Hatsukoi Limited.

Ayumi Arihara believes that being loved is the ultimate key to happiness—which is why her greatest wish is to have a boy confess to her. A series of unfortunate events leads to her ideal dream coming true, albeit in a nightmarish way: the towering and terrifying Misao Zaitsu confesses his love to Ayumi through a letter.

Mentally exhausted from not knowing what to do, Ayumi collapses in class. A classmate comes to her rescue, carrying her princess-style to the infirmary. This makes Ayumi fall in love with the cute boy, only to realize he is none other than Misao's younger brother, Mamoru.

Feeling caught between a rock and a hard place, Ayumi must decide whether to stick to her idea of love or pursue what she truly desires. However, Ayumi is not alone in her struggles—all her friends are also taking on the challenges of first love, and for teenagers, it is never as easy as it seems.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yamamoto, Misaki Main

Tanaka, Rie Japanese

Enomoto, Kei Main

Itou, Shizuka Japanese

Kusuda, Etsu Main

Asanuma, Shintaro Japanese

Bessho, Koyoi Main

Toyosaki, Aki Japanese

Dobashi, Rika Main

Kotobuki, Minako Japanese

Arihara, Ayumi Main

Ise, Mariya Japanese

Chikura, Nao Main

Fujimura, Ayumi Japanese

Sogabe, Hiroyuki Main

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Watase, Meguru Main

Shiraishi, Ryouko Japanese

Zaitsu, Mamoru Main

Irino, Miyu Japanese

Nakayama, Nobuhiro Producer

Kawase, Kouhei Producer

Matsukura, Yuuji Producer

Takechi, Tsuneo Producer

Reviews

Jun 28, 2009

KaminaKai

Recommended

*One step at a time, slowly they find themselves falling in love.*

“Geez, women are so hard to understand” – Etsu Kusuda

Most, if not all male viewers tend to agree with that statement. The various male characters in Hatsukoi Limited (literally means first love limited) all experienced the same problem. But before you get the wrong idea, it should mentioned that this anime is directed from the female perspective most of the time. Hatsukoi Limited explores the early love life of a group of teenage girls and how they cope with boys that they like (or don’t like). While 12 episodes are hardly enough to cover ... any in depth relationship for over half a dozen girls, the story remains a highly enjoyable one. Simply put, Hatsukoi Limited is as close to an idealized slice of life / romance comedy one could find in the market now a day.

Complex love web is one of the main elements in the story. However, viewers will have no trouble adapting to the environment as everything build on one another slowly one step at a time. In fact, the overall plot to the story tags along quite well with each major character’s development. One could even say the characters are a natural complement to the story or vice versa (this may be a natural thing to say, but in reality not a lot of shows can even do this properly).

A well structured story must also have a logical order for presenting its characters and Hatsukoi Limited excel in this department as well, as previously mentioned. What most people worry about is the sudden rush of information in the early episodes (like just dumping all you need to know about all the characters in episode 1), but thankfully that is not the case for Hatsukoi Limited. In hindsight, starting the story with Ayumi was an obvious choice for the author although her character as a whole may not have been the easiest to accept by most audiences.

Viewers will enjoy watching most of the characters grow and develop themselves along the way. Most have gotten more mature and act more reasonably, but there are some exceptions. Whether the lack of character development for these characters are attributed to the length of the series or the story was meant to be that way, is up to viewers to decide. However, it should be pointed out that all the characters have a sense of realism in them, nothing from their characteristics seem fictitious or too fantasy-like. Through the eyes of these 14 to 16 years old, one might even see a resemblance of your own younger self.

Perhaps the most painful part of Hatsukoi Limited with regards to its characters is that, like most shounen shows out there, it has really wimpy, stupid, and annoying guys (to make matter worse, most of them look quite ugly too). On the other hand, the females characters are often really smart, kawaii, and gorgeous looking babes (yes Misaki, that means you)!

Quite frankly, it was the character animation that first caught my attention to this wonderful romance comedy as the storyline sounded rather generic to me at first. As to be expect from J.C. Staff, they always deliver high quality animation (and consistent too). The backgrounds are often lacking in detail, but that help put the characters in focus and viewers will spend 90% of the time looking at the characters anyway, thus there isn’t much to complain about. It was also interesting to see that the characters in the anime seem to be an exact carbon copy of their original manga self. Believe it or not, it is not easy to find an anime adaptation that follows the manga as closely as Hatsukoi Limited, both in the looks of the characters and the story itself.

Finally, music is THE area that surpirsed me the most throughout the show. First off, both OP and ED are just splendid. The additional BGM and soundtracks in between just amplifies whatever tiny emotion I had in my mind, making this series a bit more successful than it should have been in my eyes. I hope you will find Hatsukoi Limited as enjoyable as it did for me and it is definitely a series in which I plan to have a blu-ray collection of in the future.

Are you in love right now?

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 21, 2017

LegendAqua

Mixed Feelings

"Are you in love right now?"

Well with this anime..it's more divisive than "in love" actually...

Hatsukoi Limited follows several unrequited relationships and each of the earlier episodes focuses on one set of relationships while developing the ones from the previous episode in tandem, which makes one elaborate love dodecahedron.

Well since this is a relationship-based romance naime, LA needs to start off with the characters themselves and their relationships. Let's start with Ayumi Arihara voiced by Mariya Ise, one of the genki ditz of her girl group who has a crush on Mamoru Zaitsu voiced by Miyu Irino but his older brother Misao voiced by Kenji Nomura ... also has a thing for Ayumi, she was probably LA favourite character in the anime mainly due to personality. Next we have Rika Dobashi voiced by Minako Kotobuki a calm yet athletic member of the girl group who has a nice romance with Haruto Terai voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto in which they have this superiority inferiority complex towards each other. Next is Nao Chikura voiced by Ayumi Fujimura, one of the more shy member of the girl group and Hiroyuki Sogabe voiced by Takahiro Sakurai had a crush on her BUT she also has a fleeting romance with one of her former art club seniors by the form of Yukito Renjou voiced by Akira Ishida. Next (YES, there's still more!) is Misaki Yamamoto voiced by Rie Tanaka and Mamoru Zaitsu has a crush on her BUT Misaki likes Ayumi's older brother Yuuji voiced by Hiroyuki Yoshino (in which HE has a sister complex and doesn't really have feelings for Misaki), next is Meguru Watase voiced by Ryoko Shiraishi in which she and Gengorou Takei voiced by Kazuya Nakai DO have feelings for each other ALONG with their love of swimming but Meguru has other worries but that a bit later. Second to last is Koyoi Bessho voiced by Aki Toyosaki who has a brother complex to her older brother Yoshihiko Bessho voiced by Satoshi Hino in which he has feelings for Misaki and FINALLY we have Kei Enomoto voiced by Shizuka Ito, the alpha *ahem* bitch of the girl group in which she has a violent tsundere relationship with Etsu Kusuda voiced by Shintaro Asanuma the local pervert of the series and friends of Sogabe and Mamoru and later on Enomoto gets a rival in the form of Sumire Fudounomiya voiced by Ayako Kawasumi. Did you get all that???

Ok in all honesty, the relationships ranges across the board and even the "great relationships" has skewed priorities to the "horribly awful relationships" have a silver lining. In of favourites and worst romances in the anime itself, LA thought that Chikura's and Dobashi's were some of the best one-shot romances with hardly a gleam of skewed priorities to them. Misaki's, Meguru's and Ayumi's were ok relationships with a few problems to them (Misaki's due to the fallout results concerning Mamoru, Meguru's for skewed priorities such as -sigh- her big boobs and Ayumi's for not being developed enough not just to Mamoru but to Misao as well and it's NEVER resolved...completely). LA would place Koyoi's relationship to be of comedic relief in a ways and NOT meant to be taken seriously, even if it's incest and you know LA rule with incest in anime (as long as it's their completely serious about it's subject matter of incest or it plays it up for the sake of comedy with no seriousness and dignity towards it's characters and Koyoi's is essentially this) thus Koyoi's only focus episode is a bit grating but it's only for the sake of comedy. -sigh- here we go...LA REALLY didn't like Enomoto and Kusuda's relationship, Enomoto for always having her belief that they need to be handsome and rich in order to even START dating her (see what LA means by alpha bitch?) AS well as Enomoto's CONSTANT tsun and violent verbal and sometimes physical abuse to Kusuda just because he's being perverted and eyeing someone else, Kusuda is no better as he's one of the main source of pervertedness in the anime besides the stray panty shots. Relationship-wise it's one of the most destructive relationship in the anime and by the end of it even with Enomoto and Kusuda's realization LA still hated the both of them by the end of it.

Well here's also the thing, be it relationships that has no flaws and it's the perfect romance or one of the most destructive ones and LA didn't like them one bit, the perfect romance will have quips of completely idealistic to the destructive romances to be too harsh or unbelievably pessimistic and because of that LA chose Ayumi as LA's favourite she's in the middle of having flaws in her relationships but she's also idealistic in a ways.

In of animation by JC Staff, the character designs were pretty to typical designs for the vast amount of characters in this anime and sometimes LA mistook characters for other similar looking characters (see Yoshihiko and Mamoru...no seriously...one time LA ACTUALLY thought this at one point), the backgrounding is typical but nothing to gawk at either. Finally the comedic moments does use the chibi visuals (both facial expressions and their entire body at times...Koyoi and Ayumi being the main culprit what with both of them being the comedic reliefs). The animation overall is decent with some level to detail on it's character designs but not much beyond that.

In of voice acting, well this voice cast is JUST amazing, from Mariya Ise to Ayako Kawasumi and even Sayuri Yahagi!. Yes, LA did have a HUGE problem with Shizuka Ito's character but it is her CHARACTER LA didn't like, her vocals were still suited to Enomoto nonetheless. LA's favourite voice actor would go to Mariya Ise along with Ryoko Shiraishi. Nonetheless fantastic vocal line up!.

Hatsukoi Limited for LA's experience in watching this anime ultimately depends on how you view the characters and their relationships in which they entail, you might hate some of the characters or you might love them and their relationships for the one true pairing or you see both the good or the bad towards one of the relationship. LA overall felt VERY divisive about this anime due to this but ALSO thought it had shades of wasted potential towards some of the relationships it had going for it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 12, 2019

isalvy

Not Recommended

I mean if there was one thing I learnt from myanimelist is to prepare yourself to see what the worst comments said. And frankly I have to agree with most that was said, a lot of these parings were bad or ridiculous, even when going in with the low expectations. And I'll start by explaining all the love parings this show has. Though I might end up spoiling who gets together I won't actually spoil too much of the show so you can enjoy it yourselves if you want to. Overall I find this show bad but there were some parts to it that made ... it worth watching. So this should actuality be a 4.6 show for me.

Ayumi/Zatsu/Misao (the two boys are brothers)

Aihara, I don't have much to say about this girl just that she spent an awfully long time to think of a reply to a confession. Besides her actually calling Misao a monster she's alright, don't hate her don't like her.

Zatsu, I would not be surprised at all if the writer just created him so they have another guy, but wait, what can I do to make the girl like him?? I know a scene with princess carrying and just gives him a dream of helping people and that's practically his whole character. He is awfully bland. Only other thing I need to mention is that he is part of a conflict because he likes another girl called Misaki

Misao is just simply a terrifying appearance with the purest heart that's why I like him but dude you need to stop acting like a stalker and following her even though you were worried about her, but at least his heart was in a good place unlike some other character.

Ennomoto (Girl) and Kusadai (Guy)

At first she was okay and I actually liked her..... before she started liking the guy and turned out to be a tsundere. Now that itself isn't bad but now imagine one of the worst tsundere ever possible that's her. it is full on annoying how she keeps going about looks and full on disses on the guy she likes even. It took the guy to be so annoyed with it all for her actually confess. I argue that most of the fights were her fault and I don't think she would have given chocolates to him at all if he didn't say to her "I wouldn't mind getting some chocolate from anyone". Even when receiving the Christmas gloves instead of saying thanks she goes " it looks good on me doesn't it"

The guy on the other hand I really loved his joke about the movie with animals but all that went out the bag once he diberately put a girl to sleep using bad puns so that he could advise his friend to "abandon logic" like just no, There are several scenes where his pervert tendencies just goes overboard but I'm just gonna stop it there. He full on is just creepy for those who hate Mineta (MHA) I argue that he's just as bad if not worst. But I guess the writers realised this mistake and went oh no we need to give him a good quality, Thanks to that he went from absolute trash to can be decent person at times and I'm so happy they reduced his level of creepiness and after he became much more bearable, I could even like him maybe if he was like that at the very start. Now I don't really care how perveted he is but there is a line, a clear one that shouldn't be crossed. it's the Mineta line and if your character is as bad as him you are doing something very wrong.

The relationship itself is actually one that has quite a lot of time dedicated to it so try to give it a chance for your own sake. As much as I didn't like the characters I could still enjoy their story even though there were bad and good bits to it. One scene I did like were when they were wearing each others presents in class.

Watase and Takei

its a pretty plain and simple story, one people consider to be the weaker of the show unfortunately. I can see why people didn't like it so much but I found it durable enough like the part where she becomes a manager. Why I don't enjoy it much is that the comedy wasn't used much but hey if you want big boobs it's here. As boring as the story might be I like it better then others just because the pair were actually decent people and didn't have as much drama as the others. It kept things simple and did a good job of it. If you feel like it try giving it a shot, okay if you don't like it though

Girl who's self conscious about her big boobs and her first love dude who sees her for more then a pair of boobs all of this combined with swimming. it's a pretty sweet paring. Unfortunately I don't really know how to describe them as they're both pretty ordinary, forgive me for leaving this one out okay.

Dobashi (Girl) and Terai (Boy)

This is one of the best ones in my opinion, When you first see the characters it can sort of be assumed these two would get together. what I love though is that once someone found out what was happening these two were already dating. It has none of those messy love plots where they had to go through a lot of stuff to be together and it's a first for each of them to the dating world.

When first meeting Dobashi it's shown she is very respected for her talent in sport however we can also see how the boys around her saying how none of them would want to date her as I guess she would wear the "pants" in a relationship (she was the one that suggested to date after all). She has a strong personality but is normally closed off, though makes an effort to open her heart more often.

Terai on the other hand is bad at sports as has a pretty weak personality. I love him though and he is one of my favourite male characters. He is a bit of a nervous wreck and he feels actually developed as he tries his very best to summon the courage to be a proper boyfriend. His internal struggles are made quite clear and they have a very natural romance

Misaki/Zaitsu/Yoshihiko

Now here is the ridiculous part of the story if it isn't ridiculous enough yet. Misaki is the love interest of these two boys. Zaitsu who is her friends brother and they all known each other for a long being neighbours and Yoshihiko who is a fellow school classmate. Yet another love triangle but this ones worst cuz it is way bigger then any triangle, maybe try polygon. Was the writer testing how many possible people he could get involved in this relationship problem or what. I feel as if this would get too complicated ad I don't want to spoil to much of the show so i'll stop here but in other words this is the biggest conflict of the show and I don't think it's a good one in my opinion. I don't like how it started but I do like how straightforward it was resolved.

Misaki and Yuuji

Now wait a second this is the same person but with a different guy?? why don't you just include him on top. There are very simple reasons for one is it will make it even more complicated and I feel as if it will be easier to understand starting with this guy because there is so about this ship I want to talk about.

Misaki gets confessed to a lot but turns them all down this is because she does not like anyone but beyond that she has never ever had a crush on anyone before so she doesn't get what it feels like. Yet one day this person who gave her a lollipop as a joke yes she falls for him. At least in the Valentine episode Misaki herself questions this love so the whole ridiculousness isn't just played of for laughs which is something I think I'm happy about. Sad thing is he has a huge sister complex and considers her his most important person. That sister is Arihara. (the one with the brother love triangle). But I think everyone can all agree that this paring was one with the least time given to it. I want to say more about this but I don't want to give to much information for those who actually want to watch so I'll put the rest below.


SPOILERS JUST SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH
I do appreciate that she didn't have to choose between the two boys that liked her but that ending where they got together was pretty terrible and kinda rushed when Arihara barely shown any signs at all that he liked her. Or also the fact the was barely any time on these two it felt very rushed at least to me.


And now I regret writing so much about a show I don't even like that much. If someone has actually read any of this or if it has actually provided any help at all then thank you at least it wasn't a total waste I guess.. Feel free to disagree to anything I say as long as it's respectful.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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