Manga Review: To Love Ru Vol. 1-2 story by Saki Hasemi, art by Kentaro Yabuki
Rito Yuuki is a typical Japanese high school boy who has a crush on his childhood friend and classmate Haruna Sairenji. And typically, he is so bashful about actually telling her about it that he just freezes up or boils over mentally. Less typically, a naked girl suddenly appears in his bathtub while he’s occupying it. This is Lala Satalin Deviluke, the princess/heir to the throne of Deviluke and thus rulership of most of the Milky Way. She’s tired of dealing with her many suitors in the cultural rules of her homeworld and declares herself Rito’s fiancée to have an excuse to stay on Earth. (And also she has the hots for him a bit.)
Naturally, this is just the beginning of Rito’s troubles as he meets more human and alien girls who have an interest in him and various rival suitors who have it in for him. Wacky hijinks ensue!
This harem comedy manga originally ran from 2006-2009 in Weekly Shounen Jump, took a several year break (which may or may not have been prompted by behind-the-scenes drama) and returned as To Love Ru Darkness from 2010-2017 with even more fanservice but a significant change in character focus. Even the original had too much male-oriented fanservice (girls with visible nipples!) to be comfortable for Viz Media to publish in the American edition of Shonen Jump or be on the website once that became a thing.
This series is obviously heavily influenced by Rumiko Takahashi’s screwball comedy series, especially Urusei Yatsura with Lala being a modernized version of Lum with an emphasis on her zany inventions. But the harem comedy had mutated since the 1980s. Instead of a heavily flawed male lead, we have the hapless Rito whose worst trait is being unable to be straightforward about his feelings towards girls, especially Haruna. The ladies are attracted to his kindness, and largely don’t mind that Rito has accidental pervert moments on the regular.
It doesn’t help that Lala’s “clothes” are a shapeshifting robot named Peke who is often out of juice or unable to be teleported so Lala ends up naked frequently, and a couple of Haruna’s female friends are into groping her and other girls for fun.
After Lala arrives, the first hurdle is Commander Zastin, a Royal Guard who’s been assigned to drag the princess back to her duties. Rito accidentally convinces this mighty warrior that he’d be a decent match for Lala, and soon Zastin and his henchmen are shoved into the background on a mission that keeps them too busy to interfere in the hijinks.
Lala enrolls in Rito and Haruna’s school, not being made as an alien despite her devilish tail. The first of the suitors, a shapeshifter named Gi Bree, kidnaps Haruna and threatens her to get Rito to give up Lala. It does not end well for him.
After some random adventures, it’s time for a school trip to the hot springs, and a test of courage. Supposedly, those boy-girl pairs that make it to the end of the terror trail will become couples, but Rito, Haruna and Lala manage to make the outcome ambiguous. This very much lives up to the pun in the title “To Ra Bu Ru”, “trouble.”
The art is good, and the artist really likes drawing pretty girls in skimpy outfits, underwear and nude. Many moments are genuinely funny in a juvenile sort of way.
Content note: As mentioned, lots of male-oriented fanservice, including female nipples. (Shirtless boys do not have visible nipples and generally male nudity is treated as comic relief.) There’s also a lot of groping and clothing damage of the female characters. The principal of the school is an open pervert who is into teenage girls but this is supposed to be balanced out by him being beaten up all the time rather than legal action.
I mostly picked this one up because of its notoriety. It’s an okay harem manga with the main draw being that it’s even more ecchi than average. There’s nothing deep or thought-provoking in the first two volumes. If that’s your sort of thing, you might enjoy this a lot–if not, it’s very skippable.
