7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Anime | 100% |
Foreign | 95% |
Comedy | 28% |
Comic book | 26% |
Romance | 24% |
Erotic | 19% |
Action | 14% |
Sci-Fi | 4% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080i
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
As To Love-Ru gets underway, some anime fans may wonder if they’ve wandered into some weird animated reboot of the iconic battle in the high tech valleys of the Death Star in Star Wars. The opening sequence of the anime was obviously based on the George Lucas classic, which may lead some to believe they’re about to enter an old fashioned space opera pitting valiant heroes clad in white against nefarious villains all dressed in black, with all of them tooling about in ultra sleek looking spacecraft. Well, while it can’t be denied that a lot of To Love-Ru is indeed old fashioned, and even hackneyed by the often predictable standards of anime, it’s only partially about those aforementioned elements. This is yet another outing that posits an extraterrestrial female suddenly entering the life of an initially confused human male, with hilarity and action supposedly ensuing. And in fact To Love-Ru actually turns out to be fairly amusing quite a bit of the time in its portrayal of hormonal human Rito Yuuki, one of those anime staples who can barely contain the blood flow to his nether regions but who is simultaneously completely incapable of ultimately acting upon his urges. Rito has nurtured a near lifelong crush on one of his young schoolmates, a pretty girl named Haruna. Haruna had defended Rito long ago when Haruna was suspected of some bad behavior at school (the anime is frankly a little murky about this incident), a defense which immediately sparked love in Rito’s heart. But Rito has been spectacularly unable to voice his affections to Haruna, despite at least occasionally trying to. A fairly funny montage shows a series of increasingly improbable obstacles preventing Rito from his goal, things as varied as a truck and an elephant slamming into the poor boy. The latest sticking point turns out to be what appears like a spaceship crashing perilously close to Rito just as he’s about to finally be able to spill his guts to Haruna. Later that evening when Rito is nursing his wounds in his steamy bathtub, an even weirder phenomenon crops up when a buxom (and completely naked) female just materializes right there next to him. Rito’s hands innocently end up on the girl’s bosom, which turns out to be a marriage proposal in the alien’s home world. And thus the crazy antics of To Love-Ru get underway.
To Love-Ru is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This series was originally produced in 2008 and while this technically may not be an upscale (I have no authoritative information), it certainly is far from a great looking high definition presentation. Part of this is due to the lackluster animation, which frequently treats backgrounds like they're sketches made by a third grader. Character designs are at least agreeable enough, and when Rito has moments of arousal or fits of pique, there are some amusing animated consequences (as shown in several of the screenshots accompanying this review). While there's nothing as horrible as stairstepping on the line detail, there are repeated anomalies with things like letters (and occasionally with line detail itself) becoming unstable, no doubt due to the interlaced presentation. This creates a kind of quasi-shimmer at times that is quite noticeable. Colors look pretty good here, if never overwhelmingly vivid and saturated. All in all, while this is watchable, it's far from ideal.
To Love-Ru's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix (in Japanese only) is quite busy and noisy at times, but remains well prioritized, delivering both dialogue and effects with good fidelity and some surprisingly wide dynamic range. The music in this show is fairly annoying (one of the closing themes is about the glories of polka dots), but sounds fine in this lossless environment.
If you've been a fan of anime for a while, you've seen most of the elements of To Love-Ru before, and usually in much better shows. There's nothing downright horrible here, but much of it is resolutely predictable, and there's quite a bit of filler material making the first season seem longer than it already is. That's countered by some occasionally pretty funny humor and an overall manic feel that plays like classic farce at times. The video component is the weak link in the technical presentation, though supplements are once again at a bare minimum.
Season One / To LOVEる -とらぶる-
2008
Season Two
2010
Season Two
2010
Season 3
2012
Season 3
2012
Season 4
2015
2015
(Still not reliable for this title)
デート・ア・ライブIV / Season Four
2022
Limited Edition
2013
Classics
2012
Essentials
2013-2014
Classics
2015-2016
2008-2009
Undressed Edition
2010
モンスター娘のいる日常 / Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou
2015
Limited Edition
2010
はじめてのギャル / Hajimete No Gal
2017
Asobi ni Iku yo! / Essentials
2010-2011
IS〈インフィニット・ストラトス〉
2011
2022
Essentials
2008
Extra Edition | Standard Edition
2013
2013-2014
2008
Anime Classics
2010
2015
Essentials
2016