HAY GUYS

12:54 PM

LOVELY COMPLEX
by Aya Nakahara

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Risa Koizumi ("Little spring") has issues with her height. At 170cm, she's the tallest girl in her class and stands out so much she's often nicknamed Oizumi ("Big spring"). Despite her appearance, she's a perfectly normal girl, even if she'd rather stay up late playing videogames than do something more "feminine".

Atsushi Otani ("Big valley") has issues with his height. At 156cm, he's one of the shortest guys in his class and is often called Kotani ("Little valley") by accident, which annoys him to no end. Despite his height, he's determined to play basketball and tries his best to do well in the school team.

Together, they are considered the comedy duo of the class and many see them as a couple, even though they're constantly bickering and at each other's throats.

The story then follows the lives of the two (mostly from Risa's point of view) as they go through school, deal with insecurities about their appearance and at some point, maybe, possibly, fall for each other?

Nah.

Besides the two, other important characters in the series would be

Chiharu and Nobuko, two of Risa's classmates

Suzuki, new student who Risa immediately develops a crush on

Mayu, Atsushi's former girlfriend (as well as Chiharu look-a-like and vice verca)

Haruka, Risa's childhood friend and determined to make her fall in love with him

and later on Seiko, a kouhai who falls for Otani and hides a secret (!)

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The manga:

Serializing in Bessatsu Margaret since 2001, LoveKon is up to 16 volumes now and still ongoing. Viz has recently licensed the series and has been serializing it in english in Shojo Beat. The first volume will be published in July, under the title Love*Com.

Up to 26 chapters have been scanlated.

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The anime:

Produced by Toei, the anime began airing quite recently and has been great so far. Focusing more on the comedy and mixing up events here and there just enough to keep things interesting even for people who've already read the manga.

So far twelve episodes have been subbed.

caps:

Animation isn't anything spectacular, but it's charming enough and while the character designs are quite different from the manga, both styles work well. Overall, there's a bright, cheery, colorful look and feel to the series.

Akemi Okamura (Fio in Porco Rosso and Nami in One Piece, among others) is wonderful as Risa and they even have Yuki Matsuoka (Osaka in Azumanga Daioh) playing Mayu.

more caps:

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My thoughts:

I originally watched the first episode of the anime, and enjoyed it enough to see if there was a manga on the series. As was said, the visual styles differ greatly between the anime and manga, but it was the anime's character designs that originally drew me to the series in the first place.

All in all, it's a very fun, very cute, unusual little romantic drama, with the added win of Risa's

ldladyface:

Happily, the anime has been very succesful in bringing them to animated form <3

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Links:

Lovely Complex Official Site
Lovely Complex anime - Toei's site for the anime series

Love*Com - Viz media's site for english Lovely Complex.
Volume 1 - Volume 1 of the english release, released July 3rd.

Manga:

http://gotlurk.net/ - The best place for LoveKon scanlations. Go to #lurk @ irchighway and download the volumes from Neverwhere

bot commands:

Anime:

Episode 1:
KissSub (XviD .avi)
Blue Storm (h264 .mp4)
Infinite Zero (.mp4)
Shinsen-Subs (.avi) - NEW

Episode 2:
KissSub (XviD .avi)
Blue Storm (h264 .mp4)

Episode 3:
KissSub (XviD .avi)
Blue Storm (h264 .mp4)

Episode 4:
KissSub (XviD .avi)
Blue Storm (h264 .mp4)

Episode 5:
KissSub (XviD .avi)
Blue Storm (h264 .mp4)

Episode 6:
KissSub (XviD .avi)
Blue Storm (h264 .mp4) - NEW

Episode 7:
KissSub (XviD .avi)

Episode 8:
KissSub (XviD .avi)

Episode 9:
KissSub (XviD .avi)
Gear Fansubs (XviD .avi)

Episode 10:
KissSub (XviD .avi)
Gear Fansubs (XviD .avi)

Episode 11:
KissSub (XviD .avi)

Episode 12:
KissSub (XviD .avi) - NEW

How ya doing, buddy?

Local time: May 9, 2007, 01:54 PM

KissSub has released episode 5, rejoice!

Fun ep, *SHOCKU* revelations, though the anime is moving at a fast pace. 5 episodes in and we're already at the end of the third volume. I wonder if they're aiming to cover the entire manga in 13 episodes or so.

Originally Posted by Dhsu

What other manga has the author done? The art style looks familiar...

Though the artstyle is very similar to many other shojo titles, to answer your question, she has a few others series, namely

Seishun no Tamago
Benkyou Shinasai!
Love! Love! Love!
Ringo Nikki
Hanada

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Local time: May 16, 2007, 10:32 PM

[19:52:36] * You were kicked by Lord_Styphon (6)
[19:52:36] * Attempting to rejoin channel #animespot

As Styphon pointed out to me today, Lovely Complex 6 is out, rejoice!

Another good ep, even though Otani's utterly oblivious nature begins to grate almost as much as in the manga.

Funny stuff either way, and we've now reached the big turning point. Not to mention the episode was especially win for

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Local time: May 25, 2007, 01:06 AM

Episode 7 is out from KissSub!

Higher on drama than laughs this time, it was great, sobering stuff. Slowly moving into the most tedious part of the manga storyline, I hope they cut corners at all the right places.

Otani's denseness knows no bounds at this point, unfortunately ;_;
Vengeful spirit Risa was still hilarious

caps:

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Local time: Jun 11, 2007, 10:16 PM

Seeing as I skipped last episode's announcement (though I always keep the first post updated with episode links), we're up to episode 9 now!

Another fun ep, this one had a particarly large amount of gold moments.

moar caps:

Next ep will also have the BEST NAME

How ya doing, buddy?

Local time: Jun 12, 2007, 08:28 PM

Whoa, a new group, Gear Fansubs, has already released episode 10 (as well as 9). I don't know how much was the lesser translation and how much was the total lack of energy in animation, but this ep was a bit disappointing. Not that this part in the manga was especially exciting, but even the few potentially hilarious comedy set ups lacked flair. Hell, I had a hard time picking up good cap moments.

I get a creeping feeling they're getting less and less funding

Still, the next ep preview looked good, so perhaps this is the "episode 4" of Lovecom.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Local time: Jun 15, 2007, 06:59 PM

He's saying he thought Seiko was hawt and he turned out to be a boy. BETRAYAL!

SUCCESSED!

FELIPE NO