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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Overview

To LOVE-Ru is an ecchi, harem, comedy series which comes in both censored and uncensored varieties. The particular version I watched was the uncensored one, but honestly, it’s not like there’s any significant difference between the two other than some conveniently (or inconveniently) placed flashes of light.

For the most part, if you’ve seen one ecchi, harem, comedy series, you’ve seen them all. However, I found the first half of season one (the season this review is looking at) to be a cut above the competition due to its use of comedy.

Comedy isn’t uncommon in ecchi, harem series, but To LOVE-Ru’s comedy was often in the form of the characters being surprisingly accepting of the crazy situations in which they found themselves, as well as simply the absurd situations themselves.

And no, I don’t simply mean your standard ecchi, harem series absurd situations. I mean situations like an alien knight being defeated by a space squid and space lobster while trying to fight off a space octopus in a classroom. These scenes in which nothing makes sense were, in my opinion, the best parts of the series.

Unfortunately, while the latter half of the series continued to have comedy centered around the characters’ reactions to the situations in which they found themselves, the situations themselves became more generic.

Obviously an ecchi, harem series is going to have all the obligatory episodes such as the beach, hot spring, pool, etc., but I don’t need episodes in which the protagonists go to an undiscovered part of the world with dinosaurs, King Kong, and an Amazoness tribe.

While that sort of episode may not necessarily be generic for this genre, although the Amazoness tribe kind of is, it’s very generic for TV series in general.

Okay, but what if you’re not watching To LOVE-Ru for the comedy? What if you’re watching it for the ecchi scenes?

From what I can tell, the later seasons of the series are much more ecchi, especially the uncensored versions, but unfortunately for you, this first season doesn’t really have much to offer in that department. I’d say that there are a decent amount of “scenes with ecchi,” but virtually no “ecchi scenes” if that makes sense.

Characters

The protagonist of the series is Rito Yuuki, your typical high school student who just so happens to accidentally get engaged to an alien princess who teleports into his bath. However, despite becoming engaged to Lala, Rito is actually in love with one of his classmates, Haruna.

I get it, Haruna is a pretty good choice, but is she really better than Lala?

Since Rito is just your average Earthling high schooler, there isn’t really anything particularly special about him. This causes Lala’s father, King Deviluke, to not approve of him, and demand he first become the “greatest man in the universe” before he can have Lala’s hand in marriage. Over the course of the second half of the season, this is Rito’s primary goal.

The female lead of the series is Lala Satalin Deviluke, the first princess of the Deviluke royal family. She initially came to Earth after running away from home and using one of her many gadgets to teleport herself to a random location, which happened to be Rito’s bath.

Speaking of her gadgets, they often explode, remove her own clothing, or remove everyone’s clothing upon use. They aren’t meant to do any of those things, but you can expect that something’s going to go wrong when she pulls one of them out of her back pocket.

Overall, Lala is a carefree girl who likes to have fun with her friends on Earth. Oh, and as an alien from the planet Deviluke, she has a tail.

The other female lead is Haruna Sairenji, the girl from Rito’s class whom he has a crush on. We learn that Haruna also has a crush on Rito, but the two of them are too shy to actually tell each other how they feel. Rito thinks Haruna is out of his league, and Haruna thinks Rito loves Lala.

Next, we have Golden Darkness, an alien who was sent to Earth to assassinate Rito. She’s able to turn any part of her body into a weapon, and typically either turns her forearms into blades or her hair into fists. Even after her mission to assassinate Rito is voided, she still keeps up appearances by threatening him.

There are more members of the harem, but they aren’t as important as those three, so now let’s move on to two of the male supporting characters, Zastin and Kenichi Saruyama.

Zastin is the leader of the Deviluke royal guard and serves as Lala’s advisor and bodyguard. He wears armor that resembles that of Ainz from Overlord and wields a glowing, green sword. Although he’s a competent warrior, he’s not the smartest guy around.

Finally, Saruyama is Rito’s best friend from school. He serves as Rito’s foil character when it comes to interacting with the various girls in the series. While Rito is easily embarrassed and doesn’t want to see the girls in provocative situations, Saruyama embraces his good fortune.

Conclusion

As I mentioned, if you’re looking for a good ecchi series, from my understanding the latter seasons of To LOVE-Ru will give you what you want, but this season falls short in that regard. However, if you’re looking for a slightly above average ecchi, harem, comedy series, then this is definitely for you.

The art and animation aren’t always the best, but if you’re familiar with this genre then you should already know to expect that. In the end, To LOVE-Ru is a fairly solid 6/10. The first half of the season was better than the second, and so this score is an average across the whole thing.

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My review of the OVA is available here.