Episode 3 Events:

- Motoko returns from training and meets the new manager

The 3rd episode of Love Hina begins on several dark notes. Firstly, the animation itself is drawn as if one were watching the episode in an early 20th century theater. Everything has a dark and dismal feel to it while lines and spots scurry their way across the screen, like the silent films of noir. Even the music at the beginning of the episode is slow and boorish, like something out of an old Buddhist temple. We begin the episode with Motoko Aoyama, a resident of the Hinata-sou that we had not seen but briefly in the beginning of the first episode.
We find Motoko in a shrine at the Raika Girls High School Kendo Club Training Camp, meditating in front of a large Buddhist statue, deep in concentration. Shortly thereafter, Motoko seems to run a gauntlet of some sort, dodging traps, fellow students, bombs, fall-away floors and stampeding boars alike, to run outside and down a hill covered in bamboo trees. She then dives off a cliff and into a pool at base of a large waterfall. Pulling out her rattan, she strikes a rock in the pool and seems to hover in the air for a moment, as if waiting for something. A short second later the rattan vibrates violently and Motoko falls into the pool. Pulling herself out of the dark water, it begins to rain and Motoko spends a moment in the pool, contemplating what one would presume to be her failure.

Now we cut to the Sasaki Preparatory School and this episode of Love Hina takes its normal, slapstick and happily amusing turn. Keeping the same old-school film style on the screen, we get to watch Keitaro, Haitani and Shirai fail their latest prep-school exams. After bouncing through several screens of failed grades and 0% chances of acceptance into their schools of choice, Haitani decides that it’s time for them to find something else to do. Part of what adds to the hilarity of this moment is that the words are not actually spoken but rather written onto the screen. The language is also reminiscent of something that you would have found of out 19th-20th century England. The three young men are walking away from the school when they come across a young woman that Haitani and Shirai ask to go to the local café with them. Keitaro then tells them that perhaps they should stop trying at what they are doing, so they misconstrue that and turn of the theatre style atmosphere and restore the viewers vantage to that of a normal episode. Words are now spoken and again and the normal soundtrack returns.

Shortly thereafter, the three unlucky young men see Motoko and her coterie walking home from school. Haitani, being up to his usual tricks, decides that it would be a idea to ask Motoko to go to a karaoke bar with them. Motoko responds by using her umbrella to knock all three boys back several feet. Haitani and Shirai immediately run away, which leaves poor Keitaro deal with Motoko and her aggressiveness. After an exchange of words, Motoko ends up knocking blasting Keitaro with her umbrella again and walks off, leaving our bumbling protagonist dazed on the wet ground.

After walking home in the rain, Keitaro arrives back at the Hinata with a cold and apparently decided to take his clothes to the laundry room to be dried. Upon arrival, he is greeted by Motoko, dressed in nothing but a towel, who is attending to her own laundry. After diving backward out the door, Motoko pins him down in the hallway, threatening him with her sword, convinced that he is a stalker that followed her home from their previous encounter. Having been at camp the whole time, Motoko has nary a clue that Keitaro is not only a resident at the Hinata but its manager as well. Shinobu then comes around the corner however and sees Motoko and Keitaro in the hall. She stands there in fear for a moment until Kitsune comes around the corner, along with the rest of the resident and they explain to Motoko who Keitaro is.

A one would expect, Motoko is less than receiving to the fact that Keitaro has been made the manager of the Hinata. The girls all give their individual reasons why they think that Keitaro should be allowed to stay, most of which revolve around the fact that he is a Todai student. Motoko in the end turns to Naru for a final judgment but Naru reminds Motoko that not only do they need a manager but that Motoko had told Naru that she would comply with any decision that Naru made. Naru then informs Keitaro of the fact that Motoko’s family is descended from a long line of sword masters and if he would like to keep his health intact, it would not be in his best interests to upset Motoko.

Later, Keitaro tries to make amends with Motoko on the patio, where Motoko is practicing her swordsmanship. In his usual bumbling style, Keitaro ends up sneaking up on Motoko instead of confronting her and she accuses him of stalking her. During the middle of their sortie however, Motoko faints and Keitaro catches her when she begins to fall. Regaining her consciousness in his arms, Motoko becomes extremely agitated and launches Keitaro into the air with a single sword stroke. As the other members of the household make to console Keitaro, we see a flashback of Motoko’s that shows her sister walking away with a man.

Leaving the house, Motoko is trying to figure out why she is becoming flustered and light-headed at the sight of Keitaro when she runs into the Hinata Hot Springs elders. They reaffirm her suspicion that she is suffering from first love and this does nothing more than agitate Motoko even further. Cutting back to the inn, we see Keitaro lying on the floor of his room brooding about the problem when he notices that a poster on his roof seems to be covering some sort of hole. Crawling up through the hole, he discovers that it leads from his room to Narusegawa's. He also discovers that he has interrupted a conversation between Motoko and Narusegawa. Motoko reaffirms her accusations of Keitaro being a perverted stalker and threatens his life once again. Naru ends up putting an end to the entire situation by informing them that the hole had in fact been there since before Grandma Hina left.

After arguing the with other residents again for a bit about her continued dismay that Keitaro is the manager, Motoko ends up fainting again and they discover that she is running a fever and this is what is causing her to feel light-headed and faint. This fact reassures Motoko as she is lying in bed….and then infuriates her even further. She reasons that her misassumption of being in love with Keitaro is somehow his fault and that he should be punished for this trespass upon her heart. Running into his room, she challenges him to a duel on the conditions that if he wins, he can stay on as the apartment manager, however is she wins, he has to leave and she will take over the management duties of the Hinata apartments.

Like any intelligent individual, Keitaro runs from a swordsman of Motoko’s skill and the chase ends up taking them onto the roof. Once there, Motoko corners Keitaro and it seems like all is over for him until she faints again and almost falls from the roof and into the hot spring. Keitaro ends up saving her and falls into the hot spring for his trouble. The episode then ends with Motoko in bed muttering to herself about how she still has an eye on Keitaro, Keitaro in his room trying to fight off a cold and the other girls in the hot spring trying to relax. During their bath, Kaolla discovers something in the corner of the pool and reveals it to be Keitaro’s prep school I.D, revealing to all of them his true academic status and setting us up for episode 4

Critics Opinion: This is a crucial episode in the Love Hina arc in that it does a couple of major things. Firstly, we are introduced to one of the most important characters in Love Hina, Motoko Aoyama and we are introduced to the fact that she seems to have some kind of problem with men due to something that happened in her past regarding her sister. These issues are not solved for a long time but they also give us the basis of who Motoko is. You do however get to see in the episode one of the big reasons why early Motoko is one of my least favorite characters in Love Hina. The girl needs a valium…badly. She plays judge, jury and executioner on Keitaro before ever really giving him a chance. That blatant hatred of him does allow her later vulnerabilities to seem all the more important however.

End of Episode 3

 

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