Deconstructing Anime: To Love Ru

You Know, I’m going to admit it: I can’t stand Japanese animation for the most part. I don’t know, it’s just not my thing okay? Because every time I’m trying to sit through some anime, most of the time I need to pause it because the characters do something too stupid and embarrassing to even look at it.

And don’t get me wrong, I know that there are a lot of exceptions to this genre. People like Hayao Miyasaki proved that Japanese animation can be unique, creative and visually outstanding, but that is a very exceptional case, because for every decent piece of art that is created in the land of the rising sun, other creations tend to reuse from character designs, personalities, plotlines and jokes and that makes you wonder how many time you can watch the same thing over and over before you get sick of it.

But I digress, what I’m talking about is a very specific genre, the kind of anime that even the most hardcore fans of Japanese culture tend to consider terrible, I’m referring to Ecchi Harem Anime, the most… I don’t even know how to describe it because it’s so odd in the way it creates itself that you can’t really tell the difference between what’s right or wrong or what the creators want.

And because I don’t want to sound trashy but rather a nitpicking asshole, I’m going to deconstruct an Anime that, in my opinion, sums it up everything that is right and wrong about this. I'm talking of course about: To Love Ru (or trouble if you translate it)

I know there's something wrong with this picture, but I can't find out what it is... oh, I see, two of the girls are looking the other way round instead of focus on the main character... oh, silly me.

Now, I’m going to try to be the least negative and destructive as possible and I’m just going to point out my theories about why this genre is so successful between people despite the bad reputation.

The story focuses on a 16 year old boy named Yuuki Rito, an average kid who is in love with a girl from his school named Haruna Sairenji, a very shy and reserved person who apparently corresponds his feelings as well, but because both of them are so timid and socially awkward, they never got the chance to express their mutual love. To this point, sounds like a really standard love story with an overall cuteness and stuff. I, personally don’t feel especially attracted by it, but at least I can understand the appeal.

But, the things get weirder and weirder when an alien princess called Lala Satalin Deviluke escapes from her planet to earth and magically teleport herself to the bathroom of Yuuki (totally naked), just when he was taking a bathroom and coincidentally raised his arms to touch her breasts. Yes, that is what happened, and trust me, that thing is not the weirdest part.

The things get even more complicated when we discover that touching her breasts was the alien equivalent of asking for her hand, that’s right, Yuuki became the fiancée of Lala for touching her knockers by accident, talking about plot conveniences.

And while the story goes on we met other characters like: Yuuki’s sister who has some feelings for him (awkwaaaaard), the space assassin girl who has no emotions and got the mission to kill the main character, the control freak girl who sees Rito as a pervert for some misunderstandings, the alien who can change his/her gender by sneezing, Lala’s twin sisters and the medic, Rito’s best friend who is jealous for his luck with women and the perverted director of the school who, from some reason hasn’t been arrested for sexual harassment yet.

From all the jokes in this show, the most overused is the one when the main character accidentally (yes, accidentally) do something perverted to one of the girls (touch her breasts, land on her panties or whatever) and eventually got beated the crap out of him, which isn’t really funny but rather mean spirited and repetitive.

Another running gag is that Rito’s best friend of any other male character points out how lucky he is for having so many women in love with him, who is understandable but these guys act like there’s nothing more important to talk about. It’s kinda sad.

And that’s just a few summaries of characters that live in this surreal world when a 16 year old alien girl (Lala) is a professional engineer and inventor of many things that are mostly plot devices, creepy old man can stalk all the girls that they want it without learning any lesson and falling for the same over and over, and where an average kid with no talents or personality can have a lot of beautiful girls with colorful hairs and big boobies by himself.

Okay, sorry for that part, but it’s just so mind blowing the fact that an idea this… weird can be so successful. How this formula exactly works? It is because it’s animation? Well, to be fair it’s a very cute, colorful and bright piece of work who is very pleasant from a visual standpoint, but there’s a lot of other shows that has this characteristic and aren’t that commercial. It is because how sexualized everything is? Not really, a lot of other things can satisfy this need for tits.

Well, I think that, aside from how cute it looks and sounds or how formulaic the plot is to the point you know what’s going to happen from the very beginning, shows like these has a much more simple task to accomplish in order to be a hit. And surprisingly it’s not the fan-service (term to refer the sexualization of the characters), I mean, is one of the most important qualities of these kind of shows, but not THE most important.

What I’m talking about is the need of self importance in the viewer of the show. How? Well, think about it, why the main character is so one dimensional and their way of react to the situations around him is so repressed? Well, I think that the main reason for this is because the main character is just a cardboard cutout for the viewer. With most successful shows, fans usually tend to create a cult around a character, quoting his lines, creating fanart about him, but heres the thing: those characters are not a mirror for the viewership.

I mean, sure there are a lot of people who literally fall in love with Breaking Bad mostly because Walter White with his badass skills and overall personality, but I don’t think those people want to get cancer, work in a lackluster job, being persecuted by the DEA or being married with Skyler (God forbids you), they admire the way he deals with this stuff but they don’t want to put themselves in those situations.

Mmmm... let's see... being a guy in his forties suffering a midlife crisis and dying of lung cancer... or a 16 year old boy totally healty with a lot of girls who love him and want to make his dirtiest fantasies come true... let's get it on Heisenberg...

Here, is the exact opposite, the more forgettable the main character is, the easier is for the viewer to picture himself in that very fortunate and enviable position. You don’t want to be LIKE Rito, you want to be Rito.

And the fact that everybody else in this world exist with the one single purpose of point out the advantage of the main character just reinforce this idea of power. The feeling of have this fantasy all for you and everybody want to have what you have. Even the Director of the school has an important role of remind you how desirable the situation is. When you see somebody wishing for something with so much passion, then you wanted as well and that’s why you look for an interchangeable character to accomplish the dream.

And the girls, of course have different personalities to accomplish every fetish as possible, so the viewership can increase. Some people would prefer the shy girls, some others the angry ones, some others the playful ones or the emotionless ones, the clumsy ones the overly obsessed ones and so forth.

So, this is Harem Anime in a nutshell... any questions?

So, it is bad to let fooling yourself by this formula? No, you can watch and follw whatever you want, but it’s important to remember being aware of the silliness and always remember not take these shows too seriously. So personally, I pass… anime is not my thing and I don’t want to talk about it because I don’t understand it too well, I’m just trying to theorize here.

So good night my snipper-snapper fellows, I hope these rant doesn’t offend you and be open-minded like I tried to be when I wrote this. Take care.

To the Loving memory of Robin Williams.