Love Potions in Anime and Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Kusuri uses one on Rentarou during their first meeting to make him fall in love with her. Not only does Rentarou try to regurgitate the drug upon finding out about it, his body is overwhelmed by it due to him already having feelings for her.
- Urd of Ah! My Goddess is well-known for her love concoctions that always backfire spectactularly - in at least one instance, they work too well. Peorth once tried to meddle with one of Urd's potions and through crazy technobabble (apparently divine medicine does not react well when placed in cola), makes Keiichi irresistible to any woman who looks at him. This unfortunately included his own sister, but eventually it was all sorted out and Urd slipped Peorth a perfectly functional love potion in revenge that had her fall in love with a Tanuki statue. It should be noted that Peorth was aiming to alter a "first person you see" variety of love potion to "love only Peorth" potion.
- Part of the reason why it failed was because Peorth altered the 'Drop of koi' (affectionate, romantic love) potion to the 'Drop of ai' (passionate love) potion. As Urd explained, it didn't work on Belldandy because it 'was not crude enough' to affect people already in love with each other - i.e. Belldandy and Keiichi.
- As far as the love overeffect goes, Urd's analysis was simply "Potions are not something amateurs ought to mess with"
- That said, Belldandy did get hit by a potion early in the manga that had her all but jump Keiichi right then and there. (un)Fortunately (depending on how you want to look at it), Keiichi was able to talk her down out of it (he did it because he realized she was acting very out of character).
- In the h-anime Bible Black-Walpurgiznatch, Minase, uses the eponymous Black Bible to cast a love spell on Rika, the strict president of the student council, in order to have sex with her, though eventually she becomes obsessed with him, to the point she stabs him in an attempt to be together forever. Years earlier, as told in Bible Black-Gaiden, Takashiro and her friends tried to start an occult club at school, but was denied by the student body president, and when they got a hold of the Black Bible, they used it to make money by casting minor curses on people, as well as love spells. When the student body president, an openly proud lesbian, refuses their request for a meeting room for a ritual Takashiro begins thinking of way to convince her/payback, When the biggest loser in school asks for love spell on the student body president, Takashiro happily obliges, and the student body president dumps her girlfriend, and becomes obsessed with her new boyfriend.
- In A Certain Scientific Railgun:
- Kuroko tried to feed Mikoto an aphrodisiac, but accidentally drank it herself, which just made her hit on Mikoto more.
- In an omake, Kuroko tries to trick Mikoto into putting on sunscreen laced with an aphrodisiac, but Saten puts it on instead. The aroused Saten hits on Uiharu and Mikoto angrily beats Kuroko up. Saten eventually snaps out of it and apologizes. The ending reveals Mitsuko put the sunscreen on her pet boa constrictor, and it tries to rape her.
- One episode of Cutey Honey is about a monster being able to make two people fall in love. The entire episode it tries to make Cutey fall in love to get her distracted and thus being able to kill her, but only sends half the town into a mad love for her. At the end, it finally hits her and thus not only disarms her, but even makes her willingly walk towards it as she is in love with it now , which is a trick by Honey, as she had looked at herself in the window when she was hit, so she fell in love with herself, not the monster and is thus still able to defeat it.
- In Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, Supreme Chef Hanamura prepares a soup made with aphrodisiacs, which Saionji uses to spike a stew he made for the class as a prank.
- Fujiko Etou of Demon King Daimao homebrews her own love potions and they are actually quite effective. Whether or not she gets the desired result from her plan is up for debate.
- An episode of the Fairy Tail anime has Juvia buy a Love First Person Sighted type love potion to use on Gray. Not only does Gray look at the wrong person, and not only does Juvia accidentally give the potion to about a half-dozen other guild members, it turns out the potion isn't even a Love Potion but instead a Rivalry Potion causing the affected person to declare the first thing they see to be their eternal rival.
- The potion also seems to affect chacter-to-object relationships, causing Makarov to declare rivalry with a barrel of alcohol and Erza to go to war with a poor pillar blocking her path.
- This inadvertently happens to Louise towards her familiar in The Familiar of Zero. It's unnerving for Saito, since she's usually firmly on the 'tsun' side of Tsundere.
- Happens again in the third season as well, except this time the effect is more widespread, though mostly restricted to the female cast. Much Fanservice occurs before the effects are reversed.
- And in a side-story in the manga adaptation, where Louise is dosed with two different kinds of love potion simultaneously, and their interaction causes her to become irresistably attracted... to girls. All girls. Saito still finds this unnerving, although now it's because he can't get her to so much as glance in his direction.
- Fist of the North Star: One of the Hokuto Ryuuken pressure points does the "wipe out your affection and then make you fall in love with the first person you see when you awaken" type of effect—making it a sort of literal love tap. Grown-up Lin finds out about this point the hard way.
- In Fushigi Yuugi the fallen heroine Yui tries using a magical drug to get Tamahome to fall in love with her. It works at first, with Tamahome even going so far as to nearly kill Miaka, his former beloved, but naturally The Power of Love (and a near-fatal wounding) soon set everything right.
- Used a few times in Ghost Sweeper Mikami:
- In an early story, Yokoshima accidentally spills one on Gynoid Maria, who immediately starts chasing him — he runs because she keeps trying to hug him with enough force to shatter boulders.
- A much later story features is set after Yokoshima gains the ability to create magic balls that generate just about any effect defined by a single character. When he gets attacked by a hot demoness, he uses one he had earlier imprinted with the character for Love.
- In the Gift ~Eternal Rainbow~ Bonus Episode episode, a powerful love potion turns Rinka, Yukari and Chisa — the three girls not heavily involved in the main series plotline — into obsessive, saucy ladies after Haruhiko. It doesn't help that a supposed "antidote" only makes the potion's effect stronger.
- Played for laughs in Inuyasha when a mind-bending fog causes Sango, in a drunken stupor, to blatantly come on to Inuyasha. She's just about to kiss him when the fog causes Kagome to use the "sit" command on him as a Spam Attack.
- In iShoujo, one of the stories features a boy who is gifted with a "Magic App" in which every time he shakes his phone a girl nearby falls in love with him. He tries to use this to get his childhood friend to fall for him. It turns out she already returned his affections.
- Kogarashi makes a lover potion in episode 3 of Kamen no Maid Guy to help Naeka get over her love issues. It works flawlessly, other than the fact that it caused her to fall in love with Fubuki.
- In the Kanokon anime, Chizuru's mother passes out some love-at-first-sight drink to her guests. Kouta is affected as intended and temporarily falls in love with Nozomu. Two other girls drink it, but subversively, their talk of "doing it" turns out to be just feeding each other with chopsticks. Tayura finds out about the drink and gives some to Asahina, but instead of making her fall in love with him, she gets angrily drunk for some reason and then falls in love with the drink.
- This is the main plot of Magical Pokémon Journey. Hazel has repeatedly been trying to use love potions to get Almond to fall in love with her. The story opens with Hazel attempting to administer such a love potion, accidentally blowing him up in the process. The rest of the series is about Hazel catching Pokémon for "mad scientist" Grandpa, in exchange for a love potion that actually works.
- Later on, Coconut manages to invent a love potion that will cause whoever drinks it to fall madly in love with her. Instead, it turns out that it will make whoever drinks it fall in love with the first person he or she sees - and it didn't even go to the right person. So, while Coconut was trying to make Almond fall in love with her, she accidentally caused a Primeape to fall in love with Eevee.
- In a tie-in Pokémon book for kids, Ash has to deal with the chaos resulting from a Love Potion making two Pokémon fall in love. The inventor says Ash should use it to catch Pokémon. He turns it down.
- One episode has this happen with Pikachu and Piplup. Both of them are male.
- Later on, Coconut manages to invent a love potion that will cause whoever drinks it to fall madly in love with her. Instead, it turns out that it will make whoever drinks it fall in love with the first person he or she sees - and it didn't even go to the right person. So, while Coconut was trying to make Almond fall in love with her, she accidentally caused a Primeape to fall in love with Eevee.
- In chapter 10/the OVA of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Tohru tries to give Kobayashi some Valentine's Chocolate that she spiked with a love potion. Kobayashi suspects something, but she still ends up eating it by mistake later in the day. The chocolates had alcohol in them, thus nothing comes of them besides Kobayashi complaining about Tohru's maid outfit.
- When Nagasumi takes one in My Bride is a Mermaid, he gets every girl in the show, including the assassin and his mother falling in love with him. It has the unfortunate side effect of all men hating him, though. Granted, most of the male characters already hated him so...
- A love potion figures into episodes 2 and 3 of Negima! Magister Negi Magi. This one works a bit differently, however: it makes the person who consumes it irresistible to the opposite sex. Negi brews it to give to Asuna as an apology for embarrassing her in front of Mr. Takahata, but because she's angry at him she pours it down Negi's throat before he can explain how it works, with predictable results.
- Later, in volume 7 of the manga, Asuna finds herself fighting off her uncontrollably growing feelings for Negi as she helps him deal with some business. Just as she's all but ready to give in (or kill herself), though, he innocently warns her about the fact that the chocolates on his desk, one of which she stole at the beginning of the chapter without him looking, was in fact a love potion of the "Fall in love with the first person you see" variety.
- In volume 9 of the manga, there's another love potion-class effect, "confessing under a world tree". In this case, the problem is treated seriously, and we even get some sort of explanation why things like these are bad - this has a chance to become a one-sided love. A very strong one-sided love where the other side is magically unable to refuse. All of the magic population were dispatched to prevent such a confession from happening. Nevertheless, once again Negi ends up on the wrong end of it, with a simple request for a kiss turning him into an unstoppable Determinator with Mind-Control Eyes who only comes to his senses after he French-kisses at least one of his targets, nearly suffocating her in the process.
- At least, once snapped out of it, he has no memories of how far he went, which prevents further grief and awkwardness.
- Also, at the beginning of the same arc, Kamo reveals to Negi that love potions are indeed illegal (but not as serious as the tree spell because they are temporary).
- The most recent mention of love potions was when the group arrived in the magical world. Haruna asked their guide if she'd be able to buy love potions somewhere, the guide reiterated that they are illegal.
- In episode 5 of Ninja Nonsense, the ninjas make a Love Potion for Miyabi. Before she can use it, Onsokumaru drinks it, thinking it'll make him into a Chick Magnet. Unfortunately for him, it's the much more common "fall-in-love-with-the-first-person-you-see" type. As soon as he realizes this, he covers his eyes and tries to locate Shinobu. They get around the problem by getting him to open his eyes in front of a mirror. Naturally, this changes nothing.
- Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!: A late second season episode has Nyarko receive a box of chocolates from her friend Atoko; Mahiro is the only one who doesn't partake, and soon enough the entire female cast (including his own mother) are chasing him around. Luckily Nyarko comes to the rescue, and a phone call to Atoko confirms that the chocolates contained a love potion (with a time limit, which they wait out in a nearby cave). Nyarko swears she didn't do it on purpose, and when asked why she wasn't affected suggests that her feelings for Mahiro are stronger than anything a potion could cause. Despite the episode being Filler, it actually contains some important Foreshadowing for later in the series: Atoko is an Emotion Eater who feeds off of other couples' relationships, destroying them in the process; thus, it's strongly implied that she sent the doped chocolates in order to strengthen Mahiro and Nyarko's relationship so it'd be "tastier".
- Osomatsu-san: In "Matsuzou and Matsuyo", Matsuzou ends up buying one from Dekapan to see if he can rekindle the Dead Sparks in his marriage. After a long walk and a heart-to-heart with Matsuyo, he realizes he never really needed the potion and tosses it off the cliff they're talking on — only to find out it was strong enough to send the rest of town into a lust-fueled frenzy.
- Ranma ½, being a Love Dodecahedron played for comedy, features a lot of Applied Phlebotinum that has some kind of effect equating to love magic. None of these ever solved anything, but they did make for good excuses for slapstick zaniness. We start with pills that cause whoever swallows one to fall for the first person of the opposite sex, with a duration of either one instant, one day, or the ingester's entire life. Then comes an actual Red String of Fate. An umbrella that enthralls whoever is sharing it. A bandaid impregnated with a potent potion that makes the wearer chase after girls/guys when it gets warm. Mushrooms that, when stewed, act as a love potion. Those are just a few examples — and we're still not even getting into all of the Mind-Control Device items.
- Rosario + Vampire: In the first chapter of Season II (the manga, not the anime), Yukari slips Moka a love potion to get her to express her true feelings as part of her dream of having a threesome with Moka and Tsukune; the effect is similar to an aphrodisiac.
- Sorry, But I'm Not Into Yuri is about Toudou's attempts to use a love potion to get her male teacher to fall in love with her, only for her female schoolmates (usually people Toudou dislikes) to end up drinking it for one reason or another.
- There's a Tsukiyomi Moon Phase H-doujin where Hazuki tries to make the main guy into her love-slave with a love potion she stole from his grandfather. Unfortunately for her, the potion turns out to be a powerful aphrosidiac, and since this is a H-doujin, the predictable happens.
- Urusei Yatsura has a surprisingly small amount of Applied Phlebotinum that has some kind of effect equating to love magic, but it does appear here and there. Outside of the incredibly tacky coats that supposedly make the wearers fall in love and the cupid sprout, there are three love-inducing edibles:
- In one chapter, Ran schemes to drug Rei with komashidake mushrooms, which make whoever eats them fall in love with the first thing they see. However, her plan goes horribly wrong when the thieving Kotatsu Neko eats the food containing them first. This story got adapted into an episode of the 1981 anime.
- In the second-last chapter of the second-last volume, Ran buys magical candy called "Soul-Snatch Sugar"; whoever eats these sprouts a love heart over their head, which causes them to fall head over heels in love with whoever holds the heart. Lum ends up eating it, and Hilarity Ensues. This got adapted into the OVA "Catch the Heart".
- The final film revolves around a love potion that can only be acquired by the most lecherous person in the universe... who happens to be Ataru.
- This is one of the witch powers in Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches. It can be used to build a group of flunkies to do your bidding because they worship you. It's been suggested you could build a harem with it. But we have also seen the potential for the power to teach people the power of love. To make them feel what it is like to actually love someone, providing them with loyalty and a sense of purpose.
- One episode of Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs has Oboro trying to give Kogarashi a love potion, which should make him fall in love with whoever he sees first for a short while. However it ends being Sagiri who gets the potion and of course the first person she sees is Kogarashi. Hilarity Ensues as she confesses that she does not think she is girly and demands to know what Kogarashi thinks of her. The potion wears off with her in an awkward position on top of Kogarashi and the episode ends with her hiding embarrassed in her room.
