Akamatsu (serialized in Weekly Shonen Magazine, Kodansha)
Series Composition: Sho Aikawa
Character Design: Makoto Uno
Studio: Xebec (Nadesico, Dual!, Sorcerer Hunters, Pilot Candidate)
Music: Shinkichi Mitsumune
Opening Theme: "Sakura Saku" by Megumi Hayashibara
Ending Theme: "Kimi Sae Ireba" by Megumi Hayashibara

Japanese Cast:
• Yuji Ueda as Keitaro Urashima (Rurouni Kenshin, Mahoromatic Something More Beautiful)
• Yui Horie as Naru Narusegawa (Kurogane Communication, Love Hina Again)
• Masayo Kurata as Motoko Aoyama (Steel Angel Kurumi)
• Junko Noda as Shinobu Maehara
• Yuu Asakawa as Kaolla Su
• Reiko Takagi as Mutsumi Otohime
• Yumiko Kobayashi as Kentaro Sakata (Pilot Candidate)
• Megumi Hayashibara as Haruka Urashima (Slayers, Evangelion, Gestalt, Tenchi in Love)

English Dub Cast (Bandai Entertainment):
• Derek Stephen Prince as Keitaro Urashima (Ninja Cadets, Love Hina Again)
• Dorothy Elias-Fahn as Naru Narusegawa (Rurouni Kenshin, Mahoromatic, Steel Angel Kurumi)
• Bridget Hoffman as Shinobu Maehara (Mahoromatic, Nightwalker, Fushigi Yugi)
• Barbara Goodson as Mitsune Konno (Love Hina Christmas Special, Tenchi Movie 2)
• Wendee Lee as Haruka Urashima (El-Hazard, Tenchi Universe, Gestalt)
• Sandy Fox as Kaolla Su (Ninja Cadets, Knights of Ramune, Steel Angel Kurumi)
• Steve Blum as Seta (Cowboy Bebop, Mahoromatic, Love Hina Again)

DVD Features

• Bandai Entertainment Previews
• Note: Series produced entirely with digital ink and paint — one of the first anime to do so

Spoken Languages: English & Japanese Audio, English Subtitles

Edition Details

Japanese Title: ラブひな (Rabu Hina)
Runtime: ~600 Minutes (Complete TV Series, 24 Episodes)
Director: Yoshiaki Iwasaki
DVD Release Year: 2002 (U.S. Release, individual volumes February–November 2002); Anime Legends Complete Collection 2006; FUNimation reissue 2009
Original Broadcast Date (Japan): April 19 – September 27, 2000 (TV Tokyo)
Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (original); FUNimation Entertainment (2009 reissue)
Rating: 16+
Region: Region 1 (U.S. / Canada)
Genre: Romantic Comedy, Harem
Themes: Tokyo University Promise, All-Female Dormitory, Accidental Male Manager, Childhood Sweetheart Mystery, Early 2000s Anime Boom Defining Series

Media assumed VG+ unless otherwise noted.