Love Hina Games

Love Hina is a Japanese TV show best known for having a male lead who gets victimized regularly for no apparent reason by the women on the show. In other words, Love Hina is atrociously bad. At least, we can presume that much. I don't watch the damn thing. The problem is, they made games based on this infernal show. Women don't play video games, so I'm not sure how the publishers expected to sell any copies. I sat down and spent a few minutes with a pair of these non-gems, which were never released outside of Japan. The results are... unpleasant.

LOVE HINA POCKET 

Ne-Ne-New World Order

Here we have Love Hina Pocket for the Game Boy Color. 2000 was a great year for games... and none of that has anything to do with this game.

Our hero, Dude With Glasses, roams around a house getting verbally and physically abused by women.

"Men are dogs, ma, that's her dogma" he says while they roll around laughing at him. No, not really. I don't know what's being said, but it's safe to say that those of us who can't read Japanese aren't missing anything.

A strange turtle grabs for our hero's shish-kabob! Bad turtle! Down boy!

Naru Narusegawa, the star of this hellscape, is mad. She probably thinks our hero is cheating on her with the turtle.

Turtle: "Turtle!"

Now our hero walks the streets. I can only guess that they sent him out to buy tampons or something. Is that a stray cat wandering around? In any case, this game is fairly unplayable (and something tells me it would be that way even if I could read it) so let's turn the page to the next generation of thrilling Love Hina games.


LOVE HINA ADVANCE 

I wonder if this is a Hannah Montana thing where she has two different personalities. I'm sure there's an angry Love Hina fan out there who will read this and flip out. "That isn't what the show is about!" they will yell loudly while adjusting their taped-in-the-middle glasses. "HOW CAN HE SAY THAT? And how did he know I wear those glas.... what the? Everything I'm saying is appearing on the screen! WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" before passing out onto their pile of anime magazines.

I presume the title screen says "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here"

Oh my God, she's so dreamy!

This shot reminds me of Juno, except she isn't preggers. Funny thing about Juno is that we're expected to believe that a pregnant 16 year old is the smartest person in the town. As someone who has watched wrestling, I can suspend disbelief, but that is a bridge too far.

And speaking of wrestling, I think our hero should talk like former WWF superstar Val Venis.

"HELLO, LADIES." He'd get so much more play!

"Hey! Get the hell away from my man, whore!"

After this shocking, Jersey Shore esque development, I find a save point.

Next thing we know, Naru basically sexually assaults Venis. "Unf! UNF! Give it to me, you bad boy!" she says while committing several felony offenses.

Group shot for no reason! Note how cool and happy all the characters look, and note how the one man on the show is nowhere to be found! It's just as well, if he were in the shot they'd probably all be tazering him or something.

Naru is sad because she hasn't gotten laid in over two hours.

Naru: "And my USELESS BOYFRIEND doesn't know how to work the clitoris!"

Venis: "What? The clitta-who?"

What follows is a bizarre interlude where the player has to rotate the direction buttons. I can only conclude that this is some sort of clitoris-working minigame. But wait! Side-to-side works much better than circles! This game is telling lies!

After Venis successfully finishes a round of the minigame, the women of the house are happy. Wait, what the hell is that orange cat thing? Creepy!

Next thing we know, our hero accidentally walks in on one of the women in a state of undress. Geez, is this a sorority or something? If this show weren't for the mentally deficient, our hero would go "Sorry, my bad" and life would go on.

But no, this is Love Hina, so she has to have a stupid, ridiculous overreaction and chase him off with a sword.

Ever wondered what Purgatory looks like? Wonder no more. By the way, all of the exits from this room lead to Hell.

Just when our hero emerges from his hiding pla... wait, why is there a random yellow critter in here? THIS HOUSE IS NOT A ZOO!

In any case, he emerges from his hiding place, only to be bum-rushed by miss doesn't-know-how-to-lock-a-door, who is STILL after him. Just fuck off!

Naru looking all innocent. She's about as innocent as Bill Clinton's hand!

Our hero stumbles upon what appears to be an unconscious woman. I'd say he should help her up or check on her, but knowing this idiotic show she'd probably dropkick him for it or something.

At least he's managed to curry favor with one of the ladies! Working the clitoris will do that, fellas.

And moments later, the tanned woman kicks him in the face and it's game over. No, really. I missed getting a screenshot and had to google one up, but this actually happened. I appreciate that this show/game(s) features some of the most alluring cartoon women ever, but I've never seen anything try so hard to remove my balls. Whoever is responsible for the Love Hina universe must not want men to be men. Not only does it make me feel bad for having a penis, it makes women look even more psycho than we already know they are from observing them in the wild. So if the plan was to make women look cool, it backfired. The sad thing is, a small subsection of the Japanese girl-population grew up watching this horrible, horrible show. They spent their formative years learning how to abuse men. When their boyfriends continuously kill themselves, they won't understand why. Fucking Love Hina.