Love Lab

snivets Sep 27, 2013

6.5

Love Lab is pretty average in terms of characters and production values, but it is quite a cute show. This will just be a brief review. Brief Summary: At an all girls' school, Maki, the student council president, is secretly interested in how to attract a boyfriend. Riko discovers this secret, and is forced to join the student council because of a misunderstanding: Maki thinks Riko is a "love expert." Story: The story itself isn't anything new or unusual, but the misunderstanding about Riko's "love expertise" persists until it becomes a roadblock for the characters' relationships with each other. The final episode is spent resolving the misunderstanding, which drives the drama of the characters interacting with each other. Animation, Sound, Characters: All of these are pretty average, bordering on boring. The characters aren't too bad, but they're not super nuanced either. Overall: If you like cute stories about friendship, this one is pretty damn good, despite its plain packaging. Cutely comedic, fairly innocent, and definitely dramatic.

Grospoliner Feb 14, 2014

7

Love Lab is a pretty typical comedy show. It is founded on the premise of a girl's school who's (as usual) student population consits strictly of girls who are not allowed to date guys or have romantic relationships becuase that's how healthy servile-, I mean women, are indoctrinat-, I mean bre-, I mean reared. We are immediately introduced to the protagonist, an unlady-like girl named, Riko Kurahashi,  who doesn't act prim and proper much to the delight of the school's lesbian population, because she played soccer as a child and got on well with the boys of her previous school because men and women can't be friends so obviously any girl who gets along with guys has to be a dude and is not allowed to have feminine qualities. Naturally because Riko is "one of the guys" her luck with men is terrible, and on a chance encounter she is sent to the student council room where she encounters the student body president dry humping her imaginary boyfriend because not educating young people and sexually depriving them is healthy. Mika, the president, immediately demands that Riko join the student council becuase Mika is just so good at her job that she doesn't need anyone else to help but she does get really bored and horny.  Sadly, no the plot isn't not going to go in any good direction with that last line. Mika simply wants Riko's help in figuring out how to get a boyfriend (becuase women thing about nothing else in the shallow world of Japanese soceity) immediately taking all of Riko's claims at face value. So is the set up for the entire plot of the show, the girls sit around talking about ways to get guys and churning out barely humourus comedy because they realize that their lives revolve around men and the comedy staves off the bleakness that is the existance of Japanese baby factories and the slow decent into suicidal madness. Okay, okay, all politics and social commentary aside, Love Lab isn't particularly bad. The animation is good, the character designs are a bit boring and uninspired but they're not overly flashy and excessive (such as in visual novels), the characters themselves are well written, and they interact well. The comedy is mostly passable and relies primarily on the over-reactions of Mika as she tries to figure out ways to overcome her sheltered upbringing. Once the entire student council is assembled they all decide to join in the activity with all of the advice given by Riko being predicated on the lie that she is "expierienced in love". Later they decide to start giving advice despite romance being banned at the school and after an initial promising foray into this plot device where the student council manages to deploy their clandestine information to the student body while avoiding the wrath of the teachers; the story ultimately goes nowhere as we do not get to see the outcome of their suggestions and the entire plot thread ultimately ends up getting dropped with nothing really happening and turns into your basic boring bland buddy buddy comedy in the end. Ultimately it is better than most of the crap you're going to end up watching and while its' subect matter is pretty shallow, it's put together well and never really ends up being boring.

Mendacious Dec 1, 2014

7

Very upbeat and silly in an entertaining way I have given love lab four stars which is probably more than it really deserves given its product quality. It was just so entertaining, light hearted and uplifting that I had to award it four. It is about the daily school lives of five girls of the student council. Where they conduct illicit research into attracting boys. Lots of mistakes are made and silly antics occur. The emphasis shifts between the five girls from episode to episode. The only continuous plot point is Riko's lie. Riko and Maki are the two principle characters within this story. Sayo is an interesting and more believable character who adds some intelligent gravity to counter balance its absence in the others. The remaining two are just there to make up the numbers. All the characters are likable in their own way. The artwork and music is good and voice acting is very good, consistently creating a upbeat funny mood throughout.