Motto To Love Ru is the 12 episode second season anime based on the manga series. Unlike the first season, it faithfully adapts the manga scenarios and thus the quality is a noticeable improvement. It is a comedy harem, focusing on Yuuki Rito, your “average” student who just happens to have attractive aliens living with him. There’s quite a bit of a time skip compared to the first season and even if you have watched the OVAs, there are events that had occurred that wasn’t covered so you may be confused about a few things. These things include Celine being a part of the family, Saki having a crush on Zastin and the general feel of the relationships between all the characters.
Lala, the Princess from the planet Deviluke, is in love with Rito, but Rito likes Haruna. This love triangle is further complicated with all the other female characters, from the tsundere type Yui, to Lala’s twin sisters Momo and Nana, and even to Rito’s own younger sister Mikan. It’s messy but this is where most of the comedy comes in. Rito will inadvertently accidentally find himself mixed into a situation where it is not his fault, yet will be in some awkward position with one of the other characters. Despite this, he has enough charm that all the characters fall for him and doesn’t mind it too much despite slapping or punching him away.
In a departure from the first season, each episode is comprised of around three shorts, pretty much in a slice-of-life aspect. This means that the filler is gone and we’re left with some funny and at times, clever scenes in which to see Rito slowly progress through his harem life.
There is a varied mix to the cast of characters, and each character has one distinct characteristic that defines them. While this may at first make them feel one-dimensional, it is handled fairly well and they have enough personality to give them diversity. We have Lala who is an airhead, Haruna the shy one, Yui the supposedly decent one, Momo the seductive one and Nana the tsundere. A bigger focus seems to be placed on Yami, who still uses the excuse of intending to assassinate Rito in order to stay around. Yami is a great character though, with her transform ability and inexperience of relationships, there are genuine moments where she bonds with the other characters. She discovers more about life on Earth and slowly gaining a better impression of Rito, who is portrayed as nice but way too oblivious.
Each of the characters expresses their love in a different way (whether they want to admit it or not). The result is a mixture of clichéd events with crazier things. So we’ll have Yui fretting about Valentine’s Day in one episode to an alien stalking Haruna in another. The surprising thing is that this format works really well, and while by this point, the anime has lost any resemblance of a proper plot or objective to aim towards, it’s actually fine. The teasing of various pairings means that there is good coverage for the whole cast and satisfy the viewer no matter which pairing they are a fan of.
As you can expect, there is fan service at every opportunity, much more than the first season but it is also done better. The cast will turn up in swimsuits and lingerie, while the camera will focus on certain areas such as up skirts, no character is safe from this. The fan service can be too frequent at times so it loses its impact and ranges from teasing to almost crossing the line.
The anime reuses a lot of plot gimmicks, swapping bodies being the most frequent. This means that there can be a sense of repetition whenever it turns up but the events that happen afterwards are different each time. Whether it is different enough depends on your preferences. The season final has a surprising confession but is resolved in a true Lala and To Love Ru fashion. As a result, it has an open ending, although significant progress has been made that even Rito acknowledged.
Overall, Motto To Love Ru is a good anime for the genre and if you don’t mind the heavy fan service at times, complete with compromising positions and moans. It is funny although at times it seems to reuse the plot gimmick too much. It’s just a shame that it is partially ruined by the first season forcing so many events to have been skipped between it and this season. As a result, it can get confusing as to why certain characters have appeared or are acting this way but it isn’t a huge deal since the anime doesn’t focus that much on story anyway.
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