ラブひな Omnibus Volume 02
Love Hina Omnibus Volume 02 Manga Review

*SPOILERS!*

This second omnibus volume of Love Hina from Kodansha Comics covers original volumes four through six.  Some of the highlights covered in this book are the introduction of the brat character Sarah McDougal, the semi-adopted daughter of Seta. Motoko’s gets defeated by Keitaro, then she uses him to gain mastery over a new technique, after which she has some level of respect for him. Keitaro becomes Seta’s assistant, and learns that he’d once tutored Naru, causing Keitaro to just assume Naru is still in love with Seta. The girls and Keitaro spend a week at the beach, working a tea house to raise capital for the running of Hinata Inn. Mutsumi returns and moves to Hinata City, within earshot of Hinata Inn.  Naru discovers that she had stayed at Hinata Inn as a very young child, but also discovers that Keitaro and Mutsumi were there at the same time, thus concluding that Mutsumi must be the promised girl of Keitaro’s memory.

While most of this book contains stand alone chapters, or really short arcs (such as the beach trip), the end finally begins pushing forward the main plot of Keitaro and the promised girl.  It also helps further establish that despite Naru’s wishy-washy nature concerning her feelings for Keitaro, she does have them.  Being a Motoko fan, my favorite parts of the manga have to be Keitaro blocking one of Motoko’s attacks (thus defeating her), and Motoko then being forced to dress up in a more girlish fashion.  Then later when Keitaro leads Su and Sarah to go rescue Motoko, I loved how Motoko glomped Keitaro after finally learning that new sword technique.  It makes what happens down the road have more meaning.  It is part of how Akamatsu-sensei usually does a very good job of establishing certain things so that later stories have more meaning.

Unfortunately, my original TokyoPop volumes are packed up in the basement, and I’m too lazy to go dig them up, but I think that the Kodansha Comic release has a few more extras from the original Japanese book(s). There are also the translator notes, which are always a win with me.

You’ll have to forgive me, but since I read this omnibus some time ago, I can’t remember if I saw any obvious, quality control issues. On the translation side, all honorifics are included and the names are properly done (which that alone for me is a reason to double-dip purchase the manga).  I was a bit disappointed that Motoko’s speaking of her older sister did not contain “neesan” or “neesama” (whichever it was in the original Japanese), while Adult Su does address Keitaro as “Niisama” at one point. It is a minor thing, but I would have liked Motoko to have referred to her sister by the proper title.

I would have loved having the original, color cover art to be included as an extra, as well as the few color manga pages, but alas, that’s not here (not unexpected, but it is something I’d like).

For me, this harem, romantic comedy manga is well worth a purchase, so much so that I have double-dipped on buying it since I own the original TokyoPop volumes. If you’d like to see an earlier work of Akamatsu-sensei, or just like fun, harem comedies (howbeit a bit ecchi), I highly recommend this classic manga series.