Love Hina

Love Hina (Japanese: ラブ ひな, Hepburn: Rabu Hina) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Ken Akamatsu. It was serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from October 1998 to October 2001, with the chapters collected into 14 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha. The series has proved extremely popular around the world, both commercially and critically. In Japan, the manga had 20 million copies in circulation. The English release of the manga has been reprinted many times. The manga has received numerous industry awards in Japan and North America, as well as praise from critics.

Plot
The series centers on Keitarō Urashima and his attempts to fulfill a childhood promise that he made with a girl to enter the University of Tokyo together. However, he has forgotten the name of the girl he made the promise to and hopes to be accepted into the university in order to find her. Having failed the entrance exam twice and with his parents no longer willing to support him, he goes to stay at his grandmother's hotel, only to find out that it has been converted into a female-only apartment. The tenants are about to kick him out when his aunt appears and announces that his grandmother has given him the title to the apartments. Much to their dismay Keitarō becomes the new manager of the family-owned girls' dorm Hinata House and must now balance his new responsibilities in addition to studying for the university entrance exam.

Why It Can Go To Tokyo University

 * 1) It's an example of how to write an harem manga, but not only that it's also a great underdog story as well.
 * 2) Many great and (Mostly) likeable characters such Keitaro, Naru, Shinobu, Kitsune, Motoko, Mutsumi, Su, Kanako, Haruka, and Seta among others
 * 3) The series is also does a great job at Character development, here's some examples:
 * 4) *Keitaro went from a mh:loathsomecharacters:Butt-Monkey who later through hard work learns martial arts, becomes successful, slowly wins the women in his life, and finally gets to marry his first love (Naru).
 * 5) *Naru after discovering as we learn her reasons to be the way she is becomes more nicer towards Keitaro.
 * 6) *Shinobu went from extremely shy to just kinda shy, but still social and confident about her wits. In the epilogue, her shyness completely vanished.
 * 7) *Motoko started as a girl completely focused in her training, thinking love is useless. She ends up conciliating her training with a normal life, going to Tokyo U and wanting Keitaro as her husband as a result.
 * 8) There's many Funny, Heartwarming, or even Tearjerking scenes in the series.
 * 9) The plenty of references to other media wheter anime, video games, and even movies such as: Final Fantasy, Star Wars, Dragon Ball, Lupin III, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Azumanga Daioh among others.
 * 10) A solid ending in which Keitaro finally goes to Tokyo University with Naru and both of them ending up getting married.
 * 11) It helped inspired works such as Nisekoi,Strawberry 100%, To Love-Ru, and ''Yuuna & the Haunted Hot Springs"

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Naru is a bit of an unlikeable character, though she does get character development later on.
 * 2) The girls treatment of Keitaro makes them borderline Karma Houdinis.
 * 3) *Their treatment of Keitaro is also frowned upon nowadays due to double standard: abuse, female on male is more of a social issue that most people and the law will not tolerate anymore.

Trivia

 * 1) The first volumes show some drafts and scrapped ideas:
 * 2) *Keitaro had a different surname (Akaishizawa), no glasses, more optimistic, more realistic, very critical and owned a motorcycle. He was much less of a pushover and he sincerely considered evicting the tenants to sell the Inn. The girls originally only wanted to befriend him because they wanted to avoid being kicked out.
 * 3) *The original Naru was called Midori and something of a mix between Mutsumi and the current Naru, who meets Keitaro by falling through the ceiling and landing in his bed. This actually happens to Mutsumi in the manga, though that's much later on.
 * 4) *According to Akamatsu, Shinobu was the character who changed most during the early drafts. She had a cute look, a serious personality, always angry and initially hated Keitaro.
 * 5) *Kaolla was known only as "the foreigner" and was older.
 * 6) *Otohime had a sad and serious expression.
 * 7) *Haruka supposed to be a single mom with a long hair and in the middle of her postgraduate studies.
 * 8) The English Love Hina release was one of Tokyopop's first releases in the "Authentic Manga" lineup of titles using the Japanese right to left reading style. In doing so the artwork remained unchanged from the original.
 * 9) Love Hina was supposed to finish after Keitaro got into Tokyo University, but it was more successful than he realized and his editors wanted the series to continue. When he found that he didn't have any way to create tension/conflict with the characters he had by now, he introduced Kanako Urashima in a way to "bring closure" to the story, just like he did with the character Yayoi Kobe in A.I. Love You.
 * 10) For the last arc of the series, there was an idea of having Keitaro disappear in an aerial accident when he was going to the U.S.A, and the girls would go and try to find him. However, this was considered way too dramatic for the overall tone of the manga and so they decided to write the Molmol arc instead.

Reception
The first 11 volumes sold over 6 million copies in Japan as of October 2001. As of July 2017, the manga had 20 million copies in circulation. Love Hina won the Kodansha Manga Award for best shōnen title in 2001. It was selected as the "Best Manga, USA Release" at both the 2002 and 2004 Anime Expo conventions. In 2003, the title was among the top ten graphic novels on Nielsen BookScan's list and one of the first graphic novels to ever appear in the general trade paperback list. The series was well received by critics. Tony Chen, of Anime News Network (ANN), found it to be a funny series, though finding the 16+ rating appropriate due to the number of jokes involving sexual innuendo. He praised the beautiful artwork, feeling the "sexy and cute" female designs were perfect for the series and that Keitarō's design fit his dorky personality. Chen found Naru's regularly catching Keitarō making a mistake and calling him a pervert redundant and annoying. Eric Luce of Ex.org notes an increased character development over other love comedies, and describes the series as "nothing if not whimsical".