Love Hina

Have you ever wondered if there was ever an anime that impacted others? Well that's what Love Hina did. Love Hina was the first anime to popularize the harem genre, stereotypes, and fan service. Fan service is material that is designed to amuse the audience with sexual content and that happens to be what Love Hina is all about. There’s not a single episode that doesn’t contain fan service. An example is the hot springs which the girls use on a daily basis and usually involve scenes that show the girls’ cleavages. Another service is the costumes that are worn such as bikinis, wedding dresses, and maid outfits. The biggest fan service that Love Hina provides is the multiple scenes of Keitaro, the main character, accidentally doing something perverted to the female residents of the Hinata Inn. Keitaro is usually involved in grabbing or staring at breasts, landing on top of someone, and landing between someone’s legs.

Second, Love Hina famously introduced the harem genre and inspired others to develop animes and mangas of that genre. Harem is when a single male is surrounded by women or the other way around and often deals with one or more of the supporting characters being romantically interested with the male or female character. In this case, most of the girls are attracted to Keitaro in some way. Whether if it’s Shinobu, a thirteen-year old girl school girl, with her innocent crush on Keitaro or Motoko Aoyama, a fifteen-year old school girl, who denies her feelings towards Keitaro and has a violent relationship with him.

Finally, Love Hina uses many stereotypes that are now commonly seen in animes today. There's Motoko who is stereotyped to the kendo girl who constantly practices her martial arts and is popular with others. There's also Sarah McDougal, a nine-year old American from California, who is stereotyped to be loud-mouthed, nosy, and rude. It may seem mean how the creator of Love Hina portrays Americans but it’s not something that should be taken offense of but should be seen as something comical. These stereotypes make the characters seem much more intriguing. Besides, don’t we stereotype ourselves as well? For example, people stereotype Texans as cowboys and cowgirls who wear “ten gallon” while Californians are associated with surfers. In conclusion, that is why Love Hina has become so widely-known and an impact on animes today with stereotypical characters, fan service that entices men and maybe even women, and the beginning of the harem genre.