Manga Reading: Love Hina Vol. 1

For some reason, I've been into reading manga lately, specially after I started buying Nana. But I also have other older manga that I wanted to read again like Love Hina. I have all the volumes and thought it'd be fun to go through them and share with y'all. Plus, I asked you guys on IG and most of you said yes to it so, here we are.

Last year I wrote a very general post about Love Hina, and gave some details on the manga edition I have, which is pretty old. I'll have that post linked here in case you wanna check it out and that way, we won't have to explain all that again in here cuz I have a feeling this will be a long post. I'm not sure how this is going to turn out tho, it might be a bit of a read-through kind of thing(?) with random comments and opinions. Not really a summary or a review. Sorry in advance if it gets a little all over the place.

These manga are so old, the pages are turning yellowish, haha. They are also very thin so I think I'll finish them faster than I thought. I will try to read at least one volume each month so we make space for other stories too.

Ok! Volume 1 has the main girls on the cover having a picnic in front of the Hinata Inn. I love this type of illustrations that look like a picture the characters could have. If that makes any sense. It is divided in 2 chapters called "Hinata"

For those who don't know the characters: Top left we have Mitsune, the one with the boken is Motoko, the girls with short, dark hair is Shinobu, Naru in the middle and the blonde, tanned girl is Kaolla.

First page shows a flashback from Keitaro's childhood. He's happily playing with a girl (who he likes to think as his first love) but, suddenly this girl moves away and before she leaves they make a promise to meet again in Tokyo University. This promise is important in the story.

Urashima Keitaro

Hinata 1 "Welcome to Hinagta inn" 

It starts with a short introduction of the main male character, Urashima Keitaro who's 19 years old, single and, according to him, the only contact he's had with a girl was back when he was a boy and made that promise. He tried applying for university twice but failed badly so, he decides to leave home and travel to Tokyo to visit his grandma who is the owner of the Hinata Inn. 

He doesn't find anyone when he enters the Inn so, he waits in his grandma's room. While he is waiting, he talks (more like complains) a little more about his life so we can get to know him more. I totally forgot he collected purikura! Which I find funny for some reason. But he is always alone in his pics~ Oh well.

So suddenly, he thinks it'd be a great idea to go to the hot springs of the Inn because, why not, right? I mean, who does that!!?? Anyway, when he is relaxing in the hot springs, he hears someone getting in and realizes it is a girl, Narusegawa Naru (one of the main characters). She's not wearing her glasses so she can't really see who's there with her. This manga has a lot of fan service and we'll have a lot of panties and boob grabbing, lol. So yeah, Naru starts talking about how her boobs got bigger and she even mentions something about a massage~ Idk who she thought she was talking to but, she gets all touchy touchy and realises she's with a guy. She puts on her glasses and starts screaming, asking for help. The way she refers to him is so funny to me, it always has been. She keeps calling him someone who's mentally depraved or a perv. That'll be the story of Keitaro's life from now on. 

He runs out of the hot springs naked, and as he leaves the place he runs into the other girls, Mitsune, Kaolla, Shinobu and Motoko, who are chasing after him cuz well, there is a perv in the Hinata Inn. Thing was, he didn't know the Inn was no longer an Inn, it was a dorm for women. I swear this guys has the worst luck ever.  At some point he tries to explain he's there to see his grandma but they don't believe him until his aunt Haruka shows up to save him.

Haruka explains him that his grandma decided to travel the world to find love and she is in charge of the place now. Keitaro has no place to go cuz his idea was to stay at the Inn to figure his life out but none of the girls want him to stay. His aunt mentions something about him going to Tokyo University which makes the girls believe he's actually a uni student and even tho he tries to explain his real situation, they don't listen and let him stay even if some of the girls are not too happy about it.

Haruka

In this story all of the girls will fall for Keitaro at some point, and the first one to try something is Mitsune. Konno Mitsune, aka "kitsune", is a 19 year old who loves to party and drink alcohol. As far as I remember she doesn't really study or work and she was one of the first girls to move to the Hinata Inn. She's also Naru's best friend. So, while Keitaro is resting in her grandma's room, Mitsune goes there and tries to flirt with him telling him how much she wants a uni student as a boyfriend cuz, she is an opportunistic woman and he is just... weak. (-_-) All of the sudden, when they are in an awkward situation caused by her, the rest of the girls walk into the room and see them. Mitsune blames Keitaro for what's happening and, they call him a perv again.

Most of this chapter, Naru looked so mad at Keitaro. I guess it's because of the way they met. After Mitsune's incident, we see Naru trying to show Keitaro the place but, again, he can't escape from situations tha make him look like a perv so she ends up following him around the place to make sure he doesn't "harm" anyone. 

I'm going to talk about Naru a little, cus we didn't give her a proper introduction and she is my favorite character. Narusagawa Naru is basically the main female character here, she's a 17 year old student who is super dedicated to her studies and sees guys as an unnecessary distraction. She is very smart and caring but also has a very short temper and can be very aggresive when she's angry. (just ask Keitaro, haha).

As they walk around the Inn they find Shinobu (Maehara Shinobu), who is a sweet middle school student who had a (real) crush on Keitaro when she met him. She wanted him to help her with her studies cuz she wasn't good at it and felt like she could never go to a good school cuz she wasn't "smart enough" so, he helps her with some exercises and she gives him cookies as a way to thank her. He compliments her cookies and she gets all shy and cute. When he's trying to cheer her up, he lies about how working hard got him into Tokyo University and this gives Shinobu the motivation to believe in herself. He just made his lie worse.

That night he tries to solve some of the exercises from the univerity's admission test and even tho he spends the whole night working, he can't solve them. When he complains about it and talks to himself about not being a uni students, Naru hears him without him noticing.

The next day Naru sees that some of the girls are happy now that Keitaro is there and decides to go talk to him and tell him she knows about his lie. They start talking nicely but then they fight and when the other girls hear them, they go see what's going on. Accidentally, Keitaro grabs Naru's boob, she punches him, they all scream and fight. But, while they are fighting, Kaolla (who is another middle school foreign exchange student and good friends of Shinobu) finds a card that says Keitaro is not a uni student yet.

They all get super upset, specially Shinobu (Well, I think she was more like disappointed) so, they decide to kick him out of the Inn. He apologizes and leaves, thinking of an excuse to tell his parents once he goes back home. On his way to the station, he finds this old purikura booth and decides to take a pic before he leaves as a memory of his time there. He even chooses a Hinata onsen sticker to frame his pic. Naru followed  him there and gets in the booth without him noticing. It is his first purikura pic with someone. (I think it was kinda cute).

He shows Naru his purikura collection and while they are talking about keitaro's plan, Haruka finds them and gives Keitaro some papers, telling him that his grandma basically gave him the inn as a gift which makes him the new manager of the place.

Hinata 1 "The new dorm manager"

Of course the girls were not happy with this, but there's not much they can do since he is the owner now. In a way, Keitaro feels relieved and motivated cuz he won't have to go back home and starts fantasizing on how his relationship with girls could be now that he'll be living there... (¬-¬)

Some of the girls come up with a plan to make him want to quit and leave, giving him all these crazy, exhausting tasks but, he didn't give up. I kinda felt bad for him. 

When he's finally done, he goes to his room to relax and notices a big hole on his ceiling and decides to take a look, when he does he sees Naru changing clothes and he receives punch #3. She's furious with him and now wants to take part of the girls' plan to make him quit. She's intense tho. They won't even give him a proper meal. 

In the end we see the girls enjoying a bath in the hot springs and Keitaro doing the same but in a small tub, eating instant ramen. They can't see each other but he can listen to everything they say. This is how he finds out they are doing everything they can for him to leave. 

And this is the end of the first volume.

OMG you guys this is way longer than I thought! I really enjoyed reading this and remembering so many things! It's been years since the last time I saw the anime so, I forgot many things. It's funny cuz I remember their voices so everything they say and do is funnier. When I first watched the anime, I didn't like Keitaro much but now I did feel bad for him a couple of times. He's still a perv loser tho. 

I think I'm gonna end this post here. if you read til the end, THANK YOU! Hehehe. 

See you next time~!!