Important: This review is based off of the official TV broadcasting and Ayako fansubs. Therefore, all sound and animation issues will strictly conform to what I have seen in the broadcasting and releases. Also note that all my reviews are done after watching the series at least two times.
Key for the Intro:
Underlined phrases will be the main focal points of the intro.
Italicized phrases will be used for key names, kind of unconventional I know.
Premise of this review: Unoriginal, outdated, overdone ecchi- it’s impossible to say there was even any potential in this anime.
Intro: Intro: Toloveru, Trouble, was originally a manga by Black Cat’s mangaka, Kentaro Yabuki, and newcomer author Saki Hasemi. The story revolves around an
average high school student, Yuuki Rito, who can't converse easily with girls and just can’t bring himself to confess to his
high school crush, Sairenji Haruna. One night while taking a bath, his
life is drastically changed. An alien, Lala Deviluke,
appears in his bathtub- of course, wearing nothing. Rito, of course, makes a fuss which attracts his little sister, Mikan, to the scene only to find no one but Rito in the bathtub. Thinking that it
was just a hallucination, Rito goes back to his room to find Lala there. Lala soon after is reunited with her “All purpose clothes robot” and is able to don some alien clothes. Shortly after this reunion, alien kidnappers fly through the window into Rito’s room demanding that Lala come with them. Rito grabs Lala and runs away with her trying to help her escape
. After being confronted by various alien obstacles, Rito finds out that Lala is really a runaway princess. Not wanting to be
forced to marrysomeone of her father’s choice,
she escaped to Earth. Lala actually saves the day with one of her
faulty inventions. She thanks Rito for saving her and it
transitions to the next day. Rito is walking to school where he sees his crush, Haruna. He decides that this is the perfect time to confess
and shouts his feelings to her, or at least to the person right in front of him who turned out to be, not Haruna, but Lala. To make things worse, not only did Haruna misunderstand Rito but
Lala offers a marriage to him. And thus, Rito’s troubled days begin.
Animation: I doubt I was supposed to be impressed by this animation. It wasn’t exactly horrible, few Jump anime’s are horribly animated, but it wasn’t really good for its time. The coloring was what bothered me the most. It was just not as detailed as it should have been. The colors were boring which, isn’t really wanted for this kind of anime. I compared the quality of the manga to the quality of the anime, the manga won out easily. I’m not saying that the anime should always beat the manga, but it should at least be close. Toloveru was not even close. The detailed that Yabuki put into his manga was so much more than the anime. Most animators have no problem imitating the detail of a manga, but in Toloveru’s case, they just put emphasis on the "boing" aspects of the anime. Even if this is an ecchi, they went even more overboard than the manga for some odd reason. More effort for this anime’s animation would definitely be appreciated. The character designs were fine actually. The characters moved normally- no complaints here. The OP and ED animations worked for the most part- they showed what the anime was about, I wish the ED was a bit better though.
Overall- Subpar animation, bad coloring, decent character designs, fluid movement--(lower)6
Sound:My opinion of what the OP and ED sounds like is just an opinion, remember this! Ok, I thought both were atrocious. They aren’t my least favorite OP and ED ever, but they’re down there. Next are the voice acting performances. I thought these were fine actually. They fit the situation and made it feel a bit more realistic. Voices fit their anime counterparts as well, so that’s a plus. Unfortunately, the BGM’s were very annoying. I swear if you’ve watched at least the first 3 episodes, you’ve heard all the BGM’s in the anime. Everything else is basically a rehash of another song, it’s quite annoying and detracts from the overall experience.
Overall- Bad OP and ED, decent voice acting, boring BGMs--(higher)5
Story: Ok so the basic gist is an female alien shows up and forever changes a normal high schooler’s life- where haven’t we heard this before? In short, the basic plot is unoriginal and we don’t like that. So what about the actual episodes? Well they were everything you’d expect from a Jump ecchi. It was standard stuff really. Basically everything that occurs in the anime is nothing you haven’t seen before. The anime is just adding aliens to the mix and putting in fanservice at every turn. I’m actually surprised that the anime probably had more fanservice than the manga. Usually this kind of service is welcome, but at this point, after seeing it done so many times in other animes, the viewer feels like smacking his head- it’s just too forced and predictable. The anime did not strictly conform to the manga’s chapters. It went off track eventually and ended in the most cliché way possible. If you like that theme of not giving up and the guy protecting the girl even though he’s weak, then you’d get a kick out of Toloveru. The redeeming factor of this anime though, was the crossover of Black Cat characters. Eve is reincarnated as an alien assassin, Konjiki no Yami, Kyoko is still Kyoko just she’s an alien. In the manga, even Train comes in. That was refreshing but not totally original.
Overall: Boring story, forced ecchi, bringing in characters from another work, guilty pleasure--(middle) 6
Character: Every type of fetish you could imagine is in toloveru for the most part. (this list is only of the main girls you’ll see).
Lala Deviluke: Airhead, big-breasted, and a sensitive tail.
Sairenji Haruna: Quiet, reserved, and kind.
Yuuki Mikan: Imouto type.
Tenjouin Saki: Oujou-sama type.
Kotegawa Yui: Tsundere type.
Mikado Ryouko: Sensei and Big Breast type.
Konjiki no Yami: Quiet, loli, and a slight tsundere.
Momioka Risa: More of a Yuuri type.
Sawada Mio: Risa’s accomplice, I guess you could tack on meganekko.
Toloveru characters are not going to be remembered- they don’t stand out from the crowd. To be good, an anime must make characters distinct and unique. Toloveru does not accomplish this at all. Characters must also be interesting. Toloveru’s characters were indeed relatively interesting and at least their manga to anime transition wasn’t completely horrible. In regards to character development, Toloveru is relatively successful. Rito is able to change from a person who could not converse normally with women into one who could. Lala changes from a sheltered princess into one who could actually make her own decisions. It's not impressive but it's something at least.
Overall: Character development is present but not significant, and unoriginal characters--(lower) 6
Value: What’s there to value? It’s unoriginal, characters weren’t good, and both the animation and the sound were decent at most. I was not tempted to buy this at all and probably will never be. It was maybe a step ahead of most of the generic ecchi animes out there but, it still was not a good anime. If we were rating this as just an ecchi rather than an anime, then maybe it’d do better, but for now it’s nothing worth watching really.
Overall: Little to no value at all, not worth the buy, step ahead generic animes--(higher) 5
Enjoyment: Toloveru was kind of a guilty pleasure, I’ll admit it. I watched it every week but didn’t actually enjoy watching it. It was like knowing that you were watching something bad but you don’t feel like stopping- it’s an ecchi after all, you have to watch one once in a while. Basically, I sort of enjoyed it. I definitely strained myself to watch it a second time though.
Overall: Guilty Pleasure, didn't like myself watching it, hard to watch a second time- (lower) 7
What you should get from this review: Toloveru is not something that you need to watch. Mostly everything is below where it should be. The only thing that made me watch it was support for the manga. If you want to do something with this series, read it rather than watch it. The manga will be more worth your time.
