Well Said! You’re right that it seemed to accomplish all of that despite all the fanservice. I couldn’t help but get pulled in even when I was going back to find a couple of pages as reference (I ended up rereading whole chapters). It’s just the kind of group you would want to be involved with… caring, thoughtful, so full of angsty love you can’t help but facepalm every five seconds. Not to mention the friendships that formed between them all. Despite the sexual tension it eventually just turned into a large group of really close friends and that to me is the best kind of slice of life story ever.

sigh… It figures. You let one of your guilty pleasures out and everyone loses all their respect for you. That was of course assuming I had any to begin with.

*fidgets* FWIW I really liked To Love Ru too (the manga, the anime was crap except for Haruka Tomatsu Lala). And I don’t think To Love-Ru is really about comedy – outwardly that’s the genre but I don’t personally find it very funny. The thing I like most about To Love Ru is the characters – they were all very likeable, and I really like how they interact. I came close to writing a post on To Love Ru once – and I wanted to say that the mangaka has a talent for creating completely ridiculous settings and situations that don’t destroy his characters, but brings them out and enhances them. It’s very common to be floundering about a bunch of senseless, fanservice-filled events to find yourself suddenly caught in a radiant moment of true kindness or deep friend-to-friend appreciation. And the ridiculous backdrop often serves only to accentuate the value of that one moment of sincerity.

It got me thinking for awhile actually – it’s such a bizarre mix! How can something be so pervertedly, insufferably filled with panty shots, nudity, extremely revealing garbs and sexual allusions, and yet still be consciously and consistently trying to bring out messages on kindness, on believing in the best of others, and on treasuring your friendships – messages that I don’t even see in half the other things I see in the media? It fascinated me and made me like the characters even more, and each subsequent chapter just kept up the incredible trend of screwup fanservice fanservice POWERFUL MOMENT fanservice funnies cute-characters POWERFUL MOMENT until when it was finally over I was honestly sorry there wasn’t more.

Eh oops, guess I rattled on a little too much there. Anyway yeah, just thought I’d let you know I’m with you on To Love Ru.

*hopes my respect points didn’t suffer*

Lol, I don’t know what it is about To Love-Ru honestly. I guess I always loved the character Eve from Black Cat and getting to see her again in this was really funny. My interest level jumped like a million times when she entered the story.

Neuro and Yako are two of my favorite characters of all time. They just brought this strange chemistry to the median that made it hard to resist. I loved the first time Neuro goes “I can’t come?” With this sad look on his face and the other characters start thinking he’s going to kill them. I’ve seen this used since, but not before. He might have been one of the original manga anti-heroes. I’m not sure when Death Note came out, but I think Neuro might have predated it making him a very unique almost evil good guy. I think you’ll enjoy it the more into it you get. It’s just great.

I haven’t seen the newer OVAs but perhaps I should.

The Manga Artist did what!?!!!! That makes me a little sad, but speaking of Dance in the Vampire Bund episode 3 didn’t make me throw up. It almost merged back onto the original plot line and that makes me feel like we’re getting the pre-Bund situation. Like in a couple of episodes (or next episode) the anime is really going to start (seeing as we’ve had no Bund visits yet). I hope I’m not wrong, but so far the only things they’ve ruined are the first meetings. I just want the politics of the different factions to get back on track. The two new chapters of Vampire Bund were hilarious (though you probably don’t need to wait for them to be scanalated :P).