Love Hina Again
ラブ ひな Again
- Comedy
- Ecchi
- Romance
- Gag Humor
- Harem
- Love Polygon
- School
- Episodes
- 3
- Duration
- 28 min per ep
- Aired
- Jan 26, 2002 to Mar 27, 2002
- Status
- Finished Airing
Synopsis
Keitaro Urashima finally clears the entrance exams and earns his place at Toudai, only for an accident at the entrance ceremony to leave him with a broken leg and time to rethink what he really wants. With a renewed sense of direction, he heads overseas with Seta on an archaeology trip, leaving Hinata Lodge behind for a while.
In Keitaro’s absence, Hinata Lodge quickly turns chaotic when his sister, Urashima Kanako, shows up and declares herself the new manager. Her hardline approach puts her at odds with the tenants, and tensions flare even more when a letter from Keitaro arrives. The scramble to get to it spirals into a mess—until Seta’s car crashes in at the worst possible moment, stopping anyone from reading it.
Otaku Consensus
Love Hina Again lands as a glossy but strained epilogue: Xebec’s OVA presentation is sharp, colorful, and compact enough to deliver concentrated harem slapstick, ecchi escalation, and Keitaro/Naru payoff material for invested fans. The common criticism is not the fan service itself but the way the Kanako-centered conflict leans into frustration, abrasive dialogue, and character regression, making many critics label it an unnecessary continuation best approached after the manga.
Why You Should Watch
Watch Love Hina Again if you want the most concentrated version of early-2000s harem chaos: three OVA episodes of gag violence, love-polygon anxiety, bathhouse-era ecchi, and cast-driven romantic noise without a full season’s runway. It scratches the same old-school itch as Tenchi Muyo! and the louder side of Ranma 1/2, especially for viewers who like comedy where every emotional beat is one accident away from a shouting match. The appeal is specifically archival and fan-completionist: Xebec’s cleaner OVA look, Shinkichi Mitsumune’s returning musical texture, and Yui Horie’s presence as both Naru and a theme-song performer make it feel like a 2002 time capsule. Skip it if you need subtle growth; watch it if you want Love Hina at maximum volatility.
Key Characters
- NNaru Narusegawa(VA: Yui Horie)
Naru remains the franchise’s emotional pressure point, the character fans most associate with Love Hina’s mix of romantic sincerity and explosive slapstick punishment.
- MMotoko Aoyama(VA: Yuu Asakawa)
Motoko brings the swordplay-coded discipline and severity that cut against the lodge’s messier harem comedy, making her a favorite for viewers who prefer sharper character contrast.
- SShinobu Maehara(VA: Masayo Kurata)
Shinobu’s appeal comes from how openly earnest she is inside a cast built on denial, jealousy, and comic overreaction.
- KKaolla Su(VA: Reiko Takagi)
Kaolla Su embodies the series’ anything-goes gag logic, the reason even a romance OVA can plausibly drift into robots, wild inventions, and absurd physical comedy.
What Makes It Stand Out
- 1
It is a three-episode OVA released from January 26 to March 27, 2002, so its structure is closer to a compressed franchise coda than a conventional TV continuation; that compression amplifies the gags, romantic tension, and fan-service beats.
- 2
Xebec’s OVA production is one of the release’s most consistently praised elements, with contemporary viewer commentary singling out the visuals as clear, sharp, and colorful even when the writing drew heavy criticism.
- 3
The Kanako material gives the OVA its most controversial identity: AniList’s high Incest tag percentage reflects how strongly viewers associate Love Hina Again with a boundary-pushing sibling fixation angle rather than only standard harem rivalry.
- 4
Shinkichi Mitsumune is credited for the music, while the theme-song lineup is unusually tied to the acting side of the franchise, including Yui Horie on the opening and multiple endings.
- 5
Its reputation is sharply split by platform and audience memory: it holds a 7.21 MAL score from more than 53,000 votes, while AniList lists it at 68/100 and many critic summaries describe it as an overdone, frustrating continuation.
Fun Facts & Trivia
- Fun fact 1
- Yui Horie does double duty on the OVA: she voices Naru Narusegawa and is credited for theme-song performance on the opening, ED1, and ED3.
- Fun fact 2
- Natsuko Kuwatani performs ED2, while Yuuji Ueda is credited on ED3, giving the short OVA more ending-theme performer variety than its three-episode length might suggest.
- Fun fact 3
- Ken Akamatsu is credited as the original creator, placing the OVA directly under the Love Hina source-franchise umbrella rather than as a detached spin-off experiment.
- Fun fact 4
- The staff list includes Thomas Prauße for the German ADR script, a localization credit that shows how the OVA was prepared for overseas audiences beyond its Japanese release window.
- Fun fact 5
- AniList’s tag spread captures the OVA’s strange gag density: alongside Female Harem, College, and Nudity, it also carries Mahjong, Dullahan, Swordplay, and Robots tags at lower confidence levels.
Studios
- Xebec
