To Love-Ru Darkness is nothing short of a fanservice masterpiece.
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(You can see the original incomplete chronological version here)
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Series Information
Production Company: Xebec
Vintage: Fall 2012
Nipple sightings from other Xebec produced anime:
Hen Zemi, Blue Seed Beyond, Kanokon, Ladies versus Butlers, Maken-Ki! Two, Outlaw Star (w/ Sunrise), RIN – Daughters of Mnemosyne, Softenni, Sorcerer Hunters, Upotte!! (OVA)
Other notable / recently relevant mainstream anime from Xebec:
Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, Love Hina, Negima, Lagrange – The Flower of Rin-ne, Martian Successor Nadesico, Pandora Hearts, Shaman King, Space Battleship Yamato 2199, Zoids
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Notable Seiyuu:
Aki Toyosaki as Momo Belia Deviluke
Aki Toyosaki is also well known for her roles as:
Kanae Ito as Nana Astar Deviluke
Kanae Ito is also well known for her roles as:
Haruka Tomatsu as Lala Satalin Deviluke
Haruka Tomatsu is also well known for her roles as:
Yuka Iguchi as Mea Kurosaki
Yuka Iguchi is also well known for her roles as:
Kana Hanazawa as Mikan
Kana Hanazawa is also well known for her roles as:
Misato Fukuen as Golden Darkness, Tearju Lunatique
Misato Fukuen is also well known for her roles as:
Kaori Nazuka as Yui Kotegawa
Kaori Nazuka is also well known for her roles as:
Sayuri Yahagi as Haruna
Sayuri Yahagi is also well known for her roles as:
Harumi Sakurai as Ryouko Mikado
Harumi Sakurai is also well known for her roles as:
Mamiko Noto as Oshizu
Mamiko Noto is also well known for her roles as:
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Thoughts on the anime
What began as a dime-a-dozen high school harem manga gradually evolved into the most daring and commercially successful nude-ecchi series of all time. This gradual decent into depravity is well reflected in the series three anime seasons, with each reducing the censorship levels while increasing the risque nature of it’s content.
The key ingredient in To Love-Ru’s massive success is it’s outstanding art and character design. It is illustrated by Kentaro Yabuki, who had previously made his name by illustrating Black Cat, which he also wrote. To Love-Ru’s writer (Saki Hasemi) also collaborated with Yubuki on Black Cat as well, which likely created the working relationship that would lead to To Love-Ru’s creation.
It’s also kind of interesting how good this seiyuu group looks in 2013 compared to how it looked back in it’s original season in 2008. Ayako Kawasumi was the only proven star during that first season, and she had a bit role. Since then nearly every seiyuu in this series has gone on to do pretty big things in the business.
……
To be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of the first anime season, as it was just too damn hard to see the nudity in almost every nude scene. The second season was still too stingy for my tastes, though a definite improvement. But To Love-Ru Darkness erases all it’s past sins and makes up for them with interest. Gone is any trace of that awful steam censorship from the previous seasons, in it’s place fanservice that outshines all but the most extreme in the genre.
While I couldn’t have cared less for our pantywaist hero and his love affairs in the first two seasons, Darkness brings a new hook, with the love interest coming from a domineering female angle. Momo hadn’t been much more than a prop in the previous seasons, but from the very beginning of To Love-Ru Darkness it is clear that the story and events revolve around her desires and ambitions, those being to be with Rito, even if it means being his concubine.
Thus begins a totally mindless and frequently unintelligible tumble into a clumsily constructed plot to get all the girls to buy into to her insane harem idea, and of course with Rito being such a giant pussy it’s hardly a lock that he’d sign up either. But as the show rolls along and it becomes fairly obvious that almost every girl in the show is romantically in love with Rito… you begin to wonder if this harem idea could actually happen by the stories end.
Operating from the assumption that this love story is built around polygamy instead of monogamy, it creates a very different dynamic where we are no longer rooting for individual girls to win in their affections, but rather we are rooting for them all to buy into the harem concept and team up. The writing is convincing enough that you can actually understand Momo’s view that doing so is not immoral, but actually for the greater good.
But even that isn’t what To Love-Ru Darkness is about. Nope, this show is really just a very pretty container to get us as many fapable and beautifully drawn ecchi scenes as possible. Maybe Rito will never get to enjoy all the naked fun going on all around him, but the audience at home sure is.
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Thoughts on the fanservice video
You won’t find a better combination of art, character design, and ingenuity in a nude ecchi series elsewhere. Similar to other XEBEC projects like Kanokon and Ladies versus Butlers, To Love-Ru Darkness appreciates the value of natural body types and natural curves. There is a lot of art talent in Yabuki’s pen, and a lot of art talent on XEBEC’s animation staff, and it certainly shows when the clothes come off for these characters.
It is a shame we didn’t get any BD specials, but given the insane nudity volume in the anime and OVAs XEBEC can easily be forgiven for choosing to stand pat.
The video has my usual bag of tricks: dark rooms are lit up, “gifable” scenes are extended quite nicely, quick nudity is paused, and so on. I also reworked my Mikan montage at the end to make better use of some high resolution images. The images are mostly the same, but if you watch it you will see some pretty obvious changes for the better.
And of course, this video is sorted by character. It’s not something I do often because it represents a lot of extra work, but character sorted videos are usually the best ones, in my opinion. Especially for an epic harem anime like this.
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Favorite Character
Momo, without question. She is perfection. She’s cute, she’s hot, she’s selfless, she’s cuddly, she’s ambitious, and she’s cunning. Oh, and she’s really, really horny all the damn time. The fact that she’s voiced by the same VA as Tomo from Seikon no Qwaser just makes it unfair. I saw earlier this year that Momo was voted the Otaku’s best girl in any harem series, not just To Love-Ru, and the more I thought about it, the more wisdom I saw in their selection.
Kotegawa was my favorite from the first two seasons, and she has some terrific scenes in this season. Golden Darkness is maybe the cutest character and likewise had a massive service boost this go around. Nana gives us a great tsundere performance from the talented Kanae Ito, and she’s pretty cute too. Haruna and Mea are no slouch, Lala is still a babe and Tearju Lunatique had a fantastic anime debut.
The one character I badly need to see more of is Ryouko. The older school nurse types that frequent these shows are always smokin’ hot and under-utilized. Not that I ever expect to see To Love-Ru fanservice specials in a future season, but if we did, a Ryouko special would certainly blow my mind.
