Loveless: Lost and Found (volume 1)

Reviewed By: Carla Land

Media Blasters/ Anime Works DVD

Review based on first disk (episodes 1-4)

Rating 13 and up

What it’s (basically) all about:  Ritsuka’s brother was murdered two years ago. Ever since, RItsuka hasn’t been the same person. Now, after transferring to a new school,  he meets Soubi, a “friend” of his brother’s. Will Soubi be able to help Ritsuka get justice for his brother?

Nitty Gritty: Let’s start with the special features. The disk opens with an ad for www.rareflix.com, which advertises rare and exotic movies for sale. It also ends with a “Shut the (bleep) up.”  (I went to the site, and it has a lot of “adult” material for sale.) Trailers include Mirage of Blaze, Sukisho, Knight Hunters Eternity, and Here is Greenwood all of which are teen appropriate. There is also a clean opening and some strange, subbed only, comical “epilogue” clip that is very sexually suggestive.

The show itself has no English dub, so unless you understand Japanese, you need to read the subtitles. The subtitles, however, don’t make the story very clear, which is why the summary is so short. The language is totally fine, though, because of this.

Kids on this show have cat ears and tails. Adults are easy to spot because they lose their ears at some point, and, apparently, cannot be trusted.

From what I could gather, Ritsuka is a sixth grader, and Soubi is a college student with magical powers. He’s also constantly professing his love for Ritsuka and kissing him on the lips, all the while telling Ritsuka that he’ll do anything for him- except tell him anything about his brother’s murder.

There are a few other characters, whose names aren’t always used. Yuiko is an annoying girl at school who will not take no for answer (and talks in third person for the first two episodes.) There’s also a boy who is crazy for her that can’t stand Ritsuka, and two kids who are trying to kidnap Ritsuka and take him to Septimal Moon- the people who killed his brother. There are several “magical battles” where people get hurt or knocked out, but no one has been killed.

An interesting back/side story involves Ritsuka and his mother. Little clues are dropped that she is a heavy drinker and beats him. This story hasn’t yet linked to the main story, but it’s about as well developed.

Survey says: This belongs in adult sections. The romance brewing between the boy and the man is not going to mesh well with parents, and without an English audio track younger viewers are probably going to lose interest, unless they are hard core anime fans.

Personal Ad:  I honestly think that whoever wrote the script for this needed a lesson in plot development, because almost nothing has happened except that Soubi has given me the creeps. Two men in a romantic relationship is fine. A man and a boy in a romantic relationship creeps me out, even if the boy has cat ears.