Tis a fortnight before christmas for children old and new And I find myself scrambling for something jolly to review For quite unlike Santa christmas pickings can be slight When youre looking for an anime for your cold winter night Its rare to find an anime with Christmas as its theme And its not just like I can review just one seasonal scene So instead I turn to ecchi home of nosebleeds and pantsu And looking right past Itsudatte mine eyes found Akamatsu A distinctive auteur famous at home and overseas Known for his sprawling narratives plus shots of panties His manga are beloved the treasure of millions of souls Finding millions of hearts and then filling their holes From AI Love You to Negimas sequel UQ Holder It was his second IP that only proved to be bolder Love Hina was silly just a fanservice romp Until the story got going if youll dare take a chomp The characters were deep and fleshed out and real Even if the mad boar Naru can be a breaker of the deal The story was epic with twists and turns galore The investment was worth it it made your heart soar It might not have been perfect but it was still legit And the anime adaptation was a huge piece of shit. Ive reviewed that atrocity but it wont stay behind me For its December my calendar gently reminds me So gather round friends in this time thats most groovy Because Love Hina had to make a fucking Christmas movie. Our story begins in the Hinata dorm Where bizarre silly antics are just kinda the norm We get some exposition and a montage or two And a flashback to some kids talking about Tokyo U You may think a promise between toddlers and a baby Is a weird basis for love as adults in fact its damn crazy But alas theyve all grown to be as awkward as ever And poor Keitaro can neither be called bright nor clever He feels himself stifled and numb to the world As he wonders what to say to the worst of his girls Why is Naru being cold? Are they simply not speaking? Oh well it could be worse he could be due for a beating. Yet all through the house amidst all of this tension Not a creature was stirring save for two chaos gremlins As Kaolla and Sara search the house for some gifts With tape they can cut and lids they can lift All they want is to take just one innocent peak Yet they find something juicy they just have to leak They find a note from Naru and the word love they spy But thats all they could see though its not explained why Nothing was stopping them from reading to completion But they only read one word for no fucking reason But I guess without these two idiots we wouldnt have a plot Although the plot that we got is a plot thats best forgot Keitaro feels depressed so Shinobu breaks the news Then Keitaro breaks his leg sending him right back to the blues. He tells Naru he loves her so she jumps upon a train And the story goes off the rails just like Keitaro off his cane. You may have noticed the animation... Is honestly not that bad The movement onscreen is fluid at the points that really add Xebec must have given this title a little extra money So at least it could look decent while failing to be funny The artwork and direction are pretty poor in exchange But for early 2000s Xebec theres surprisingly little pain I could push this rhyme much farther so I hope you dont feel cheated But the admin has been really strict and I dont want this review to be deleted. So yeah there used to be this really popular manga called Love Hina and it was fairly inescapable in the 2000s. I guess its fair to say that Ken Akamatsus work in general hasnt really held up well going into the 2010s and even less going into the 2020s and I cant say I entirely dont understand why but it is really weird having been at the perfect age for Love Hina when it came out only for nearly Akamatsus entire catalogue to be forgotten by time in the here and now. Even UQ Holder his most recent major work that Im aware of was mostly popular with previous Negima fans and as Negimas fans begin to fade into the ether ironically theyve kinda been dragging UQ Holder with them before its time. In any case I reviewed the Love Hina anime a long time ago back in the days of my old blog and I dont feel entirely like revisiting old material but heres a quick overview... They scrubbed all of the fanservice away despite it being a very PG sort of barebuttsandnothingelse style of fanservice already and the material did not stand very well without that cheeky sensibility as its crutch. The animation was a mixed bag being juggled between one of the best production companiesProduction IG and one of the worstXebec the writing was inane and sloppy and the story was told completely out of order. They added a lot but nothing of any value and the English dub was more miss than hit. The story ended prematurely at what Id like to believe THEY thought would only be the halfpoint and they had to hastily complete their version of the story via several followup OVAs. Each OVA compiled a different part of the later days of the manga into the animated format but I honestly dont remember how much of the Christmas OVA was taken from the manga. I dont know its been at least a decade since Ive read this series but I dont remember any of the direct manga parallels to this OVA. Well thats not exactly true I remember the actual reason Keitaru broke his leg and it was under completely different circumstances so maybe this storyline is original? I dont know if youre reading this and you happen to remember how accurateor not this special is to the source material let me know and because its the season of giving Ill even pretend to care. Our story begins in probably the dumbest way humanly possible. Following the parts I detailed in my poem this series of completely idiotic misunderstanding starts to breed creating more misunderstandings until you have a story about Kaitaro and Naru looking for each other all over Tokyo with more and more idiotic misunderstandings and laughably random encounters keeping them just shy of connecting. Oh and if that plot sounds like youd have to stretch it really thin to reach the 45 minute time stamp it gets stretched even thinner to accommodate the rest of the cast who also have to be involved. Remember the Teen Titans movie Trouble in Tokyo where only one storyline actually mattered so the rest of the cast were each given some stupid bullshit to keep them occupied? This special pretty much does the exact same thing. Kitsune and Shinobu have to make money to get home. Motoko gets groped and gets arrested for hitting the guy. Mutsumi teleports wherever she needs to to spout off cryptic bullshit about the childhood promise. Motoo then runs into some friends who invite her to a party and to my delight she actually nopes the fuck out of this melodramatic clusterfuck to go with them... Only to unfortunately rejoin the main gang later. Remember in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic how in the first few seasons they never felt the need to cram the entire cast into every single story and sometimes youd only get half the cast for an entire episode and everyone was cool with it because it meant the writers didnt need to force any contrived reason for a character to be where they werent needed? That was a good show. I should be watching that instead. The only explanation I can think of for why this OVA is written the way it is would be because its supposed to be an homage to the way Keitaro and Narus romantic development was paced with so many cruel coincidences and misunderstandings keeping them apart that it sometimes felt like they were battling fate itself to be together and even though nobody really liked them as a couple the challenges they overcame still felt really powerful and engaging. I get the feeling this OVA was made to try and recapture that but it really doesnt come across anywhere near as well especially with the extremely underwhelming note that it ends on. Also Ken Akamatsu is a character in this. Yep. Somewhere between the fifth and sixth hours of this 45 minute special Ken Akamatsu encounters Kitsune and Shinobu looking for a way home so he hires them to help sell copies of the Love Hina manga to people. Im serious. Im not making this shit up. He and Shinobu even already knew each other beforehand. Lets see what else... Ill say some positive stuff I guess just for the sake of the Holiday? Some of the actors did a good job including Bridget Hoffman as Shinobu Derek Stephen Prince as Keitaro Steve Blum as a random cameo policeman and yes even Dorothy Fahn as Naru was okay once in a while. Narus ultimate solution for finding and kinda confessing/not confessing to Keitaro was a legitimately nice scene. Overall though I dont know who to recommend this too. If you go in blind youll be confused as fuck and have no idea whats going on as this OVA is not beginner friendly. Having said that if youve previously seen the series you COULD watch it for completionist purposes but that would also mean watching MORE of the Love Hina anime and nobody wants that. My best bet would be if you have friends you like to get together with to drink and watch bad movies this is a pretty good title to suggest for that. Take a drink every time Naru is violent or Keitaro gets hurt or the fake accents that the actors playing Kaolla and Kitsune are using make you want to strangle a turtle. I give Love Hina Christmas Special a 2/10.