Love Hina-Volume 5: Summer by the Sea (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio & Animation Biographies-Character Trading Card-1:40 Trailer-Madman Propaganda
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	86:41 (Case: 100)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Yoshiaki Iwasaki
Studio Distributor	TV Tokyo Madman Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Koichi Korenaga Ritsuko Okazaki

    This is Volume 5 of Love Hina episodes. I recommend reading at least my review of the first volume before reading this one. You might want to read reviews of the second, third, and fourth volumes, too.

    The four episodes on this disc are:

17. Mesmerised by Naru on the Haunted Island!: Something's Fishy! — Motoko's mission to rid an island of an evil spirit is spoilt by everyone turning up
18. Girls Dressed in Yukata for the Summer Festival: Let's! — a fairly restful time at the summer festival for everyone but Su and Sara
19. Marry into Money? A Prince from Across the Sea: Warm — where did Keitaro get that amazing sun-tan?
20. A Sepia-Coloured Promise with a Sleeping Girl: A Trick? — they find a strange doll in a tunnel under the Hinata Apartments

    More episode titles to enter in the "series with the longest titles for each episode" contest.

    By now, (SPOILER ALERT: highlight with mouse to read) everyone is convinced that Keitaro is utterly in love with Naru, and that Naru is probably in love with him, but the two of them won't admit it to each other — Naru shows lots of jealousy, though. The tension is getting unbearable.

    I wonder about the feelings that the leader of girl groupies has for Motoko — there are hints that it's more than a straightforward crush. And we start to see hints that Kitsune has feelings for Seta. There's also a hint that something less than happy has happened between Sara and her parents.

    In Episode 18 there's an interesting acoustic version of the opening theme sung by various characters (with varying degrees of skill - I think Kitsune's voice actor has the best voice) — really rather nice.

    In Episode 17 Keitaro undergoes even more punishment than is usual — it's amusing that he stands up under it better than Kentaro (I still don't like him!).

    In Episode 20 we learn more about the history of the Hinata Apartments, and Keisuke Urashima.

    Mitsumi Otohime reappears — she has some interesting properties, including a strangely klutzy resemblance to Keitaro — and there are hints about her possible identity... Only Mitsumi and Kaolla are able to talk to Tama (the turtle).

    With just one more volume to go, I really hope they'll be tying up the loose ends satisfactorily. Fortunately, that last volume comes out February 2003.

Video

    This DVD transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced. That is the original aspect ratio.

    The image is quite sharp and clear, almost the equal of volume four. There's no film grain, and no low-level noise.

    Colour is superb. There are no colour-related artefacts, but there continues to be some slight ringing, leading to faint haloing on characters, although it seems to be less of a problem on this disc than on any of the previous ones.

    There are no film artefacts.

    There is still a lot of aliasing and dot crawl on the black lines bordering characters, but it is generally not too annoying. The occasional scene is absolutely crawling (sorry) with it. Interlacing is present, but it's not easily noticed. There's no moire, and no MPEG artefacts.

    There are two subtitle tracks. The first subtitles only signs. The second provides full subtitles of the dialogue, plus the signs. The subtitles seem well-timed, accurate, and easy to read, in the traditional yellow.

    The disc is single-sided and single-layered. All the episodes together take less than 90 minutes, so they fit comfortably onto the single layer.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The soundtrack is provided in English and Japanese, as is appropriate for anime. Both soundtracks are Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround encoded, which is a reasonable presentation of a television track. I listened to both soundtracks in full. Both soundtracks are recorded at the correct level — they sound quite similar.

    The English dialogue is clear and readily understood. The Japanese dialogue sounds just as clear. This is possibly the first series I prefer to watch in Japanese with subtitles — you can blame the occasional mis-translation, plus the horrible choice of accent for Kitsune for that.

    Koichi Korenaga's score suits the show well. Ritsuko Okazaki's theme songs are distinctive, and difficult to dislodge from the mind, even for a non-Japanese-speaker.

    The surrounds and subwoofer are not called upon by this soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are fewer extras than usual on this disc.

Menu

    The menu is animated with music. It offers the episodes (by number), setup, and extras — simple and functional.

Character Photo Gallery

    This gives us a short bio for a character, plus seven images of the character. This disc only has the bio for Mitsune Konno, with the nickname Kitsune (meaning "Fox").

Trailer (1:40)

    The same trailer again.

Madman Propaganda

    Yet another new selection of trailers:

• Gasaraki (1:31)
• Martian Successor Nadesico (1:32)
• Macross Plus (2:54)

    The Region 1 disc was released late in 2002. The Region 4 was released in January 2003. The two discs hold the same episodes, and the same (lack of) extras, although the character profiles cover different characters. I continue to prefer the Region 4 artwork.

    Judging by reviews, the R1 has a very good transfer. It sounds as if it is slightly better than the R4 (minimal aliasing would be good). At the same time, I'm not in any pain watching these discs...

    The second last volume of episodes of an entertaining and very funny series.

    The video quality is very good, except for a fair bit of aliasing.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall