Girls, girls, girls!

Love Hina’s packaging really puts emphasis on where your attention should be in the series—on all the lovely residents of the Hinata household. Seriously, you see Keitaro in the packaging all of twice (once on the front cover of the second box and once on the inside of the first). Most of the illustrations are of the cast in casual clothes, but then you have the entire suggestive fan service elements that pop up throughout. The main box’s cover is a bit enticing with the Hinata girls in busty shirts (except for poor flat Koala Su) and low-cut skirts, but take the thin cases out and peek just to the interior. Why, hello there naked Naru and Kitsune! Those two barely concealed images present the theme of the actual art on each DVD facing, except for the shy Shinobu who is (thankfully) in undies. Did I mention this sort of pandering put Ken Akamatsu to the top of fan service charts? Aside from the pretty blatant servicing, the actual layout and design of the packaging is refreshingly simple. The two thin cases that house the four-disc set have front and inside illustrations on the jackets, and on the interior jackets there are episode listings for the DVDs. The menus are nothing spectacular. They feature the same art from the main slip box and the same layout design as the interior of the DVD cases. The Japanese voices are superb, featuring such high-end voice talents as Megumi Hayashibara (the Japanese actress for Lina Inverse). But not only that, the English cast is pretty darn good, too, and seems to fit the characters fairly well.

Less servicing, more advertising.

The extras, which are located all the way on disc four, aren’t much to look at. You get textless versions of the opening and ending songs, which are pretty much standard for any anime DVD these days. You also get a small host of Funimation trailers. Normally, I don’t pay much mind to them, but this time was different. This time there is an entirely new list of anime to see previews for (with a couple of exceptions) and it’s actually entertaining to see previews for new shows. The complete list of trailers are as follows: Negima, One Piece, The Wallflower, Paniponi Dash!, D.Gray-man, Save Me! Lollipop, Sasami, and Rumbling Hearts. However, it is a nice reprieve from fan service.

Will the wackiness ever end?!

With this series, not likely. Love Hina has become definitive for its anime genre since the late 1990’s and as you watch this DVD set you see why. It plays heavily with the hormones of its followers, it has a strong romantic undercurrent that can suck in any romantically inclined viewer, it has comedy in spades, and it has giant mecha turtles! What else could you possibly want from an anime? The extra content isn’t much to make a fuss over, but when you consider you just bought an entire series of anime in one blow it really does outshine that minor detail. Love Hina is Ken Akamatsu’s greatest series, but viewers beware—it’s a series that will give you repetitive stress disorder all the way till the end as you share in all of poor Keitaro’s frustrations.