THIS REVIEW COVERS BOTH DARKNESS AND DARKNESS 2ND Introduction I hated To LOVERus first season. Hated it. You can read my 20/100 review of it for the complete details but essentially my complaints boiled down to it having 1 bland characters 2 a needlessly convoluted fillerfilled plot 3 surprisingly little fanservice. I was completely shocked then to find that To LOVERu Darkness was... actually good? Yes to get straight to the point To LOVERu Darkness is good. And this is not some kind of runofthemill goodness no this is genuine article highquality content. But wait before I get too far ahead of myself let me first clarify exactly what To LOVERu Darkness is and how it differs from the original series. Though its title implies that it is a spinoff in reality Darkness as it shall henceforth be called is nothing more than an ordinary sequel to the original To LOVERu manga. We need not let this be discouraging however because while it may technically be a sequel Darkness is an entirely different beast from its lowquality predecessor. Though it features a mostly unchanged cast of characters in fairly similar scenarios it manages nonetheless to be very distinct thanks to its extremely unserious tone revamped plot and a small selection of new key characters. The Tone Of these three distinctions the firstthat Darkness is less serious than the original seriesmay immediately seem the most suspect. After all while To LOVERu often failed spectacularly to be funny it was at the very least intended to be a comedyheavy harem ecchi show. In other words to begin with it never had any seriousness to speak of. Even so Darkness somehow manages to top this. Not only does it not take its plot seriously it doesnt take anything about itself seriously. Whereas To LOVERu often felt insecureas though it kind of wanted to be a fanservice show but also didnt really want to offend anybodyDarkness feels like an older and worldlier sibling. It is content to throw all kinds of licentious filth in our faces and not feel the least bit ashamed about it. Though it may be strange to say this of a piece of television Darkness could best be described as feeling like it has high selfesteem. It is selfaware of the kind of show it is and rather than letting this get it down it is completely forthright about it. This is what I mean when I say it feels less serious than its predecessor: it has the ability to not only laugh at its silly characters and plotlines but also to laugh it itself. Of course if all it did was laugh at its problems rather than addressing them Darkness would not be much better than the original. But Darkness doesnt just laugh at its old flaws to a certain extent it also embraces them. In order to really understand this point it is important to first understand the three main ways a work can approach its problems. The first wayand this is mostly what the first season of To LOVERu doesis to simply ignore them. The major advantage of this method is obviously that it is extremely easy for the creators since they dont even have to make any meaningful changes to what they were already doing. On the other hand it also has a major drawback in that well it doesnt actually fix anything. The second and perhaps most effective action a creator can take is to buckle down and actively try to diminish the presence of the flaw in their work. Unfortunately while it sounds very pleasant going through with this method is rarely all that feasible considering problems usually exist precisely because they are difficult to eliminate. As a result of this difficulty creators might try the third method of approaching a problemaddressing it without truly ridding their work of it. A common way to achieve this would be through acknowledgment that is to say calling attention to the existence of the problem without solving it. Effectively this is the author giving the audience a wink and a nod to show that they are as aware as anyone of the problems their work has. To LOVERu did this from time to time when characters would mention something along the lines of Wow Rito sure falls down on top of girls a lot showing us that the writers knew they were overusing that gag but were unwilling to go through the creative strain of coming up with a more inventive way of getting him into sexual situations. Noticeably Darkness does not do any of these things. Rather it employs the rarely used fourth way to approach problems that I mentioned earlier: by embracing them. Utilizing this method requires both subtlety and creativity to prevent the problems from merely being exacerbated but I firmly believe that Darkness manages to achieve spectacular success. Almost none of the problems from the first season of To LOVERu and there are many are really absent in Darknessinstead they have been retooled to work in the shows favor. For instance take a look at some examples below. 1. The problem Outofwhack romantic progression: Rito regularly gets into sexual situations with random girls yet at the same time he cant even muster up the courage to ask out the girl he has had a crush on for 46 episodes. The expected solution Have Rito make some kind of romantic progress with his dream girl or at the very least have him show some form of assertiveness. Darknesss solution Make the romantic progression so impressively outofwhack that it no longer bears any comparison with reality. No one can levy any criticism against it when its so far removed from anything real that they cant even properly apply normal logic and reason to it. 2. The problem Rito falls on top of girls too frequently: Nearly every episode seems to rely on the same gag where Rito falls on top of a girl and touches them in some vaguely sexual manner to the point that the joke becomes tired and hackneyed. The expected solution Create new gags and new ways of forcing fanservice so that the show doesnt have to rely on the same thing happening over and over again. Darknesss solution Turn Rito into the God of fallinga being whose ability to unintentionally sexually harass others is unparalleled among mere mortals. As Yami astutely observes at one point this mans sexual harassment has reached the level of a superpower. Rito is no longer a man he is a fanservice deity. 3. The problem Overreliance on panty shots: Too much of the shows fanservice consists of little more than contrived situations that lead to the viewer being able to see a girls panties for one brief joyous moment. The expected solution Use fewer panty shots. Darknesss solution Bring out the avantgarde camera work. Turn even the most mundane of conversations into a fanservicefest by angling the camera so that the audience can see up the nearest girls skirt. After all why waste time on a shot that has no fanservice when you can just tilt the camera? In this way Darkness feels more than anything like a parody of itself. Of course in order to joke about itself so effectively it has to be completely selfaware. It knows exactly what it is and what it aspires to be and it announces this fact loudly and proudly at every passing opportunity: I am a gross affront to taste and decency it says. Behold fanservice the likes of which you have never seen before it proclaims boldly. I am the very distillation of debauchery in animated form it bellows assertively. The Plot While its unserious and parodylike treatment of itself may be wonderful though I do think that it would be rather reductive to suggest that the entirety of Darknesss success comes from these facets. Even on a more conventional level it puts the original to shame with its more cohesive and engaging plot. Yes believe it or not Darkness actually has a plot. Granted its no work of timeless art or anything but it certainly gets closer to art than I or indeed anyone could reasonably expect the sequel to To LOVERu to get. On the most basic level Darkness continues to follow our hapless protagonist Yuuki Rito. Beyond this however it carries few traces of the plot or lack thereof present in the original series. Instead the focus has shifted significantly from Rito and Lalas haphazard romance to what I can only describe as the greatest plot idea to ever grace harem anime. An idea of such endless quality that it must surely have been the result of divine intervention: the socalled harem plan. Devised by Lalas younger sister Momo who I will describe in greater detail shortly the end goal of this plan is simply to have Rito enter into a polygamous marriage with every single one of the countless girls that are attracted to him. Thats it. By and large gone are the convoluted and pointless alien politics that sometimes clouded To LOVERu and gone are the tiresome and hopeless struggles of Rito to confess to Haruna his dream girl. All that remains is a perennial quest to get as many girls as conceivably possible to join Ritos harem. One can immediately see why such a plan is so ingenious an idea for this anime. For one thing the seemingly unavoidable problem that plagues all harem animechoosing a single girl to date at the endis easily resolved now that the goal has become for Rito to marry them all. But beyond that this plot is a resounding success for exactly the reasons described in my earlier point: it allows Darkness to be utterly unabashed about its ecchi harem nature. No nonsense. No excuses. Just an increasingly large number of sexy girls. This is not to say however that all sexy girls enter the harem with the same degree of ease. For some a few minutes of screen time dedicated to Rito performing some minor act of kindness is all it takes for them to fall hopelessly in love with him but for others entire episodes or even story arcs may be necessary. In particular Konjiki no YamiThe Golden Darknessthe dispassionate assassin who was at one point sent to kill Rito but now lives peacefully on earth proves to be an unusually stubborn candidate. In fact so much of the plot of Darkness is dedicated to her very belated entrance into the harem that she ends up being the titular character. I suppose there are more honorable things to have named after oneself than an ecchi anime but at least she was lucky enough to get a good ecchi anime. Indeed as someone who previously noted that if there is one character in To LOVERu who deserves to be a part of a better anime then it is surely the Golden Darkness the fact that she receives the brunt of the attention in this good anime surely makes me very happy. What is most astonishing to me about all this though is that Darkness the most lowbrow of television actually manages to develop her in a reasonably wellwritten way. Over the course of its 26 episodes comprising two seasons and two special episodes we gain insight about her mysterious backstory see her come to terms with her tumultuous past and watch as she finds herself entering into more meaningful relationships with the people around her especially Ritos sister Mikan. All of Yamis development builds masterfully towards the series stunning conclusion in which her master a sexy girl called Nemesis releases the darkness within Yami turning her into a worlddestroying godlike being. Following this there is a lengthy and dramatic action sequence wherein many girls clothing is destroyed but no real damage is caused. Eventually Lalas sister Momo reveals to Rito that there is only one way for this situation to resolve itself: he must rebel against his sexaverse nature and engage in some lewd acts with Yami. Though he is initially skeptical he is urged on by an underclassman named Mea who informs him that his shamelessness will save the world. In the end he subdues the now nearly omnipotent Yami by casually walking up to her taking off most of his clothes and then groping her a bunch. If that is not the very apotheosis of ecchi anime I dont know what is. The Characters As beautiful as that may be though Darknesss plot would not be able to achieve any real success unless its characters were there to support it. The harem plan for instance would be pointless and insubstantial without girls of sufficient sexiness and quality of personality to join its eponymous harem. And so it is here with the characters that Darkness elevates itself the most beyond the intense mediocrity of To LOVERu. Yes despite being made up of largely the same characters Darknesss cast is vastly superior to that of the original. The new characters are more fresh and inventive than those from the original series and the old characters are either given more proper character development than before or appear less frequently. Of particular note are the new additions of Lalas younger twin sisters Momo and Nana. Though these two were technically first seen in the To LOVERu OVAs their real importance becomes apparent during Darkness when they along with Yami replace Lala and Haruna as the shows main heroines to great success. But who exactly are these two sisters and what makes them so successful? Lets look a little deeper. Momo Belia Deviluke: Momo is Lalas younger sister who eventually decides to move in with and attend the same school as her sister and Rito on earth. Outwardly she is a kind and gentle soul who immediately draws the admiration of her classmates both male and female but lets be honest here mostly male. Inwardly however she is an entirely different beast. Behind her cute faade she is a dangerously creative schemer who harbors a deepseated obsession with the erotic. Of course regardless of how creative she may be she still falls wildly in love with Rito before the viewers can say fanservice. Unlike her compatriots however she does not merely sit by and let that poor boy make a fool of himself with every girl in sight. Rather she decides to take matters into her own hands and concoct the ingenious harem plan of which I have already written so highly. The harem plan is really only one example of Momos escapades in action though. Throughout the show she continuously makes her influence known as she often goes out of her way to get Rito into lewd situations much to his chagrin in an attempt to expand the harem. These sorts of situations really go to show that Momo is exactly the kind of character this show needed. Her sexualmindedness and conniving nature endow her with the ability to turn even the most mundane of situations into an entire fanservicey pageantry. In fact on the whole Darkness owes a great deal of its success to Momo. Thanks to her salacious influence it is able to bring about its fanservice far more gracefully than the contrived situations that were required in To LOVERu. And it certainly seems that the writers were well aware of this fact because Momo appears with great frequency throughout Darknessprobably more than any single other character besides Rito himself. Overall then I do not think it would not be an exaggeration to say that Momo is not only the best character in Darkness but one of my favorite anime characters of all time. Honestly even having written this entire section of the essay praising Darkness it still astonishes me that a character of such quality could have graced a show like this one. It astonishes me that the writers had it in them to make a character this good yet still wasted my time with the congregation of clichs that made up To LOVERus cast. In a sense Momo is so perfect a character so precisely crafted to target and fix the first seasons fundamental issues that she makes the rest of the cast look even more incompetent than they already were by comparison. Regardless her addition to Darkness is one of the shows greatest assets in allowing it to become more than the generic harem farce of Motto. Nana Astar Deviluke: Nana is also Lalas younger sister and also eventually decides to move in with and attend the same school as her sister. Unlike Momo however Nana makes no attempts at concealing her real personality. She is loud easily angered and takes great offense to Ritos acts of unintentional sexual assault regularly calling him a beast. Like most of the viewers she finds it inconceivable that this man has amassed so substantial a harem although in traditional To LOVERu fashion she does come around and eventually falls in love with him in a begrudged kind of way. In comparison to her sister Momo she is neither as plot significant nor frankly as interesting a character. Even so Nanas inclusion is by no means a misstep on the part of the writers. For one thing her smallerthanaverage boobs bring some muchneeded balance to the average boob sizes among girls in this show. This may not sound very important but the show feels the need to bring this fact up every few episodes just to make sure the viewers havent forgotten. Momo especially appears to believe that the matter of boobs is of such paramount importance that she acts as though Nanas small ones constitute some sort of crippling disability. Its really rather tragic. Beyond the realm of boobs Nana generally serves as a strong contrast to her sister Momo particularly with regards to her attitude towards Rito. Whereas Momo is uncontrollably in love with Rito from the shows beginning Nana acts spitefully towards him for most of its run. Even when she does eventually develop some feelings for him she still treats him quite harshly. The most important effect of this is that she serves to keep Momo and Rito in check. I think if Momo were the only new character added the show might quickly devolve into total debauchery but with Nana present in the Rito household there is always someone there to yell at one or both of them when they begin to take things too far. In essence she exists to stop the show from veering into hentai territory. Of course being the preventer of lewdness is certainly a thankless role and one that can be easy to hate from a viewers perspective but I believe it is an integral one. This way Momo can stay in character exhibiting her usual constant desire for eroticism and the show can still air on television. As I have hopefully demonstrated Momo and Nana work together to great effect to form the backbone of Darkness. Add in the new and improved Yami and we have a cast of central heroines that make To LOVERus cast look like a ragtag band of clichs in comparison. Of course Rito is still the same old sexaverse loser that he has always been but surrounding him by such an excellent group of girls does undoubtedly serve to mitigate his problemseven if it cannot completely do away with them. Ultimately as much as I have come to like this show and its characters and as much as the changes that Darkness brings cause him to be less of a nuisance I still do not really like Rito. Comparing Darknesss Rito to the originals Rito though is like comparing stubbing ones toe to sticking ones leg through a wood chipper. Neither are pleasant by any stretch of the imagination but one is a mild inconvenience and the other is unbearably agonizing. By now Ritos greatest sin is really only that he is boring and this is not a sin that bears much weight when he is able to play off of so many vastly more interesting characters around him. Conclusion Besides characters there is one more topic that I think is worth discussing before I finally stop rambling on about Darkness. This is a central topic which I have been ignoring for quite some timethe most important topic of all: the fanservice. Though I have mentioned it at various points throughout this portion of the essay and hinted strongly as to what I think of it I have not outright stated what I think of Darknesss fanservice. To put it clearly the fanservice present in To LOVERu Darkness is of extremely high quality. There is a little bit of everything here: from genderbending to a girl being suggestively forcefed a popsicle while wearing a school swimsuit and yelling master repeatedly. I wont deny that it is an acquired taste but I firmly believe that this quality selection of ecchi moments pairs well with the excellent character designs and artstyle in Darkness to make its fanservice a resounding success. Its also worth noting that Darkness blows its competition out of the water not only in quality but quantity of fanservice. I dont think I have ever seen an anime with more fanservice than this one. Granted I dont pretend to be an infallible authority on all anime but I have seen more than enough to know that Darkness has to put it crassly a fuckton of fanservice. The show might as well be titled Fanservice: The Animation. Every episode of this show is a nonstop barrage of lewdness23 minutes of Rito and his endless erotic escapades. And I for one love it. I relish the feeling that every moment spent watching this show is one spent as the weebs say straying further from the light of God. I relish the feeling that every person I know have ever known or will ever know would be profoundly disappointed in me if they knew that I watched this show. But above all I relish the feeling of catharsis from having suffered through so many hours of To LOVERus pathetic excuses for ecchi moments and nowfinallyseeing some of the fanservice I felt so robbed of. Nothing can truly make up for the time I squandered on the early parts of this series but at the very least I received some vindication in the end. It is a sad hollow sort of vindicationno doubt I would rather have avoided the first season of To LOVERu entirelybut its something to show for this time that I once considered totally lost. In the end I have probably vastly overstated just how good To LOVERu Darkness really is. Certainly as much as I can praise it this salacious celebration of sexy anime girls will never go down in history as one of the alltime greats. Even so I will not soon forget this show. Something about this particular selection of sexy anime girls I think will stick with me for a long time...