Anime is a very popular form of media that is produced largely for a Japanese audience. While it may not have as much of a mainstream appeal here in the West, a lot can be said about the lessons that it can teach us about storytelling and human nature.

For those who aren’t familiar, the ‘harem’ genre is a specific anime genre involving a protagonist having multiple romantic partners. Essentially, instead of ‘boy meets girl’, it’s more of a ‘boy meets girl(s)’. Most commonly it is, in fact, a guy hilariously attempting to woo a bunch of different women, but that’s not always necessarily the case.
Let’s take the popular 90’s harem anime known as Love Hina. On the surface, it’s a show about a lovable oaf of a guy who’s found himself in a wacky situation with a gaggle of girls. Stories similar to this one are a dime a dozen in Japanese anime. The simple fact that this show was one of the first harem shows to exist and easily the most popular shouldn’t really detract from the cliched nature of its plot. Well… the show has something a little more sophisticated and nuanced going on underneath the typical harem anime facade.
Love Hina started out as a manga, like 99.99% of all Japanese anime. Approximately. It was written and illustrated by mangaka Ken Akamatsu. (Oh, right. Manga are Japanese comic books, and a mangaka is essentially what you call the people who make them.) It ran from October 21, 1998 to October 31st, 2001 in Japan’s Weekly Shounen Magazine. The anime, which is what the focus of this review is about, was a 24 episode series produced by Xebec, airing in Japan from April 19, 2000, to September 27, 2000.
The main character of Love Hina is Keitaro Urashima, a college-age student who fails his Tokyo entrance exam not once, but twice. As a result of his constant, unending failures, he is kicked out of his house by his parents. Seeking refuge to keep from becoming a homeless street urchin, he heads to his grandma’s place, Hinata Inn. Unbeknownst to him, his Aunt converted the Inn into the Hinata Apartments, an all-girl’s dormitory. This is essentially the start of the character’s story, him needing a place to stay. Also, him getting kicked out of his apartment does convey that he tends to be a weaker, more passive character. Things happen to him, as opposed to a more active, engaged character.
There’s an entire brilliantly put together scene of him arriving at the Hinata Apartments where the rogue’s gallery of minor female characters are introduced by reacting to Keitaro’s unexpected arrival. He is attacked by the strong, active characters in the scene, and is screamed at by the more passive ones. It’s a real chaotic mess, and one of the best ways to show character interactions without beating the viewer over the head with exposition.
The main female character is the unusually named Naru Narusegawa, a girl straight out of high school who has her sights set on getting into Tokyo U, as well. She is portrayed as a person of equal parts beauty, brains, and short tempered violence. She is the only character who meets Keitaro before he arrives at the Hinata Apartments. Unfortunately for Keitaro, she meets him shortly after he discovers that he failed the Tokyo U exam for the second time. While studying or taking exams, Naru wears her hair in a different way and thick, coke-bottle glasses to keep boys from distracting her. This also means that, when Keitaro meets her for the first time, he doesn’t recognize her as she would normally look.
Okay, so this sets the stage for the rest of the show. Keitaro ends up lying about being in Tokyo U when he discovers that his grandma left the Hinata Apartments in his care as the new landlord while she went off to fight dragons or something. Soon after Keitaro meets Narusegawa, she immediately can tell that he’s full of it. The only thing that prevents her from blowing his cover is that, without a caretaker, everyone will lose their place to live. Her included. So, while she thinks that Keitaro is a degenerate pervert (he’s more of a victim of circumstance) she must begrudgingly accept that he’s going to stay there with all of the girls. And, should he step out of line, she is resolved to execute swift justice by punching him into the upper atmosphere.
So, the two main characters know and don’t particularly care for one another at the beginning of the anime. However, they do live together and agree to study for the test to Tokyo U together as well. This is where the mere-exposure effect comes in. The mere exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people develop a preference for things simply because they are nearby and familiar with them. So, essentially, because Keitaro and Narusegawa are near each other, they start to like one another. Keitaro’s case is helped when he does things for others and shows his kind and gentle side to Narusegawa; such as when he helps Shinobu with her familial issues or takes care of the issues of the residents of the Hinata Apartments. She is viewed more positively in Keitaro’s eyes when he learns that she, like him, promised someone that she would go to Tokyo U. He even tries to help her woo her former teacher, Noriyasu Seta, that she had a crush on in an attempt to make her happy.
While a lot can be said about popular Western stories and their portrayal of a more one-sided romance; Bella is attracted to the mysterious and powerful Edward in Twilight, Anatasia is overwhelmed by the depth and depravity of Christian’s experience in Fifty Shades of Grey, for example, something could be said about two characters growing together and sharing in experiences, and, as a result, grow to like each other as friends, or maybe even something more. It’s definitely more realistic to life, and it certainly makes characters more organic and interesting.
-Rj Waltz, Story Hunter.