Motto To LOVE-Ru

Season Overview

Motto To LOVE-Ru (もっと To LOVEる -とらぶる-) is the second season of the To LOVE-Ru anime series. It also comes after the To LOVE-Ru OVA and comes before To LOVE-Ru Darkness.

I didn’t mention this in my earlier reviews of the series, but the title is actually a pun. The way To LOVE-Ru (とらぶる) is spoken in Japanese is the same way the English word “trouble” (トラブル) is spoken. You may sometimes even see the series referred to as Trouble, and the OVA had an episode called Trouble Quest.

Anyway, I brought that up because motto (もっと) means “more” in Japanese. So, the name of this season of the anime can be translated as More Trouble. Unfortunately, the pun doesn’t really work with the next season.

The name of the series aside, Motto To LOVE-Ru really just improves upon what came before it in every possible way. The art and ecchi content are both better. And it even removes that pesky thing known as a plot that only seems to get in the way in ecchi anime.

In the first season, there was this whole plot about Lala running away from her home planet and then mistakenly becoming engaged to Rito. That was brought up a lot and was used to help the series progress. But, it wasn’t exactly the most interesting content.

Motto To LOVE-Ru basically ignores all of that. There’s no more plot, and instead, the series feels more like an adaptation of 4-panel manga chapters. Each episode covers multiple “chapters” that may not be related at all. And at times, it seemed like these “chapters” were out of chronological order.

Vanilla in a Good Way

There are a lot of girls in Rito Yuuki’s harem. There’s Lala, Haruna, Momo, Nana, Run, Darkness, Mikado-sensei, Risa, Oshizu, Saki, Mikan, and Yui. And then there are the other girls in the series, such as Aya, Kyouko, Rin, Haruko, and Mio who still get “lewded.”

Basically, there’s a girl for just about everyone in Motto To LOVE-Ru. My top 5 (in no particular order) are Haruna, Momo, Mikado-sensei, Risa, and Kyouko. I know a lot of people like Darkness, but I don’t like that she doesn’t really have much of a personality.

Anyway, despite there being all of these girls to choose from, Motto To LOVE-Ru is surprisingly vanilla. Yes, the girls have their differences. But it’s not like each girl has her own unique kink like the girls of Hensuki do. They’re all pretty plain when it comes to that.

I think the plainness of the girls overall is also why I like some of the girls that I do. Momo is a bit kinkier than most of the others, which makes her more interesting. Mikado-sensei has the whole age-gap and teacher-student relationship taboo going on. And I enjoy how forward Risa is when it comes to teasing Riko.

With all that said, the fact that Motto To LOVE-Ru is so vanilla is an advantage of the series. There’s something for everyone, but there’s not much for people to dislike. Okay, maybe people don’t like (or pretend not to like) Mikan’s inclusion because she’s Riko’s sister. But, even then, Mikan isn’t “lewded” nearly as much as the other girls.

And generally speaking, I think anyone who’s looking to watch an ecchi anime will enjoy everything this series has to offer. There’s nothing you’re going to see in this series that’s going to make you think “That’s messed up. How could someone be into that?”

The Perfect Ecchi Anime?

I included To LOVE-Ru in my article on the 3 best ecchi anime alongside Kiss x Sis and Miru Tights. That was back when the highest I rated a part of the series was a 6/10. Motto To LOVE-Ru is much better than that.

Now, I know a lot of people say To LOVE-Ru Darkness is the best part of the series. Maybe it is. I haven’t watched it yet. I also rated the Kiss x Sis OVA higher than I rated Motto To LOVE-Ru. But, even so, I think this is a great example of what the perfect ecchi anime should be.

Of course, there are the nice things about the series that I’ve already mentioned, such as the nice art and ecchi content that everyone can enjoy. But, I think what really makes this one of the best ecchi anime is how it walks the line between ecchi and hentai.

There are a couple of issues anime tend to run into when it comes to ecchi content. The first is when the ecchi isn’t actually the main focus of the anime. Rather than calling these ecchi anime, I prefer to call them anime with ecchi. In these series, the ecchi content is more of a distraction.

The second is when the ecchi is very tame or limited, despite the series being an ecchi anime. When this is the case, it generally means that the anime isn’t very good. Ecchi is the main focus, but it’s not good ecchi. So why are you watching it?

And the third is when you have an ecchi series that should actually just be a hentai. These series typically involve sex, but since they’re not hentai, the sex isn’t actually shown — think World’s End Harem.

Motto To LOVE-Ru avoids all of these problems. The ecchi is the main focus, it’s uncensored and extremely prevalent, and it doesn’t cross the line into content that would be better off in a hentai.

Conclusion

Motto To LOVE-Ru is an 8/10 from me. That puts it on par with both “seasons” of Kiss x Sis combined. If you’re looking for a great ecchi series that doesn’t fall into the traps most ecchi anime do, this is what I recommend.

The one thing I liked more about the previous season of To LOVE-Ru, though, was the OP. The original OP is multiple times better than the OP of this season.

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