In the world of anime, there are two kinds of aliens. There are the mean, nasty, ugly ones that will rip you apart like you are a loaf of fresh bread. They are usually slopping over with testosterone and have abandonment issues, but they will still kill you dead, dead, dead. (Don’t invite them over for scones and lawn darts, OK?). The second kind of alien are very cute and cuddly female aliens with a pair of twin moons that would stop a supernova. “To Love-Ru” is certainly no different than “UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie”, “Heaven’s Lost Property”, “Waiting in the Summer” and/or “Cat Planet Cuties” in this approach. (Hmmm…..why does this introduction sound so familiar?)

For this go-around, we tell the story of Lala Satalin Deviluke (and her first name is both a noun and an adjective), the First Princess of Deviluke, whose family rules the Galaxy (move over, Darth Vader!) However, being royalty has its problems and she is being forced into a marriage for political gain. Disliking all her suitors, she flees, but the Deviluke army is in hot pursuit on her gorgeous and ample behind.

Meanwhile, down on earth, we follow Rito Yuuki, a rather shy and introverted person. He has been working for some time to gather his courage and profess his love for Haruna Sairenji, but foul circumstances block his attempts time and again. So, he takes a long hot bath at the end of the day to figure out what went wrong and try again tomorrow.

So, over the space of Earth, Lala is mere moments away from getting captured. An inventor of some ilk, she uses a teleportation device to flee. However, it can only move organic matter, so her clothing gets left behind (like in “The Terminator”, but without Ah-nuld) and she magically appears in Rito’s tub, naked, and he is clutching her outstanding attributes. Well, on Deviluke, this is a marriage proposal (certainly makes the dating process more interesting) and now Rito is jammed. He can break the engagement, but the same luck that prevented him from confessing to Haruna blocks him from stopping the engagement and he is really locked in. He’s got them Wedding Bell Blues.

The series covers not only Lala’s attempt to blend into Earth society, (and no one seems to notice her tail at all) but the conflict between Lala and Haruna and Rito. Goosing things along is Peke and Peke is her hat. He is a clothing robot and can ‘dress’ her, but when his power drains, her clothing dissolves. Sweet. Also along is her personal bodyguard, Zastin, who looks all tough and butch, but is a bit of a creampuff and gets mowed down with alarming frequency. Kind of like having cardboard armor.

One side aspect is Lala’s inventions. Aside from the silly names that they have (Pyon-Pyon Warp-kun or Sniff Sniff Trace-kun), they also have an annoying ability not to work right, so things go horribly wrong. In fact, she is discouraged from inventing, but she pays them no heed, as she invents the Go-Go Vacuum-kun with the predicted results.

Again, another gentle series, as you never feel there is any fear of failure or problems that cannot be solved, even with the fact that Haruna and Rito will never be together. There are two additional seasons and some OVAs as well, so if you liked the first season, you may wish to chase down the rest.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork              9 (Lala is naked a lot. A lot a lot!)
Plot                     7 (Standard romantic comedy)
Pacing                 8 (Can get frenetic)
Effectiveness       7 (For what it wants to do, it works)
Conclusion          7 (Not even close)
Fan Service         8 (A similar show would “Sekerei”)

Overall               7 (Nothing too demanding)

And remember, it’s first run until you see it. Nobody said anything about interstellar wars!