Manga / To Love Ru

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Rito Yuuki is a hapless high school teenager who's hopelessly in love with the shy, gentle Haruna Sairenji, but just can't work up the nerve to confess his feelings. One night while taking a bath, however, a gorgeous (and naked!) alien princess named Lala Satalin Deviluke crash-lands into his bathtub, and things just spiral out of control from there...

Written by Hasemi Saki and illustrated by Kentaro Yabuki of Black Cat fame, To Love Ru is...well, you probably haven't seen fanservice until you've seen or read at least a minimal amount of this series. The Shonen Jump manga To Love Ru: Trouble ran from 2006 to 2009. An Animated Adaptation made by Xebec ran for 26 episodes in 2008. Six OVAs were released, and a second TV series, Motto To LOVE Ru, aired 12 episodes June 2010.

The author and artist reunited for a Spin-Off/sequel manga titled To Love Ru Darkness, that ran from October 2010 to April 2017, meaning it actually outlasted the original work by a wide margin. It was centered around Momo's plan to share Rito with the others whose happiness depends on him, and an unknown antagonist who controls several assassins similar to Yami, as well as Yami's Dark and Troubled Past. While characters of the original manga return, Darkness promoted both Yami and Momo to main characters and significantly downplayed the original protagonists. The fanservice in Darkness was amped up, to the point Rito "Accidental Pervert'ed" his way through at least five heavy make-out sessions with entirely different women, and some scenes are outright excessively explicit. An anime adaptation premiered in October 2012, and a second season in summer 2015.

Due to its fanservice-heavy nature and the fact that it was published by Shueisha (part-owner of Viz Media, who would never touch this series with a ten-foot pole), it was long assumed the manga would never make it to North America, though the various anime had. However, Seven Seas Entertainment ending up getting the rights to the manga and started publishing it in 2017.

Manga of the To Love Ru series include the following:

• To Love Ru: Chapters 1-157 (2006-2009)
• To Love Ru Darkness: Chapters 1-77 (2010-2017)

Anime adaptations of the To Love Ru series include the following:

• To Love Ru: Episodes 1-26 (2008)
  • To Love Ru OVAs: Episodes 1-6 (2009-2010)
• Motto To Love Ru: Episodes 1-12 (2010)
• To Love Ru Darkness: Episodes 1-12 (2012)
  • To Love Ru Darkness OVAs: Episodes 1-6 (2012 - 2015)
• To Love Ru Darkness 2nd: Episodes 1-12 (2015)
  • To Love Ru Darkness 2nd OVAs: Episodes 1-3 (2016)

Note that "To Love Ru" is a multilingual pun on the word "trouble"; in Japanese, these are pronounced identically (toraburu).

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Tropes Present in To Love Ru and Motto To Love Ru

To Love Ru and Motto To Love Ru provide examples of:

• 12-Episode Anime: The second season, which is just as well as there weren't enough manga chapters left to adapt for a 26 episode season at the rate the Three Shorts format was burning through them.
• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The octopus/squid/shrimp/lamprey ingredients in Lala's ingredients box.
• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • Some of Lala's suitors, such as Ghi Bree and Lacospo.
  • The Principal in general to every cute girl, especially Yami.
• Aborted Arc:
  • The plot regarding attacks by Lala's suitors is slowly dropped during the story. The last reference is the return of Lacospo and no other suitor appears after this.
  • When Saki crashes at the Yuuki house, there's a scene where she'd convinced by Lala and Rito that the latter's female "Riko" form is a different person. This seems a setup for Saki to resume the Gender-Bender Friendship she initially had with Riko, but it's never brought up again, probably because Saki would be Demoted to Extra not long after.
• Above the Influence: While painful for him (in more ways than one), Rito will often resist the advances the many girls push on him. Some examples:
  • Yami gets a blast of Celine's pollen and asks Rito on a date, then tries to kiss him. While his refusal may've been at least partly for fear of what she'd do to him after sobering up, she interprets it as this trope. Notably, an issue or so later, she doesn't slash or clobber him for seeing her in a swimsuit.
  • There was an earlier incident where Lala accidentally gave almost everyone in her class a Love Potion. Naturally, Rito ended up having to fend off Haruna's advances.
• Accidental Kiss: Rito and Ren.
• Accidental Marriage: Groping an alien princess breasts is grounds for engagement. In the manga, it's more of his speech about freedom of choice that causes her to fall in love with him, and she decides he's the only wedding candidate worthy of her.
• Accidental Pervert: Played Straight, Exaggerated, Inverted, Subverted, Double Subverted, Deconstructed, Reconstructed, Enforced, Lampshaded, Invoked and Played for both Laughs and Drama. Rito is the God of this trope.
• Actor Allusion: For the English dub, this is not the first time that Alexis Tipton has played a girl who accidentally became engaged to a young man that her powerful father disapproved of.
• A-Cup Angst: Nana is not well developed, much to her frustration. It stings that her twin sister is "advancing" at a much faster rate.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Devilukean tails are actually (very dark) red. The first anime always shows them as pitch black, instead. This is corrected in Darkness.
• Adaptation Distillation: The first anime follows a completely different story line than the manga.
• Adaptation Expansion: Motto, as part of the improvements, sometimes added scenes, usually only very small, that generally added connectivity or depth. For example, in Risa's Day In The Lime Light episode, the manga ends with Rito receiving Risa's text. In Motto, there is a following scene where Risa stares at her phone longingly, implying she was serious about her offer.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication: Anime-only viewers do not have the slightest idea about who Celine is and where she comes from. This because the first anime series removed several elements of the manga (included her entire rescue-arc) while the second anime and more closely the manga, "Motto To Love Ru", start from a point in which she is already present in the story.
• Alien Princess:
  • Lala is a Princess on the run, initially, until a teleporter accident puts her in Rito Yuuki's bathtub, leading to the two becoming Accidentally Engaged. She's later joined by her sisters, Momo and Nana, as Pretty Freeloaders at the Yuuki house. Devilukeans like Lala have black tails that can be the subject of Fantastic Arousal.
  • Run Elise Jewelria, Princess of Memorze, as well as her Gender Bender counterpart, Ren Elise Jewelria. The two become separate individuals in To Love Ru: Darknesss.
• Aliens Speaking English: All those aliens seem to have their Japanese down just fine. Although apparently it did take some time for Lala to learn the written language.
• All Just a Dream: Twice in the anime-only first series:
  • Episode 10 begins with Rito accidentally seeing Haruna changing out of her tennis uniform, he tries to look away but starts coming on to him and wanting a kiss. It turns out the whole thing was a dream as he wakes up and finds a naked Lala next to him (who was apparently dreaming of him), to which he freaks out and faints.
  • Episode 23 has Saruyama becomes jealous of Rito's popularity and wishes he was a noble in Edo Castle. He then has daydreams of his many adventures as the ruler of Edo Castle, where all his friends make appearances.
• All There in the Manual: Motto To LOVE Ru; while it doesn't expect you to know certain things, doesn't exactly explain them either. For example, if you want to know why Celine has a human form, or how Oshizu has a body? You can only find the full explanation in the manga and the OVA. There are other things too, but most are minor.
• Always in Class One
• Art Evolution: There's a noticeably different art style between the first season, the OVA, and Motto To LOVE Ru. The OVA enlarges nearly everyone's eyes and heads, while Motto has a new directing staff. The characters don't look bad, but they do look quite different from the original manga now.
• Artificial Riverbank: Where Rito takes Lala in an early effort to break up with her. She falls for him instead.
• Attempted Rape: Happens to Rito several times.
  • An anime-only episode has Rito, tied up to a bed as an Amazon slowly reaches lower, while talking about how he will be her husband, before Lala intervenes. Make of that what you will.
  • Implied with one of the early villains and his use of naughty tentacles.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Following a certain point in the first manga, Yui was given increasingly greater exposure even as Haruna appeared less and less.
  • Kyoko was born as fictonial character of her Show Within a Show (a parody of the Magical Girl). After, she appears as a real character and becomes Run's best friend. In "Darkness" she is also promoted to new potential harem member for Rito.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Rito "Riko" gives the other fanservice-females a run for their money.
• Badass Adorable:
  • Yami, for certain. She may be a cutie, but don't go getting any ideas. She is a lethal Living Weapon.
  • Lala. Partly due to being a hybrid between the Devilukean and Charmian species.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy / Nipple and Dimed: Both. The serialized version of the manga that appears in the magazines utilizes the first trope, with the nipples never being drawn. The collected volumes avert it, as the nipples are put back in.
  • For some bizarre reason, the second anime avoids the first with one exception: Mikan and Yami lack nipples. Even though the even younger-looking Nana and Momo have them. It makes no sense.
• Bathtub Scene: Many. The story starts with Rito taking a bath when Lala ends up transported naked into Rito bathtub where he is shocked and mesmerized by her naked body.
• Beach Episode:
  • Several times that include: a school trip, an invitation to Saki's private beach, or when they go to Okinawa with Lala's teleporter machine and turns out that they are on a separate planet, called Okiwan!.
  • The third OVA. It is so overloaded with fanservice it seemingly forgets to have a plot or dialog and just features the girls posing in swimsuits to ambient music for several minutes at a time. And then there's the comparison of tanlines near the end...
  • The last story-arc is set in a public pool.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Normally if any accident occurs, the males will suffer Amusing Injuries while the girls just get Clothing Damage or other embarrassing things.
• Berserk Button:
  • Nana with flat-chested comments.
  • Lala with suitors fighting over her.
  • Ren being called unmanly.
  • Yami, with any form of ecchi.
  • Rito, when someone close to him seriously threatened. Beware. OH SHI-◊
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • Lala is quite obvious, but so is Rito, just ask Ghi Bree.
  • Get Momo mad and you could very well be in trouble. Even Yami was impressed with her killing intent.
• Big Brother Attraction: Evidence has piled up that Mikan has a deep-seated crush for her brother Rito. Made more obvious in the second OVA with a jealous Mikan wondering what it would be like if they weren't related right after joking about marriage.
  • Her reaction for being questioned by Nana about love interest.
  • The infamous Chapter 157, in which:
    • Mikan's accused of turning down her male classmates' affection because of, as her friends put it, her "awesome brother". Cue Suspiciously Specific Denial to the accusation.
    • She has an unusually jealous reaction to Momo hanging onto and teasing Rito.
    • "T-that's not marshmallow!"
    • She questions herself, thinking "What exactly am I trying to do here...?" In the end, it seems she's rather content to be the beloved little sister.
  • She plays with this trope a bit when she tells Rito they are not related by blood just to see his reaction, only to admit she's just kidding afterwards. Later, Celine works her usual magic on Mikan, which results in some sexual tension.
• Big Damn Heroes: Averted hilariously in episode 4. Zastin busts into a classroom with some giant octopus/squid, and gets thwarted by them each time he tries to save Lala, Rito and Haruna.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Devilukeans shrink and possibly reverse-age when undergoing severe stress and exhaustion. Fighting a war has caused it to happen to Lala's father, who was reduced to a baby, while in Darkness, Lala herself shrinks to about ten-years-of-age.
• Bumbling Dad: Saibai Yuuki, Rito's father
• Butt-Monkey:
  • The Principal is biggest in the series. See The Chew Toy.
  • Yui. Initially, the harder she tries to keep order, the more screwy fate treats her. Seriously, just how many times has she been involved in Rito's... accidents?
  • Zastin; quite explicitly in the manga, while he's merely an idiot in the anime.
  • Motemitsu essentially exists solely to show up at random times, fail horribly at whatever it is he's doing, and have everyone around comment on how they expected it.
  • Saruyama that is envious of Rito for all of his Accidental Pervert situations. In an omake he tried to imitate Rito "incidents" and, instead,...he fall on The Principal! (Who had stripped to his boxers and was chasing a girl.)
• Breast Expansion: One chapter has Yami use her shapeshifting powers for this purpose.
• Breather Episode: Episode 14's a refreshingly mundane, but heartwarming look at what Rito and Haruna's relationship could be like without all the extraterrestrial insanity. A wise directorial choice, considering for the rest of the series, this blessed normality never returns again.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: A chapter has the girls discuss about this after they listen Saruyama give Rito a speech about the big breast. Risa and Mio also tease Yui for having a great figure, telling her that she should appeal to boys using her chest.
• The Cameo: In return for visiting Stray, Peke gets some peculiar manga to read.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Subverted. Rito does confess to Haruna on several occasions... except something (usually Lala) always happens to prevent her from hearing it until the end.
  • Averted for Rito towards Lala though. As soon as he is sure of his feelings, he takes her aside and tells her he loves her. He then proceeds to, at her insistence, attempt to confess to Haruna, only to be interrupted by her running away and getting replaced by half the female cast just in time for him to say the three magic words. This being the end of the last chapter, much rage ensued. The prologue chapter of Darkness explains he told the girls that he was talking to/about the pool.
  • One has to wonder just how much Yui can possibly hold in every time she's alone with Rito.
• Characterization Marches On: It's stated in the first chapter that except for matters dealing with women, Rito is aggressive and strong. Unfortunately, he's almost always dealing with women, so this attribute usually only surfaces when a new haremette shows up that needs to be impressed by his hot bloodedness, or when one of his existing haremettes is in trouble.
• Caught the Heart on His Sleeve: Episode three
• Caught with Your Pants Down: Momo gets caught by Nana while playing with her tail. Although she kicks Nana out of the room before she can realize what Momo was doing.
• Censor Steam: Used quite a bit in both the anime and manga. Streams of light coming through a window is rather creatively used for this. Censor Steam and Godiva Hair only appear in the serialized version of magazines and episodes. The collected volumes and DVDs of the manga and anime subverts this and are "uncensored", featuring unobstructed views of the female characters' chests.
• Character Development: Subtle, but definitely there.
  • Rito goes from boy with crush on a girl he can't even think about in a bikini without a meltdown to a boy in love with two girls and only freaks out if they're naked.
  • Lala goes from a bratty princess who only pretended to like Rito to stay away from her suitors to a kind, unselfish and mature(ish) young woman very much in love with Rito and her best-friend/love-rival, and willing to risk her life to protect both of them.
  • Haruna goes from painfully shy and self-conscious to... less shy and self-conscious.
  • Yui drastically mellows out over to course of the series, going from "how indecent" to joking and laughing about Rito's Accidental Pervert moments.
  • Golden Darkness arguably received the most character development when it comes to direction, outranking Rito/Yui. She went from cold-blooded assassin to nearly being killed by an assassin because Brainwashed and Crazy Mikan was in the way and she refused to harm her, smiling constantly around Rito and Mikan, and even being nicer to Rito.
• The Chew Toy:
  • The Principal. His only role is getting beat up by the female characters when he dashes towards them.
  • Rito. Especially if Golden Darkness is involved...
  • Zastin, quite frequently. Literally the first time Rito meets him, a stray dog starts gnawing the bone-like "armor" on Zastin's leg. The dog shows up, again chewing his armor, at least once more in the series.
• Chick Magnet: Rito, obviously. Rito's status is also Lampshaded rather often, mostly (though not always) by Mikan, who calls him a Playboy, or notes just how many girls surround him. Nana also calls him playboy, and we all know Momo's thoughts on the matter. He has so many girls after him, a good majority of which are royalty, that Momo has decided that it would be much simpler if he just married all of them.
  • Curiously, it seems Mikan's the genderflipped version, constantly asked out by boys her age, but always rejecting them. Seems to run in the family.
• Children Do the Housework: Mikan Yuuki, Rito's younger sister, is the one who often does chores like cooking and cleaning inside their house, as their parents either live somewhere else or are out of the house for long periods of time. This also helps to establish her as someone who is mature for her young age.
• Class Trip: There is an arc where Rito's class trip to the summer seaside school.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Mostly averted: only one or two girls show any sign of jealousy (Run and/or Yui), with the latter debatable. Hell, Lala seems to enjoy it when he spends time with the other girls.
  • What is interesting is that Run and Yui only display one characteristic; Run is clingy, but doesn't really get jealous, while Yui gets jealous but can hardly be called clingy.
• Clingy Sleepers: Mikan begins to climb into her brother Rito's bed at night to keep Pretty Freeloader Momo from doing so. Unfortunately for Mikan, Rito is a clingy sleeper, and grabs onto her rump talking about finding a big soft marshmallow. She pinches his hand hard to make him release her, at which point he declares that the marshmallow bit him.
• Clothing Damage: Metric tons of it, even without a giant alien frog which literally has no purpose but to melt people's clothes off. Doesn't matter what the cause is, any female in the cast is going to get her clothing torn off in some way.
• Compulsory School Age:
  • Played straight with Oshizu, but initially subverted with Nana and Momo. Despite looking around Mikan's age, there's no mention of them going to school. While it isn't outright stated, it's subtly shown they mainly hang out at the Yuuki residence all day.
  • Yami flirts with this by spending all day hanging around Rito's school reading books, though she eschews classes and the school uniform.
• Control Freak: Yui, though she mellows out quite a bit.
• Cosplay Otaku Girl: Mio, one of those two girls.
• Cousin Oliver: Celine, in her little child form.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Rito showed signs of this when Ren got close to Haruna and, to a much lesser extent, Lala.
• Crossdressing Voices:
  • 16 YEAR OLD Rito is played by Akeno Watanabe. Yes, that Akeno, who played Zakuro. Yes, the Zakuro with the high pitched Yuri Shiratori-esque voice.
  • Fuyuka Oura as Ren/Run, both male and female.
• Crossover‎:
  • An Assist-a-roid from Cat Planet Cuties pops up.
  • Several To Luv Ru characters have cameoed in Mayoi Neko Overrun!.
• Culture Clash: There is a very subtle one between Devilukes and Humans, particularly Lala; she doesn't use honorifics, has no nudity taboo which she claims is due to her upbringing, doesn't mind the idea of Rito having multiple lovers as it's considered normal for royalty to have a harem, her people are essentially conquerors and she herself doesn't mind fighting either. Momo and Nana are generally better at fitting in, so it's hard to say what are typical behaviours for a member of the Deviluke race and what are just Lala's quirks.
• Cute Bruiser: Given that Yami is, for all intents and purposes, the exact same person as Eve, it should come as no surprise she's tiny, adorable, and can kick your ass.
• Cute Little Fang: Nana.
• Cut Short: The original manga series ends very abruptly with Rito attempting a Love Confession to Haruna that is mistaken as being directed to many of his female suitors at once. It's speculated this was because the series' artists was going through a divorce and custody battle at the time. The series continued in Darkness about a year later.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Going to watch the anime first series? Hope Mikan isn't your favorite character, or you'll be disappointed at how she makes very few appearances after the first 3 episodes or so. Particularly egregious since most other characters get the opposite treatment if anything.
    • Thankfully for Mikan fans, the OVAs and second anime keep her around the whole time and give her (somewhat milder than the rest of the cast) fanservice .
  • Ren hits this so hard. Sure, we know where he is, but he doesn't appear all that often. Or at all in the last 50 odd chapters. In Motto he made two appearances over all. Amusingly, this is a case of a character being Demoted to Extra in favor of himself, sort of. Ren and his rivalry for Lala's affections were eventually phased out, and while the humorously embarrassing situations involving him randomly physically and mentally changing into the much more fanservice-bait girl Run became less and less common, Run herself began to appear more and more often on her own with no mention or Ren.
  • Characters will rapidly come in and out of focus throughout the story. Barring Ren, Haruna is probably the most affected, as she becomes less prominent in the last fifty or so chapters, and Yui takes up her slack.
  • Zastin and his gang.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The female Devilukan's tail. The tip is heart shaped and when *ahem* fondled tends to produce similar reactions to the women as say, a clitoris would to human women. Not to mention that the heart shaped tip starts looking like the vagina in certain fanservice situations. It's unfortunate seeing as how the tail is pretty much as tall as the women are and how Momo, Nana, and Lala affiliate with a guy who's naturally inclined towards grabbing boobs and such due to his klutziness
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Yami makes her hatred of "ecchi" people clear by hitting or slashing at men or boys (especially Rito) who accidentally get a look under her skirt or touch her breasts - or even just look at her with too much admiration. But when a girl fondles her while another flips up her skirt to check out her panties, she merely asks them - rather weakly - to please stop.
  • Invoked in a chapter of Darkness where Rito, in Haruna's body, slips in the hallway on a banana peal and accidentally gropes Yami. Yami states that Haruna gropes her just as Rito has, but because it is Haruna she will let it slide.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: The OVAs that came out between the first series and Motto were never released outside Japan. This leaves a number of characters and ideas (most notably Nana and Momo, but also Rito's "Riko" form) completely inexplicable when they first (re)appear.
• The Dulcinea Effect: If Rito didn't have this, we would have said goodbye to 161 chapters.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first two volumes are fairly different from the rest of the series. The fanservice, while present, is nowhere near as pervasive or explicit as it gets in later chapters, and some chapters barely contain any. Furthermore, the plot is primarily focused more on Rito having to deal with all of Lala's alien suitors. That plotline vanishes fairly early on, and the plots become much more character-driven and focused on the relationships within the cast.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • The other characters totally overlook the fact that Yami probably killed dozens of others before coming to Earth.
  • In the anime an alien assassin comes after Lala and goes into labor during the fight Lala helps her to the infirmary and gets her taken care of. Easily Forgiven as soon as the fight stops!
• Ecchi: While certainly not the first manga to incorporate loads of fanservice and interesting shots of semi-naked to naked young women, To Love Ru takes the trope to a whole 'nother level, to put it bluntly!
• Energy Weapon: Yet another feature of Devilukean tails. Or at least of Lala's and Momo's. As the other Deviluke characters haven't shown whether they can do the same, it might just be a unique personal ability, like Momo's plant telepathy and Nana's animal telepathy.
• Erotic Dream: Being a healthy young man, Rito has a couple.
  • One notable instance in the manga is when Rito was dreaming about Haruna, which lead to an Almost Kiss between Rito and Lala because she was in his bed again.
  • The most memorable instance in the anime is actually an induced hallucination, featuring Rito, Haruna, and Lala.
• Everybody Knew Already:
  • The schoolwide reveal of Lala being an alien only results in "Oh, that explains the tail." People in TLR are just way too easy-going about extraterrestrials...
  • The usual reaction to new girls is "Oh, are you an alien too?"
  • Rito's hidden feelings for Haruna have sort of evolved into this. To Saruyama and Mikan (those that know him best or at the very least longest) his crush is painfully obvious. Risa, Mio, Mikado and Ringo are implied to know, or at least suspect, and as of Darkness Lala and Momo know all about it.
• Expy:
  • Lala of Lum from Urusei Yatsura. Both are beautiful alien princesses in love with a human boy. Both have all sorts of inventions that hardly work right or do not work at all. And they both love to cook food that is way too spicy or inedible for humans to eat.
  • Run of Ran from the same work (their names are almost the same even), minus the Bitch in Sheep's Clothing aspect of her character. Like Ran with Lum, Run was Lala's childhood friend who went through a lot of slapstick abuse and was forced to dress up like a girl as Ren. At least Ren/Run didn't get spanked like Ran did, though.
  • Many characters from Black Cat, Yabuki's precedent manga:
    • Yami is Eve; not only do they share the same seiyuu, but also the same powers, mother, origin, and name. As of Darkness, however, Yami is implied to be not just an expy, but an Alternate Universe version of Eve, which turns out to be also Yami's true name. And like her original, she's an enhanced clone of her creator, Tearju Lunatique.
    • The manga throws in "Magical Flame Kyoko", who is the TLR version of Kyoko Kirisaki, including a bounty hunter named "Kuro" (Black), none other than the expy of Train Heartnet, the protagonist of Black Cat.
    • Zastin to Creed Diskenth, at least in appearance and powers, except he's more of a bumbling but amiable soldier.
• Eye Catch: Each of which is loaded with Fanservice.
• Fan Disservice: The Principal. When he sees a girl he likes, he usually rips off all his clothes.
• Fanservice:
  • Summed up pretty nicely in the 'follow-up' chapter released after series cancellation, which features Rito thinking back on everything that's happened since Lala came into his life... and it's nothing but six solid pages of fanservice shots from across the series. In color!
  • In the first anime the credits are listed in boob tan lines. Mention to third Oav that seemingly forgets to have a plot or dialog and just features the girls posing in swimsuits to ambient music for several minutes at a time.
• Fanservice Extra: All the other schoolgirls that are involved in the "incident" with Lala inventions.
• Fantastic Arousal: The Deviluke race has its tails, which are dark red in colour and are tipped with semi-individual shapes, which seem to be particularly sensitive. As Nana explians, while it affects both female and male members of her race, men are in general less affected. However, she also notes that it varies from person to person and that Lala, Nana and Momo are particularly sensitive.
• Filler: It's remarkable how little the plot actually moves. So little of important occurs that Lala's backstory effectively amounts to an Excuse Plot.
• Finagle's Law: If an opportunity for fanservice can happen, it will happen. Especially when Rito is at the short end of it.
• First Law of Gender Bending:
  • Ren was initially one of the more recurring secondary characters, but after Run was introduced she's steadily eclipsed his screentime to the point that he basically only appears for a panel or two each time she has a whole chapter about her.
  • While Rito has never been stuck as Riko for very long, after the first time it's happened quite a lot more than any similar oddities Lala's inventions caused.
• First-Name Basis:
  • Lala refers to everyone by their first name, as she is a foreigner (alien), and won't understand this aspect of Japanese culture. Similarly, everyone is on first name basis with her. Surprisingly, this includes Rito, who is the only one to call her without honorifics, implying closeness. The rest use -san or -chii.
  • Played with with Haruna and Rito, who are on Last-Name Basis. However, at least in Rito's head, it's "Haruna-chan" and not "Sairenji", which is what he actually calls her out loud.
  • Rito is also on first name basis with Nana and Momo, though Momo adds the -san honorific.
  • Mikan and Rito too; it's especially noteworthy because whenever Mikan is being particularly bro-con-y she switches to "Onii-chan".
  • And finally Rito and Run, with Run adding -kun.
• Formula-Breaking Episode:
  • Episode 20 of the first anime isn't even an episode of To Love Ru; it's an entire episode of "Magical Kyoko."
  • There's also episode 23. It focuses sorely on minor character Saruyama's nonsensical Dream Sequence composed entirely of references to Japanese historical folktales and period novels, which Saruyama even lampshades. Without knowledge of Japanese culture and folktales (or handy Fan Sub footnotes), a non-Japanese veiwer will be hopelessly confused.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: The manga's done this on four occasions: one has Rito switching places with a dog, another has Lala and Haruna switching places with each other, Mikan and Yami, and the last one with Rito and Peke.
• Full-Name Basis: The cold manner in which Yami-chan addresses everyone (Rito in particular) except Mikan, which is a telling sign of her fondness for her.
• Fun Size: Lala's father, Gid Lucione Deviluke, despite being the most powerful being in the galaxy (capable of singlehandedly destroying planets), looks like an adorable little kid. Justified due using a lot of his power during the Unification Wars.
• Fun with Acronyms: "Technology of Over Level Operation for Very heavy command to Electronic control unit" in episode 5 of the anime. The "ru" was there as well, but was listed as standing for "Ru...ru?!.ru.ru.'Run!'" in Japanese, which has the implication that even the maker of the control unit didn't know what to do with that extra "ru".
• Funbag Airbag: General happen many times to Rito that zizagged from this to Marshmallow Hell.
  • With Sandwich!◊ variant.
  • An occasion has Yui tried to avoid this. Saruyama then bumps into Yui, which ironically causes her to fall on Rito with her breast on his face.
• Galactic Conqueror: This is what Lala's father does for a living. No pressure, Rito.
• Gender Bender:
  • Some of Ren and Run's species are born Sharing a Body with their twin, and whenever they sneeze their body changes along with the one controlling it. Since they're brother and sister, their coincidentally causes a sex change as well. Sometime during puberty, they split apart and each get their own body.
  • Lala's machine for giving girls better breasts accidentally hits Rito, which somehow turns him completely female . After this, Lala makes a Transformation Ray so she can do this to him whenever she wants, albeit based on a timer. It ends up happening to him three times in the original manga and three time in Darkness.
• Genre Savvy:
  • Yui seems to be genre savvy, at least in regards to Rito's little moments.
  • Momo as well.
• Gilligan Cut: Risa invites/guilt trips Rito into going into her house for some coffee after he spent an entire day with her, largely against his will. He tries to decline and pull away from her, sort of mumbling/muttering, then cue next scene where they're both inside her house.
• Girl Posse: Rin and Aya are Saki's mascots
• The Glomp:
  • How Lala generally greets Rito, or anyone she regards as a friend, for that matter. Run has done it a few times to Rito, too.
  • How Risa and Mio generally greet Yami, much to the poor little one's confusion.
  • Celine also seems rather fond of this. Impressively she usually manages to knock down her target(usually Rito).
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Yami is scary when she is under the effects of a love potion type device.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Nana and Momo
• Godiva Hair: Lala, also combined with Idiot Hair (that cute little spiral ahoge on her head); Yami too, justified, since for her, more hair means more weapons.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: in one chapter Rito dons a pair of X-ray glasses that somehow latch on to his head. This being To Love Ru, of course, we get to see "Rito Vision" of various girls in their lingerie. At one point, he accidentally adjusts the intensity, which renders them totally nude after that. He also gets some fan disservice, because those glasses allow to see through male clothing as well. Near the end, Rito somehow ended up under Run's groin, and she sneezes and transforms into Ren in which Rito commented 'has become something much worse' and he passed out.
  • Again in an extra chapter of sequel "Darkness". Thanks to one of Momo's plants, Rito becomes a pervert and grabs the glasses which allows him to see through clothes of many girls until he is stopped by Momo.
• Going Commando: One chapter had Yami accidentally cut Yui's panties off, forcing Yui to go commando for the rest of the day.
• Gratuitous English: It's everywhere in the opening theme. "So we are never give up", to start with...
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Haruna's reaction to anything that truly terrifies her is to panic, scream, and wildly beat the crap out of it with the nearest blunt instrument...which is invariably Rito.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Magical Girl Kyoko is half human, half flame alien. It's what gives her her powers.
• Harem Series: The story starts focused on a Betty and Veronica situation where Rito has a mutual attraction to Haruna neither will act on, gradually starts to warm up to his initially-unwanted fiance Lala, and didn't evoke any interest from the supporting female characters (like Risa, Mio, or Saki's group). However, near the end of the manga's first year, it began to introduce a number of girls who became Rito's Supporting Harem (Run, Yui, Yami, Momo, Nana), even as Rito's affection stayed on Haruna and Lala. Darkness switches to a Balanced Harem where Haruna and Lala are comparatively Demoted to Extra, and while Momo and Yami receive the most attention, neither advances with Rito romantically—the former is actually trying to get Rito to Marry Them All. Oddly, though, Darkness occasionally shows Rito actually hasn't developed feelings for anyone besides Haruna (and even his growing attraction to Lala in the original series is forgotten).
• Hat of Flight: Lala's winged hat in her standard costume. The manga explains they're anti-gravity wings when they sprout out the back of her bikini in the obligatory Beach Episode.
• Heavy Sleeper: All these girls sneaking into Rito's bed while he's asleep—and he doesn't wake up fully even when one of them pinches his face.
  Rito: [still mostly asleep] The marshmallow bit me!
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Magical Girl Kyoko from the Show Within a Show acts like one. Her motto is "Whatever the problem is, I'll solve it by burning it," and she means it, too. When General Mojack is giving people afros, how does she solve it? By lighting their hair on fire.
• Hopeless Suitor: As expected of Motemitsu-senpai! He'll be instantly and permanently rejected by any girl he approaches!
  • Ren toward Lala also.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Lala admonishes her sisters for running away from home. Rito immediately lampshades the hypocrisy. The same scene repeats itself, pretty much verbatim, when Saki runs away from home and goes to Rito and Lala for help.
  • Risa claiming that teasing women is sexual harassment. The look on her face makes it seem like an Invoked Trope.
• Idiosyncratic Cultural Gesture: Grabbing a Devilukean girl by her breasts is a marriage proposal. There is also a cooling off period where you can break the engagement by grabbing them again within 72 hours.
• Idol Singer: Run becomes one, which is probably to the dismay of her alter ego Ren.
• Ignore the Fanservice: When Saki want "beat" Lala stealing his boyfriend, she tries to seduce Rito with a Marilyn Maneuver scene. However, Rito is preoccupied about Haruna and totally ignores her.
• I Know Madden Kombat: When in the game world, Rito notices that "Knight class" Haruna's swordplay seems to derive from tennis techniques.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: In a story, the target of the hitman Black is revealed to be an alien and master of disguise named Karmelon, who was disguised as Saruyama. Not giving up, Karmelon turns into Nana, hoping to throw Black and Yami off. But Karmelon's transformation backfires, as he forgets to copy Nana's chest size, which angers Nana into beating him to a pulp.
• Improbable Weapon User: Haruna several times uses Rito as a weapon. A ridiculously effective one at that.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: One story has Rito at the receiving end of Lala's shrinking machine. Naturally you can expect what comes from Rito's new perspective.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Lala's nudity taboo tends to be plot influenced. If the plot calls for her to be threatened and saved by Rito, she will try to cover herself (so she can't defend herself). Otherwise, she'll happily prance around naked, wondering why Rito's demanding she get dressed. Strangely, her sisters are not. But even she has limits, as shown when she once landed from a stumble, straddling Rito's face while wearing nothing but a jacket, giving Rito a full view of her lower half. Even she was embarrassed at that one.
• Innocent Innuendo:
  • Mikan mistakenly believes Lala and Rito are doing something naughty in Rito's room and immediately interrupts. Slightly justified as his hand was glued to Lala's tail, but contrast Mikan's reaction in the beginning of the series when finding him in bed with a naked girl only leads to dull surprise.
• Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Invoked by Gid when he threatens to destroy Earth.
• Instant Cosplay Surprise:
  • One time when Peke gets confused and dizzy it ends up flying from person to person, changing their outfits into something much more fanservicey.
  • A separate time, when Rito becomes Peke he loses control and transforms half the class's gym clothes into extremely revealing costumes, including Yui wearing a whipped cream bikini.
• Interspecies Romance: Rito and Lala. Rito and any of the aliens, for that matter.
• Intimate Lotion Application: During chapter 113, the class goes to the beach accompanied by School Nurse Mikado, who doesn't waste the opportunity to tease Rito in a new environment by demanding him to rub suntan oil on her back, all while she seductively pours the oil on her cleavage. When he's too nervous to answer, she has Oshizu use her powers to force him to do it, while Saruyama watches on with envy.
• In Vino Veritas: The second half of the fifth OVA. To summarize Nana and Momo release a pollen to test Rito. All the girls but Lala begin acting drunk, including Haruna zigzagging between sweet and violent, angry at Rito for not choosing yet, Yui declaring Rito can only do Ecchi things with her, and Mikan almost confessing her love. Strangely, Rito is unaffected.
• Iron Butt Monkey:
  • Rito. Many of his perverted accidents end up with a certain yellow haired assassin hot on his trail.
  • The Principal. The only explanation he's still alive after all the beating Yami delivers to him on a regular basis.
• Is That Cute Kid Yours?: Celine is occasionally mistaken as Rito's daughter. An old woman can be forgiven for the mistake, as she looks about 2 and he's 17, so it's biologically possible. Ringo, on the other hand, should know better.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: When Lala finds out that Haruna and Rito both have secret crushes on each other, she decides it's her duty to get them together so they will be happy. Of course that doesn't change her plans for her and Rito to also be together...
• I Was Just Joking:
  • As part of her character development, Yui occasionally jokes about Rito's little moments instead of snapping at him as she usually does. It's only when she is in a really good mood though.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Old Honegawa-sensei after he gets sprayed by an alien youth-skunk.
• Jerkass: Gid. He told Rito back during their first meeting that he would destroy Rito and the Earth with it. When asked why he would destroy the Earth, he replies "Because I don't like you."
• Kimodameshi:
  • Had one of these early on, with the addition of a rumor stating that the pair that makes it to the end will become an actual couple. Naturally, Rito makes it to the end with both Haruna and Lala with him.
  • They decide to go on one in an Old School Building (episode 17 in the anime, fittingly titled The Ghost in the Old School Building) where the group meet some aliens disguised like ghosts and Oshizu that is a real ghost.
• Kissing Under the Influence: Subverted in a chapter where Yami, under the effect of Celine's pollen nearly kiss Rito that stop her before the effect disappear.
• Landing in Someone's Bathtub: This is how Lala and Rito meet, with her teleporting into his bathtub.
• Leg Focus: Yami makes up for her smaller breasts by having a fantastic set of legs, hips, and butt.
• Lens Flare Censor: Replaces Speech-Bubble Censoring in the anime.
• Lethal Chef:
  • Lala; almost literally since Devilukeans are sturdier and powerful than humans, they managed to survive this, but if that soup was served to Rito or any other normal human...
  • May have shades of Weird World, Weird Food - many of Lala's failures in cooking are due to using Dark Matter, which is apparently Lala's favorite seasoning.
• Lingerie Scene: Obviously.
• Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: When a de-aged Run tries to catch the Skunk of Youth, she slips off the school roof, losing her now over-sized shoes in the fall. Thankfully, Lala manages to catch her (and the skunk) mid-fall.
  • Later in Darkness, Mea's shoes are stolen when she is attacked by a mob of Rito clones.
• Love Potion:
  • The chocolates from chapter 40 (that Lala accidentally gave almost everyone in her class), but of the aphrodisiac variety.
  • Celine's pollen is slightly more traditional, making anyone who comes into contact with it fall madly in love with Rito, and only him. It only lasts for about 30 minutes, though.
• Made of Iron: Luckily, Rito doesn't seem to have a health insurance policy that covers constant beatings from angry women... (nervous laugh)
• Magic Skirt: Considering how overloaded with fanservice the anime is, this is quite a surprise, but only present in the broadcast version of the first season of the anime.
• Magical Girlfriend: Lala probably counts, and that's not mentioning "Magical Flame Kyoko" in the manga's "Trouble Quest" arc.
• Magnetic Girlfriend: Lala; after she sets her sights on Rito, it sets off a chain reaction that sees the latter unwittingly gathering a Harem.
• Makeover Torment: The first time Rito became "Riko", Mikan and Lala tried to dress him in up Lala's spare clothes, the former practically gloating as she showed off the bra she picked out. After this sends Rito running out the door, Mikan admits she was teasing him too much, though Lala was seemingly oblivious to his discomfort.
• Male Gaze: All the girls are often framed in poses that emphasize their butt, especially in the sequel Darkness, without regard to what they wear (skirt or pants).
• Man-Eating Plant: The Yuuki family has one in the backyard named Celine. It's mellowed down to become a giant, friendly, recurring pet. Until it, uh, "blooms" into what looks like a preschool infant with a flower growing from her head
• Marilyn Maneuver:
  • Saki tried to invoke this to seduce Rito when she tried to beat Lala by stealing her boyfriend. But he totally ignores her.
  • A chapter has an alien cold virus makes Lala act shy and feminine. When a gust of wind blows up Lala's skirt, revealing her panties, Lala is immediately embarrassed and asks Rito if he saw.
  • Oshizu does this to herself, when in a game where she plays the role of a ninja that uses a wind style technique, revealing her panties.
• Marry Them All: In the abrupt manga finale, Lala not only doesn't mind the possibility of both her and Haruna marrying Rito but is actively enthusiastic about it. Later, he accidentally says "I love you" to several of the other girls (even though it was meant for Haruna), Lala doesn't mind sharing him with them, too. It's implied that, by Deviluke law, he can practice polygamy when he becomes king after officially marrying Lala.
  • As of 'Darkness' Momo is VERY aware of this trope regarding Rito and the girls. Her dream is to actually achieve this result with her taking an active approach.
    Peke: When Rito becomes King of the Universe, then the rules of Earth won't matter anymore.
• Marshmallow Dream: A variation. When Mikan crawls into Rito's bed to catch one of the other girls in the act of crawling into his bed while he's sleeping, he grabs her in his sleep and his mumblings hint that he is acting like he's grabbed the 'marshmallow'. When she pinches his cheek to have him release her, his response is to claim that the 'marshmallow bit him'.
• Marshmallow Hell: Rito is subjected to this so much that it probably isn't a far stretch to say that his hands and head are breast magnets.
  • Taken to new heights: after one of Lala's machines accidentally shrinks Rito to about 5 inches tall, she hides him by carrying him around in her cleavage all day. Naturally, she's not wearing a bra (she never does); he nearly gets suffocated and/or squashed multiple times.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Rito infrequently does this with his less potent suitors, like Nana and Yami.
• Meaningful Name/Theme Naming: Lala and her family. Their second names come from different mythological/religious demons: Satalin = Satan, Velia = Belial, Asta = Astaroth, Lucion = Lucifer.
• Mega Neko: FROM SPACE!
• Meido: A chapter has Rito's class gets ready to help clean around the city. The principal explains that he has picked out special uniforms for the girls. Just then, the girls (including Yami) show up and they are in maid outfits. Rito asks Yami why she is there, and she tells him that the principal invited her. Also Mikado wear this.
• The Men in Black: Zastin's assistants, Maul and Smutts, at least dress the part.
• Modesty Towel: A particular example in the two-part story "War At The Public Bathhouse". Yami, along with Lala, Haruna and Mikan, is attacked by two bounty hunters in a public bath who use Rito (controlled by a device). All the girls (and Rito) wears towel. One of two hunters makes also Rito pull of Haruna's towel.
• Moment Killer: Lots, though Rito-Haruna moments suffer the most. Mikan also tries to keep an eye on Rito when any of the girls are around, and when waking him up in the morning. She keeps an eye on Momo in particular.
• Moral Myopia:
  • Sure, Lala's a bright, sweet and kind-hearted girl who looks out for and cares about everyone, even her romantic rival, but the fact she's never shown to be even slightly disturbed about the fact her father has committed genocidal extermination of millions, if not, billions of worlds makes you wonder how decent a person she really is.
  • The Devilukeans are a warrior race, after all. It's just that the ones we always see are a trio of pampered teenage princesses. Not to mention the revelation that the Great Galactic War lasted for centuries (meaning it presumably started generations before any of the cast were born), which would imply that Gid actually saved countless lives by putting an end to it.
• Ms. Fanservice: Most of the female characters.
• Naked Apron: Lala occasionally does this. She start wearing this when preparing to make a meal for Rito. When Rito tells her she's supposed to wear the apron over clothes, she adds a bikini bottom. She also does when her friends told her boys like it. And the last time, Rito accidently forces her into one a second time when he takes over Peke.
  • And again in one of the OVAs, where Rito actually takes an interest.
• Naked People Are Funny: Oh, yes they are.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: In the anime. Just listen to Saki Tenjouin.
• No Romantic Resolution: Rito was never given an official relationship with anyone. Darkness essentially never changed anything about how he felt.
• No Guy Wants an Amazon: Anime only.
• Not Blood Siblings: Jokingly invoked by Mikan to startle Rito.
• Not Himself:
  • A spray Run orders accidentally turns Haruna from sweet and innocent into a pure sadist. Turns less amusing given what the real-life inspiration for Haruna turned out to be like.
  • And the time an alien cold virus makes Lala act shy and feminine, as opposed to her normal temperament.
• Not What It Looks Like: This happens so much to Rito, especially in the manga, the very laws of probability weep at the frequency of its occurrence.
• The Nudifier: Lala's personal teleporter has this as a side effect since for some reasons, it will only teleport the person. Any items they may be carrying, including clothes, are left behind. There's also a gas with the specific purpose of dissolving clothing, which Run uses occasionally. It always backfires on her, and fanservice ensues. Later, Lala's attempt to fix this flaw in her teleporter fall rather short: it now allows some of the person's clothes to be teleported with them. As Rito notes, this isn't actually an improvement over being naked.
• Old School Building: Used for the Kimodameshi where they first meet Oshizu, then briefly turned into a Ryokan Inn before being destroyed.
• Older Than They Look: Yami is 24 earth years old.
• One Myth to Explain Them All: With the sole exception of the Cute Ghost Girl, everything can be explained by alien powers or technology. And even then, Mikado-sensei considers Oshizu's state as a analyzable phenomenon and understands it well enough to construct a gynoid body for her.
• The Only One Allowed to Kill You:
  • Yami for Rito, although it's just an excuse for her to stay on Earth and become an addition to his Harem.
  • Might be played straight when it's Yami for Lala, however.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Rito spends quite a bit of time angsting about this in episode 4.
• Our Demons Are Different: Despite being called Devilukians, having spade tails, some succubus like traits and Names to Run Away from Really Fast for the for the girls(see their character entries)...they really aren't all that scary. Or evil. Momo is probably the closest, but even she doesn't really fit.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Oshizu, although she does receive an artificial body.
• Outdoor Bath Peeping: Saruyama would never miss a chance to peak on girls bath and would bring Rito along and make him take the blame if ever caught. He always fails.
• Panty Fighter: Always and with all the girls, especially when Lala and Yami are involved.
  • Averted in Yami's first appareance. She afterwards continues to block the view of her panties from the Principal.
  • Amped up in Darkness. An example: when Lala battles Yami (in Darkness form), and is forced to destroy her own panties, she goes commando for the rest of fight.
• Parental Abandonment: Quite a few characters actually, but the most noticeable is Rito and Mikan's parents. Ringo has appeared only twice as she works overseas, and while its implied they see Saibai more often, he's almost never at home (apparently living in his office); This is proven when he first met Lala after she'd been living with them for at least a few weeks, and only because she and Rito went to visit him at work.
  • The long term effects of their parents' hands-off approach is actually explored somewhat in Darkness, and is cited as the reason that Mikan and Rito are so close. They had no one to rely on but each other.
  • Inverted with Haruna and the Deviluke sisters: They voluntarily left their parents, the former to live with her sister so she could continue to go to school with her friends, and all the Devilukes ran away; Lala because she was being forced into a marriage, and the twins because they hated studying.
• People Puppets: In the two-part story "War At The Public Bathhouse" , Yami, along with Lala, Haruna and Mikan, is attacked in a public bath by two bounty hunters who use Rito'body (controlled by a device) because they know that Yami will never kill him. Thanks to Lala, who hack the device, their plan fail and are defeated by the same controlled-Rito!.
• Pepper Sneeze: Ren/Run carries pepper to fling at his/her nose to change gender when the need arises. First seen when, upon learning that sneezing is the Ren/Run's transformation trigger, Lala chases Ren with a pepper shaker trying to get Run to come out and play.
• Phrase Catcher: "As expected of Motemitsu-Senpai!"
• Plant Aliens: Rito's giant plant, Celine, turns into one of these.
• Playboy Bunny:
  • When Rito first suggested Lala should dress to fit in with Earthpeople, she had Peke transform — and kept picking inappropriate garb to copy: a businessman's clothing, a policewoman's uniform, a Bunny... That one led Rito to wonder in shock where she'd seen it.
  • At the start of the "Trouble Quest" arc, the Guild assigning "adventurers" their Character Class had a staff of Bunnies — well, actually, multiple copies of one Bunny (there was also a Bunny on the sign outside the door). Then, when Yami shows up, she's been dressed as a Bunny as part of her character class. Yami, who hates anything Ecchi...
  • During Peke's (actually Rito's) malfunction in Chapter 143 / Episode 09 of Motto To Love Ru, Lala ends up in a tiny swimsuit and Haruna in this. Oh yeah, and Oshizu was dressed as Enma Ai.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: Rito's reaction to Lala anytime she shows up in the nude, which is most of the time when they're at home.
• Power Perversion Potential: A lot of Lala's inventions have this to some degree or another. The teleporter that doesn't teleport clothes and a device that can control people's bodies immediately come to mind. This is just the tip of the iceberg though... really.
• Prehensile Tail: Deviluke's inhabitants. Most of them, especially the females also can have Fantastic Arousal with their tails.
• Promotion to Parent: In a weird way, both Rito and Mikan promoted themselves to this role for each other in the face of their parents' long absences. It's much more noticeable in Mikan, who is generally more emotionally mature and takes care of the household chores, but Rito, especially in the pair's younger years, looked after and protected Mikan, continues to worry over her and goes the extra mile to make sure she's happy.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Lala, as a non-villainous example. If you think about it, she fulfills the traits: innocent, strong, very smart, often not considering the consequences of her actions and lacking common sense.
• Public Bathhouse Scene: In the two-part story "War At The Public Bathhouse", Yami, along with Lala, Haruna and Mikan, is attacked in a public bath by two bounty hunters who use Rito (controlled by a device) because they know that Yami will never kill him. Thanks to Lala, who hack the device, their plan fail and are defeat.
• Recurring Extra:
  • Sayaka and Koromi are the two girls who make short appearance throughout the first series. Sayaka is the girl who usually wears two hairpins with short hair and Koyomi is the bespectacled girl with long hair.
  • Also Agaru, the male class representative in Rito's class at his second year; he is drawn badly and always wears a pair of glasses.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Lala and Haruna.
• Relax-o-Vision: In the anime, Ren's training cuts out several times before different fights to show bathtime footage (of the girls, obviously), instead.
• Reused Character Design: Naturally, for all the alternate versions of the Black Cat characters, Yabuki has used the same design.
• Robot Girl: Peke can turn into one.
• Rotating Protagonist: The manga tends to give A Day in the Limelight to each girl in turn and spends the whole time putting them through some misadventure. The result is that pacing slows to an absolute crawl.
• RPG Episode: The manga's "Trouble Quest" arc.
• Rule of Cute: Strange alien girls can become students at the school without any form of identification very easily, mostly because they're cute and the principal is a pervert.
• The Runaway: Momo and Nana who ran away from their studies. Lala's of the Runaway Fiancé variation.
• Runaway Fiancé: Lala, who ran away because of all the unwanted marriage interviews. She then almost immediately finds a boy she likes and integrates herself into his life, much to his chagrin.
• Scenery Censor: Lala has a spade-headed tail to go along with her Godiva Hair, meaning she can keep all her naughty bits covered and be stark naked. Of course, since Devilukean tails are erogenous zones, it's pretty much like she covers up one naughty bit with another.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Essentially what Peke tells Rito to do in the final chapter. After all, when you're King of the Universe, why should you follow Earth laws?
• Second Episode Morning: Lala states quite simply, "I wanted to sleep with you".
• Sequential Artist: Yuki's father who treats every page like a battle.
• Ship Tease:
  • As if there is any other point to chapter 157 than to drive Rito/Mikan shippers into a frenzy...
  • Some Yui chapters deal with just about the same amount of shipping, and then there's Momo...
• Shirtless Scene:
  • Yui's brother's very first appearance was one.
  • Rito has had a few in his time, as well.
  • Zastin when he is possessed.
  • An episode in second season also showed naked Zastin, with just Scenery Censor for the bare minimum coverage.
• Shout-Out: Now with its own page.
• Show Within a Show: "Magical Kyouko", a show about a magical girl with fire powers. In the first anime it gets an own episode.
  • Except Kyouko is actually a half human/half alien with real fire powers when the cast meets her for real. Run has a reoccurring guest role on her show.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Yami's barehanded fighting is quite flashy, as demonstrated when they go to Planet Mistletoe.
• Skinship Grope:
  • Haruna's friend Risa tends to feel her and Lala (and any other girl present) up on occasion.
  • When Rito's mother meets Lala for the first time, her first reaction is to start feeling her up, though justified because she's a fashion designer and was still in "work mode."
• Slasher Smile: Ghi Bree.
• Smashing Watermelons: A Beach Episode has Momo produces a giant living watermelon to play this, but some insults from some of the gang angers the living watermelon to go on a rampage, attacking everyone. They are all saved eventually by Yami, who slices the watermelon in half with a sword, thinking that that's how you play Watermelon Splitting.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: An episode of the Show Within a Show Magical Kyoko in the manga portrayed Kyoko telling a fellow that in thanks for something nice he'd done, she'd "have XXX with you!" (He responded in shock, "Is that alright? This is a kid's show!")
• Speaking Up for Another: This is the prime reason that Rito Yuuki loves Haruna Sairenji. When they were younger, he found the class garden torn up and destroyed. He was inspecting the damage when other classmates found him there, and believed he was the one responsible. Everyone believed it was Rito, and was disparaging him. Except for Haruna, who said she believes him when he says he didn't do it, because she feels like he isn't the sort of person who would do something like that.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Nana and Momo, Lala's twin little sisters, who can talk to animals and plants, respectively.
• Speech-Bubble Censoring: Yui's panties were accidentally cut off at the beginning of the chapter, so only Rito's exclamation prevents readers from seeing everything. And as for Rito, on the next page he gets hit on the head by a flying teapot and forgets about it.
• Squirrels in My Pants: Once Lala use accidentally at school one of her invention (a sprays that give more energy) on some mice (for a lesson) and get's them riled up. The mice then jump into the girls' clothes and what not, causing chaos in the classroom.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • Run has some tendencies in this direction, especially in episode 16, which focuses almost entirely on her stalking Rito.
  • Rito towards Haruna in the beginning, at least a little. Enough that Saruyama teased Rito about it. He very quickly stops as he gets closer to her naturally.
• Suggestive Collision: At least once a chapter, if not more. By Darkness, whenever Rito is onscreen, he can barely go for more than a couple of pages without tripping and literally landing face first in someone's crotch. One incident involving a rogue vacuum cleaner ends up actually burying him under a pile of naked girls.
  • In chapters 65 and 66, Mikado-Sensei theorizes that Rito's tendency to do this is a symptom of a psychological disease and attempts to cure it. She comes to the conclusion that it isn't a disease, but rather the will of the universe.
• Tastes Like Friendship: Rito gave Yami a Taiyaki when they first met. This created enough doubt in her mind about her mission that she didn't seriously try to kill him long enough for Lala to show up and correct misunderstandings.
• The Tease:
  • Momo. She regularly sneaks into Rito's bed, asks him where his Ero-mags are, and in one notable insistance pops up between his legs and offers to help him with his love problems. She even freely admits that she wants to be his mistress. And this before Darkness!
  • Enter Nemesis, who gives Momo of all people a run for her money. Bonus point for teasing Momo.
• Thanks for the Mammary: Rito seems to have the breast magnets, although he must have one in his head too, leading to a lot of accidental Marshmallow Hell. By Darkness he can recognize Lala's chest by feel.
  Rito: This is a sensation I know all too well!!
  • For some reason this means a marriage pact in the first anime.
• Three Shorts: The format to Motto To Love Ru.
• Title Drop:
  • Rito's e-mail address seems to be Rito@ToLOVE. Its hard to tell the rest, but this should be enough to qualify.
  • The example listed under Fun with Acronyms.
  • May also happen rather often due to the multilingual pun of To Love Ru being pronounced the same as Trouble; Rito occasionally mentions how his days are filled with Trouble, etc.
• Token Mini-Moe: Mikan and Yami are clearly designed with this in mind. Nana and Momo also qualify, despite Momo being more developed than others.
• Too Kinky to Torture:
  • Sorta. See Episode 6 of the anime. Saruyama enjoys being "dissected" by Lala, and the principal asks for "more... more" after being tied up.
  • Also, when Haruna got sprayed with a personality-change drug, she made some nasty remarks about Saruyama... and it turned him on.
• Transformation Sequence:
  • Lala's clothing bot Peke does this for her quite often, but it's thankfully skipped after the first few episodes.
  • In the OVA, Mikan of all people does this with Peke's help. She is totally surprised how Peke "forces" her to do the movements Lala normally does.
• True Love's Kiss: Having accidentally possessed Haruna, Oshizu thought one of these from Rito would wake Haruna's consciousness and free Oshizu from her body.
• Tsundere:
  • Yui's a Type A; her default expression in the beginning seems to be a scowl, and Rito is surprised the first time he sees her smile. She even acts tsundere towards a cat in an episode of Motto To Love Ru.
  • Saki and Yami in the anime finale: "I'm not doing this for you."
• Twice Shy: Rito and Haruna.
• Unknown Rival: Ren/Run. Saki, too, with her unrecognized "rivalry" against Lala for being the "queen of student body."
• Unlimited Wardrobe:
  • Sort of: Peke can copy any outfit that Lala asks him to, from casual wear to nurse uniforms. However, too much time spent in clothing-form will cause her to wear down and cause Clothing Damage, and we all know where that leads...
  • There's also the fact that if the hat (Lala's primary outfit) or hairpin (all her other outfits) come off, so do the clothes.
  • Later in the manga, Peke ends up becoming dizzy and flies from one girl to the other, destroying their current outfits and replacing them with previous outfits Lala wore in the series. When Peke ends up on Rito, it mimics a one-shot joke outfit: a whipped cream bikini...
• Unmoving Plaid: Prominent art design in Saruyama's Dream Sequence.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Lala's tail. A bit of a subversion, as everyone notices, but just thinks it's an accessory of some kind when they first meet her. Even when Rito accidentally reveals to Haruna, Mio, Risa and Kenichi that Lala is an alien, none of them think it's any big deal. Aside from thinking that it's cool and explains a lot, they barely react. They're similarly nonchalant about discovering that Ren and Run are male and female personas of the same alien and that Yami is an alien shapeshifter. It soon becomes widely known that the characters are aliens, and nobody at all seems to mind.
  • Lala's inventions would also fall under this trope. Possibly averted as Saki's Tenjouin Group also seems to have some interesting technology(more so in the anime). This probably explains why no one was that surprised when Lala admits to being an alien.
• Unwanted Harem: Well for starters, Rito didn't ASK for a hot naked alien princess to teleport into of all places his bathtub while he was using it! (along with the subsequent Accidental Marriage! All he wanted to do was keep trying to confess to the girl of his dreams!
  • Nor did the poor sap ask for at least three to four different cock teases who have all but flat out asked/begged Rito to bang them; a tsundere who secretly likes him and also wants the D (supposedly at least), despite treating Rito like a sick pervert (though its not always his fault perverted shit keeps happening to him); two different assassins, one who will murder him if he so much as looks at her funny, and one who's intent on making Rito her servant (read sex slave), and that is probably only scratching the surface!
• Victoria's Secret Compartment
  • In a chapter, Rito gets shrunk to roughly 4 inches tall. Lala keeps him all day in her Marshmallow Hell.
  • Her younger sister Momo has been shown tucking her summoning device into her cleavage.
• Visual Innuendo: When Risa is playing with a cherry in Motto To Love Ru 10.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Everyone knows Yami isn't going to kill Rito. She may beat him within an inch of his life after certain incidents, but she'll protect him just as much as any of her other friends if it matters and no on has any concern about her being around him. Becomes a Running Gag fairly quickly, with Yami saying he is her target and Rito pretending to take her seriously. In one case, he picks her up and carries her to Dr. Mikado when she collapses with an illness.....while taking a swipe at him.
• Welcome to Corneria: Parodied in chapter 93 of the manga.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Mikan, the most emotionally mature and level-headed member of the cast (though with this cast, that's not necessarily saying much, she is quite mature). Also the youngest.

Tropes Present in TLR: Darkness

To Love Ru Darkness provides examples of:

• Above the Influence:
  • Celine's pollen makes anyone, regardless of age, gender or sexual orientation fall in love with Rito. When his sister Mikan gets a blast of it... she asks, "What? did you think I'd just run and start clinging onto you? Please." It turns out that the potion did work, but Mikan managed to fight it off, making this a rare opportunity where both people were this.
  • Averted, subverted and played straight in one sequence. During Yui's visit at Rito's, Momo tries to setup a special mood between them, which is seemingly about to be disrupted by their usual antics. She considers an aphrodisiac, but dismisses that thought as she feels it is not appropriate. Then Yui herself makes a move on Rito, but is basically shot down by Rito.
  • Taken to extremes by Rito's apparent resistance to the charm of Charmians, which are supossed to turn any men who witnesses their face a beast. He doesn't. Lala's father Gid resists it as well, but he's from a powerful species.
• Accidental Kiss: In chapter 54 of the manga, Rito and Haruna.
• Almost Kiss: Rito and Yui, who is wearing nothing but a shirt.
• Anchored Ship: Rito refuses to move forward with Lala until his feelings for Haruna are resolved. Presumably, this involves a confession.
• And the Adventure Continues: Rito doesn't choose an official girlfriend (despite his claims that Haruna is his number 1), leaving the girls more determined than ever to win his affections. In an e-mail she writers to her mother, Momo says life will go on the same way as before.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Yami to Rito in chapter 72.
• Antagonist Title: At first, it was believed that the Darkness in the title referred to Yami's Superpowered Evil Side. As of the latest chapters, it turns out to be Nemesis herself, whose body is made entirely of dark matter (or as she says, Darkness itself).
• Art Evolution: Compare how the characters looked at the beginning of the series to how they look now in Darkness.
• Artifact Title: The title Darkness initially refers both to Yami (who's one of the main characters) and the somewhat Darker and Edgier tone. After the arc focusing on her is over, however, the series returns to a formula similar to the original series, making the title meaningless.
  • Subverted. It later becomes clear that "Darkness" refers to Nemesis.
• Ascended Meme: At the end of chapter 69, Yui, reading Rito's father's manga, comments that it's super interesting.
• Attempted Rape:
  • Probably the most outrageous example has to be Nemesis when she teleports into Rito's bathroom when he's bathing himself
  • Not played for laughs at all is when Azenda The Tyrant uses Mikan against Yami this way.
• Bathtub Scene: In the first chapter, Rito took a bath when Momo comes naked into the bath and start talk with him.
• Batman Gambit: Squared. In one of the extra chapters, Mikan joins Rito in the bathroom because she knew Momo wouldn't barge in as she did for several days in a row before if he wasn't alone there. Mikan thinks her plan worked when Rito tries to leave the room and finds Momo just outside the door, who apologizes and leaves in a hurry. Then Rito, by then well used to the latter's antics, tells Mikan that she was most likely played from start so she would get into the bathtub together with him on her own volition.
• Battle Harem: The universe should consider itself lucky that To Love Ru is a romantic comedy. To wit, Rito gains the unwavering allegiance of three shape-shifting living weapons, all of whom are experts in infiltration and assassination, especially Nemesis who can hide in other people's bodies, the three Deviluke sisters, each of whom has unique ability (Lala has super-strength and is a Teen Genius, Momo can control the plants and Nana the animals), Rin, who is a Master Swordsman and Kyoko that has fire-based powers. The other girls are normal humans, except Run, with no particular ability, although, if pushed into a long-term campaign do have skills very well suited towards non-combat support. If push comes to shove, even the "normal human" Haruna can wield Rito as a club, and has to devastating effect. Anime only Haruna also has access to a very powerful giant ape.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Happen when Rin is possessed by an evil sword called Bladix and Rito uses Mea's telepathic powers to enter Rin's mind and free her.
• Blind Without Them: Tearju.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The three Living Weapon characters: Yami, Nemesis and Mea.
• Book Ends: At least in the anime, it starts off with Momo on top of Rito and ends that way.
• Breakout Character: Yami and Momo were originally secondary characters, but both were promoted to protagonists in "Darkness."
• Breast Expansion: In a chapter, Lala invents a machine that does this. Though all it really did was transfer the size of one's breasts to another for a brief period of time.
• Brick Joke: Right after Yami transforms into her Darkness persona, the principal is seen running toward her, leaving his clothes behind. He disappears into the first portal we see her create, and is promptly forgotten. That is, until a news report at the end shows him having been found trapped in ice in Antarctica, with scientists wondering if he is a Yeti.
• Bridal Carry: Kyouko falls for Rito, despite shipping him with Run, after being subjected to the "Princess Carry". Twice.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Played for laughs when Mikan tries to resist the effects of Celine's pollen.
• Call-Back: One of the side chapters is about Haruna being turned into a cat and Rito petting and bathing her. The entire thing is a role reversed call back to a chapter in the original To Love Ru where Rito is turned into a dog and Haruna does the same. To drive the point home, Rito even remembers that time while bathing Haruna, not knowing it was her.
  • A rather brilliant one in Chapter 34, After Peke advises Lala in the previous chapter to start considering her feelings for Rito and after Momo of all people shows her a 18+ dating sim, Lala decides to surprise Rito by teleporting into his bathroom much like she did (by accident) way back in the beginning of the series. Only this time, Rito doesn't completely flip his shit and Lala wants to experience a kiss with him...
• Character Development: For Yui when she and Rito get trapped in "the rain", ending up in Rito's house due to Momo's trickery and use of a shield that projected the rain. Then Yui basically offers herself to Rito after one of his Accidental Pervert moments, and Rito appears to almost ACCEPT this offer without any sort of "freak out". She even ends up [[spoiler:defending Rito when Risa spins her Day in the Limelight to tease Haruna. Yui says she knows that Rito wouldn't actually do what is being implied. .
• Compulsory School Age: Yami, Momo and Nana all finally succumb to this trope.
• Covert Pervert: Rito. By Darkness he seems to be strangely fine with the 'Harem Plan' and dreaming of naked girls in the bath, or any time one (or more) of the girls makes sexual innuendo, especially Momo. He calls himself a pervert when he realized that he recognized Momo from the shape of her butt (while transformed into a mouse and looking up at her from the floor). He can also recognize Nemesis in her alternate form by contacting with her crotch.
• Crapsack World: Run and Ren's home planet Memorze has been revealed to be this. It's a planet where there are two suns, locking the planet in eternal day time. 80% of the planet is dry desert and the rest is also inhospitable, so much so that the dual-gender bodies evolved in order to help survival in a land with little food and water. Only trade with other planets has given the people relief.
• Crashing Dreams / Marshmallow Dream: A chapter start with Rito dream of eat and lick some giant candy until is awakened by Nemesisis (that share the same body) and discover Lala naked in his bed completly helpless due of Rito's actions. So, were not candy...
• Cringe Comedy: Though mostly played for sexiness, there is definitely an element of this to Rito's Accidental Pervert moments in Darkness.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Nemesis versus Gid. He fights the majority of the battle with his arms crossed.
• Cute Indignant Girl Stance: Momo does this when Nemesis has Rito accompany her for a day about town as her servant.
• Darker and Edgier: Faintly, in the sense that there is now an actual ongoing conflict revolving around Yami's backstory in addition to the harem antics.
• Date Peepers:
  • Momo, Mea, Nana and Yami all travel in a group to follow Rito and Run on a date, though for different reasons. Yui also follows them, though we aren't shown her doing this until she and Nana burst out to interrupt the date.
  • In Darkness, Saki insists Rin go out on a date with Rito, while whispering well-meant guidance into Rin's ear the whole time while she and Ayako follow along. Thing is, Saki's idea of a romantic date and her lack of restraint not only tend to severely impede any actual chemistry between Rin and Rito, they create a parade of Rin's suffering.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Yui. Chapter 4. That is all!
  • Aside from the harem building, the other major driver of the story is Yami finally thawing from light ship teasing to fully accepting both Rito and her life on Earth.
  • Yui is also defrosting at an even quicker pace than before.
  • Yami herself after being saved by Rito from her Darkness self. Turns into a full Type A Tsundere.
• Defusing the Tyke-Bomb: Probably one of the oddest cases out there. It's later revealed that the eponymous "Darkness" is in fact Yami's Manchurian-esque Superpowered Alter Id who was supposed to use the full extent of her powers to deliver indiscriminate destruction in a planetary scale as her creators' way to say "frak you, galactic peace". It turns out that's no longer the case because after a year or so of frequent "accidents" courtesy of Rito, Yami ended up enjoying them on an unconscious level. End result: Darkness!Yami runs on her instinctual drives and thinks of Rito as the embodiment of everything it's perverted, good and feels better in the universe, which is bad news for him because in that state her idea of "becoming one with him" involves his death.
• Defying the Censors: Seems to be doing this in response of the outrage of Moral Guardians towards fanservice. Both a higher density and more risqué fanservice are prominent which show no signs of letting up.
  • Supporters of one of Japan's recent censorship laws cited Darkness specifically as a reason for its passage. Yabuki's response? Take the fanservice up a few notches, essentially daring the government to try and stop him. The series was later specifically found not to be in violation of the law.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • As Darkness is a sequel to To Love Ru, Lala and Haruna become background characters in the first half of this series.
  • Saki. While in TLR was more or less a regular character, in Darkness she rarely appears. Probably because she is one of the few girls who are not in love with Rito.
  • Saruyama almost never shows up and just in brief scenes. Even Ren, another example of this trope, has more screentime than him.
  • Run doesn't get to spend much time with Rito either, mostly because of her work as an idol, but also due to the sheer amount of girls around him.
• Did You Just Have Sex?: Nana seems to be about to ask this of Rito, though it's more a case of Were You Just About To Have Sex?
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: "Darkness" has so many suggestive scenes that would serve a special page to list them.
• Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi: Once, Mea hijacks control of Rito's body and forces him to lick her all over while simultaneously forcing a Mind Link Mates scenario in order to share his senses. While no one calls her on it, she admits that she's using it as a punishment because she knows how uncomfortable it makes him. Meanwhile, Rito uses the opportunity to read her mind...
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Momo, Mea, and Nemesis have all sexually assaulted Rito (as well as "Riko"), which he never holds them accountable for or treats as more than a nuisance. While Nemesis' view of him as a potential Sex Slave is portrayed the most negatively, this doesn't keep her from having a Heel–Face Turn after Rito saves her life. Taken to the extreme in chapter 74, where Nemesis turns herself male and Rito female, and they have a prolonged sex scene that ends with Rito orgasming from implied cunnilingus. It is visibly a guy raping a girl, yet because their usual sexes are the opposite, the plot just moves on like nothing happened.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma:
  • There are some serious rape undertones when Mea straddles a sleeping Rito and gives this comment:
    Mea: If we join together, I might find out what kind of person you are?
  • Averted with Momo. She has the occasion to be kissed Rito while he sleep. But she turned down the chance wanting to receive a kiss from him only when he wants to.
• Ecchi: Darkness somehow manages to crank things up to where you'd swear at times you were looking at a sexually explicit content, not a fanservicey rom-com!
• Erotic Dream:
  • Mea accidentally creates one when she enters Rito's dream with her abilities and recreates the bath scene with Momo and Rito naked from the end of chapter 1 (she takes on the role of Momo).
  • In Chapter 35 he has a dream about Haruna, Lala and Run naked in the bath and kissing him.
  • In Chapter 73, he has a dream about pushing Momo down and grabbing her breasts on purpose (while it actually was Lala in his futon at the time).
• Establishing Character Moment: The fact that she is female, reasonably attractive, the right age and Momo doesn't try to set her up with Rito is a unique one of these for Nemesis.
• Evil Weapon: An arc feature Rin possessed by a cursed sword called Bladix and Rito uses Mea's telepathic powers to enter Rin's mind and free her.
• Expy:
  • Mea Kurosaki a.k.a. "Alien Suou".
  • Kyouko Kirisaki is based on her namesake from Black Cat.
  • As is Tearju Lunatique.
• Fanservice: Taken to ridiculous levels. The first chapter manages to somehow increase the amount of Fanservice compared to the original, edging dangerously close to sexually explicit contnent at points. The fact that it blatantly averts Barbie Doll Anatomy probably has something to do with this. It's not an exaggeration to say that not one chapter chapter goes by without a girl's breasts and nipples visible. And that's the absolute minimum. Often times the girls spend entire scenes in a heavy state of undress if they're not already completely nude and making extreme use of well placed censorship. And even then sometimes there's just enough detail to make the reader ask themselves how they've actually managed to slip it by the censors.
• Fetish: Darkness has shown us that some of the girls are developing these, particularly Mea who has shown great interest in licking, while Haruna is developing a fascination with bathing.
• First-Name Basis: Haruna once calls him "Rito-san" when she was thinking about him alone, but uses "Yuuki-kun" when they next meet face to face.
• Forced Orgasm: In one of the bonus chapters Yui ends up in a compromising position on a crowded train with a bag containing an artificial electronic cat-paw-toy pressed up against her crotch with no way to remove/disable it. Her subtle scream and afterglow in the subsequent scene makes it pretty obvious what happened.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Happen to Rito and Haruna's bodies, but just for several hours. Another chapter has Nana and Momo voluntarily switch with each other to secretly see if Rito would be attracted to someone like Nana who has really small breasts.
• Funbag Airbag: Inverted in an instance where Tearju's Funbag Airbags crashes into Yami.
• Genre Shift: The manga started out as a fairly standard harem where the only girls who actually had a chance of winning were Lala and Haruna. By the time of Chapter 14 in Darkness, it's combined multiple aspects of Black Cat (whereas it only had a few callbacks and Yami herself in the original series) and morphed into a modern Tenchi Muyo!, complete with Marry Them All in the works (or at least with Momo actively scheming to make sure it's in the works). It's also become quite a bit more character driven, with character arcs focusing on various girls and less random wacky comedy.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Article 175 of the Penal Code of Japan requires genitalia to be censored, even in pornography. However, To Love Ru Darkness has repeatedly shown vaginas in the reflections of things such as eyes and faucets. This is especially glaring considering the series was serialized in a Shōnen magazine, Shueisha's Jump Square^note a sister magazine of Weekly Shōnen Jump, which ran its predecessor series.
• Harem Seeker:
  • An interesting inversion: Momo, one of the girls in Rito's Harem, wants to create the harem for him, with her in it, and pretty much every other female he has ever met. She thinks if he is forced to pick one, it probably wouldn't be her....so....
  • The example provided only reveals one character who MIGHT hold feelings for another (less love, more of a crush), and showed reasonable amounts of incentive to fall in love with Rito.
• Headbutt Thermometer: used by Rito to check Mikan's temperature in 8.5
• Hotter and Sexier: Think the original was overloaded with Fanservice? Sorry, but Yabuki thinks otherwise. Darkness goes from Ecchi to one step short of explicit adult content!
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
  • Topic in English~A Flowery Description About Said Topic in Japanese~
  • The exception here is the first four chapters, which simply say the same thing twice, but with the same structure. The prologue chapter is an odd one out, using the title "Prologue~Prologue and Activation~".
• If It's You, It's Okay: While many girls comment that Rito is cute as "Riko", Momo and Mea go as far as groping and licking him while he's in his female form.
• Imagine Spot:
  • Momo has one of the heavily censored kind when she thinks of Rito. And multiple somewhat less censored ones of how she hopes things will turn out during Rito's time alone with various individual harem-candidates. The actual events are invariably tamer than what Momo is hoping for (though still very much NSFW thanks to his Accidental Pervert nature).
  • In Darkness, many of the girls seem to be developing powerful fantasies based around Rito. Yui, for example, is constantly imagining herself in the role of wife and mother.
• Inconvenient Summons: A flashback in chapter 44.5 shows Yui been the victim of this due to one of Lala's inventions; she is accidentally summoned by Rito while she is naked in the bath.
• Innocent Innuendo:
  • Yuuki Rito is a beast.
  • Double Entendre: or single entendre? Besides from referring his Accidental Pervert nature, it also implies something else.
  • Mikan mistakenly believes Momo and Rito are doing something naughty after hearing a bit of suggestive dialogue. It turns out that they're just playing a video game. Mikan even lampshades the familiarity of the scene. Of course, this being Momo (who notes she didn't sneak into Rito's bed "this time"), the innuendo probably wasn't so innocent at all.
• In Vino Veritas: Haruna gets drunk on Devilukian cola Nana gives her. She ends up clinging to Rito (while half-dressed of course) and rambling about how he is hers and about Momo's harem plan. She's aggressive enough that even Rito starts to get a clue.
• I Was Just Joking: Yui waves off her implication that she would be willing to sleep with him if he only did it with her as a joke, when in truth she was completely serious.
• Knight of Cerebus: Nemesis. Whenever she appears the story takes on a darker tone. So much so that the "Darkness" in the title refers to her.
• Lens Flare Censor: Lots in the anime (tv-edition).
• Lethal Chef: Saki manages to sicken every servant in her mansion when she cooks an appreciation dinner for them, resulting in Mikan sending Rito to help out the next day.
• Long Lost Sibling: Yami has one, and she really wants Yami to kill Rito and come home. Complicated by the fact that she's also attracted to Rito.
• Love Confession: Near the end of Darkness, Haruna, of all people relevant in this part of the story, makes one to Rito.
• Love Potion: Run subjects Rito to a powerful alien aerosol (or sonic) aphrodisiac without his knowledge or consent in chapter 68. Being a human with no experience or resistance to said substance, it is far more powerful and effective on him than it should be. If Nemesis was not Sharing a Body with Rito, and snapped him out of it, Run could very easily have crossed the Moral Event Horizon via Double Standard Rape: Female on Male combined with Double Standard Rape Scifi. Luckily, Rito is a very Understanding Boyfriend.
• Literal Split Personality: At the end of chapter nine Run goes through a metamorphosis that her species goes through when they reach adulthood. The result? Ren and Run are pulled apart from one another and they become two separate people. They're both absolutely thrilled by this development.
• Male Gaze: You'll lose count of how many times the camera is placed in "convenient" angles.
• Man, I Feel Like a Woman: Unlike the first few times Rito got turned into Riko, in Darkness he decides to check himself out in a mirror and feel his breasts. He promptly decides that they'll just get in the way. Only he gets caught by Momo in the process, who tells him that if he wanted to experience the female form, he could have just asked her.
• Marshmallow Hell: When Momo (who like does this to Rito) and Nemesis challenge for Rito, he end always in a sandwitch between the two girls (with Nemesis take advantage of her shapeshifting powers).
• Me's a Crowd: In the last special chapter (after the finale), Rito is victim di another Lala's invention (a cat robot that can make a clone of anything) getting a clone of himself every time he sneezes. Chasing the cat-robot, an entire army of Rito is created and naturally even his skills are multiplicated. Almost the entire female cast is stripped and groped.
• Meido: When Saki makes her mansion staff sick with her cooking she recruits people to help out for a day. It ends up with Mea, Nana, Momo, Yami, Aya and Rin dressed up this way...because Momo thought the Tenjouin maid uniforms were "to orthodox and lacked sex appeal"....er, because she "didn't want to be a burden on Tenjouin-san."
• The Modest Orgasm: In one of the bonus chapters from the Darkness series, Yui ends up in a compromising position on a train with a bag containing a vibrating toy pressed up against her crotch, causing a Forced Orgasm. The afterglow in the subsequent scene makes it obvious what happened to the viewer, but she apparently controlled herself well enough that nobody noticed.
• Mundane Utility: Yami and Mea demonstrate that, yup, Voluntary Shapeshifting can make cooking and cleaning pretty cool.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Played for Laughs in the chapter 26 of Darkness. Haruna's older sister walks in to Rito and Haruna while the latter is wearing a little more than her underwear and draws the obvious conclusion. After Rito excuses himself (read: runs for it), Akiho goes into a breakdown while apologizing to Haruna for interrupting her time with Rito and remains in such self-recrimination for apparently hours after the fact.
• Nipple and Dimed: Nipples and genitalia are drawn, but the latter are obscured or otherwise hidden, and are only indirectly revealed.
  • So much that Jump Square magazine held a quiz that include a nipple-count asking fans which nipples, left or right, the manga has exposed more through its 16th compiled book volume and with a top ten of the nipple-revealing characters (Momo wins).
• No Ending: Much like the original series, Darkness has no conclusive ending. Rito doesn't choose an official partner (despite his claims that Haruna is his number 1), leaving the girls still vying for his affections.
• Noodle Incident: Yami, a legendary assassin, is afraid of wriggly, slimy things because she once got lost in a planet with tentacled animals. She refused to elaborate.
• Not Himself: Rito in an extra chapter. Thanks to one of Momo's plants, he becomes a pervert and abuses Lala's inventions. He even agrees to the Harem Plan under its effects.
• Pensieve Flashback: Mea induces something like it in chapter 3. May or may not have been influenced by the dream-like state Rito was in at the time. Something was added on that we didn't see before though.
• People Puppets: The villainess Azenda uses a mind-controlled Mikan to attack, humiliate and kill Yami. Thanks to Momo, the plan fail.
• Porn with Plot: Barely short of actual sex and sometimes only by very narrow definitions thereof. The Fanservice is so intense that in Taiwan it is outright slapped with an R18 sticker and sold in such sections.
• Power Perversion Potential:
  • Nemesis (who has the same powers as Yami) is fully aware of the potential of voluntary shapeshifting.
  • Yami, in "Darkness" form, find an "interesting" use of the her wormholes-power.
• Promoted to Love Interest: To Love Ru Darkness add more potential members to Rito's harem:
  • Nana starts to show interest in Rito after Mia's friendship mending chapters.
  • Rin joins Rito's potential harem candidates after the cursed sword chapters. See Rescue Romance.
  • Kyoko fall for Rito herself after being subjected to the "Princess Carry".
  • Nemesis officially joins the harem after fighting Gid.
  • Risa officially joins the harem in chapter 69.
• Reflective Eyes: Whenever someone (usually Rito) gets a closeup view of a girl's bare genitals, their pupils are drawn in a suspiciously yonic fashion.
• Rescue Romance: Rin develops feelings for Rito after that he saves her from a cursed sword (with the help of Mea and Yami).
• The Reveal: In chapter 68 Run and Kyouko are shown to have revealed their alien heritage and a news segment mentions other aliens have been unofficially residing on Earth, meaning the existence of aliens is now fully known to the world.
• Royal Harem: Momo invokes this trope as a justification for her gathering a harem for Rito (and including herself in it, of course): when Rito becomes the king of Deviluke, he will be allowed to have a harem.
• Save the Villain: When Nemesis is defeated by Gid and she is almost dead, Rito offers to share his body with her to save her.
• Scenery Censor: Darkness is a master of this, with a girl's naughty bits being covered from view at one point by droplets of water streaming down from a showerhead. Male characters are sometimes shown naked too, just using this to cover the bare minimum.
• Screw Yourself: In chapter 74, Nemesis transforms Rito into his Riko self, changes Riko's clothes to the schoolgirl clothing, changes herself into a more badass looking Rito, and starts doing the exact same thing Rito has been doing to the other girls in quick succession. We're explicitly shown intense groping and even nipple-sucking, and it's heavily implied that Nemesis performed oral sex on Riko to the point of orgasm between panels.
• Selective Obliviousness: Rito clearly does this about his new batch of Harem (see Chivalrous Pervert above).
• Serial Escalation: While the original was Fanservy enough, every chapter of Darkness tries to top itself. It's a small miracle that the sequel ends without anyone getting screwed silly.
• Serious Business: Momo really wants to get herself and just about every other girl she knows laid by the same dude. She has intricate plans and strategies to achieve this.
• Sexy Shirt Switch: Invoked by Momo, switching a tracksuit for Yui (at Rito's house) for only one long-sleeved shirt.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Momo's trying to create a harem for Rito, after all. She appears to be considering each and every female except Peke and his Mom as a love interest.
  • Lala also fully supports Rito/Haruna, with the added twist that she is hoping that it'll lead to Rito/Haruna/Lala.
  • Risa (and her best friend Mio) seems to be pushing for the Rito/Lala ship, and has been nothing but helpful to Lala in trying to get them together, albeit in her own way.
  • Nana is the edge of this when it comes to Rito/Lala and Rito/Haruna.
  • Mikan appears to want Rito/Lala, considering she keeps chastising Momo for coming on to Rito, saying that it'll make Lala upset. However, this could also be due to her own jealousy.
  • Yuu wants Rito/Yui, although he is sympathetic to Rito's trouble-filled life.
  • Saruyama has often helped to encourage the Rito/Haruna ship.
  • Oshizu supports Rito/Haruna. Using her ghost powers. Usually ends in FanService.
  • Saki supports Rito/Rin and sets up a date between them in chapter 52.
• Ship Tease: Chapter 14 is a huge Ship Tease between Rito and Yami.
• Squirrels in My Pants: A very Ecchi version of this trope. In a chapter Rito is transformed in a mouse and fall accidentally into Yami's clothes where he crawls around and out the skirt with her panties. After, he return normal and is caught by Yami.
  Yami: I thought it was a strangely ecchi mouse.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Nemesis decides to make Rito realize his perverse skills and gives him a first-hand experience in how the other girls have reacted to it by zapping him with Lala's gun and transforming into Rito himself. With all of the experience she's accumulated from spending time inside Rito, she proceeds to do some of his infamous pratfalls and gropes Rito all over.
• Technical Virgin: To say the series lacks "actual sex" is only accurate on the basis of genital-to-genital contact, as several other sex acts are heavily implied.
  • The series often shows orgasms of various levels of explicitness, whether from Rito's accidents or various devices. Some involve Fantastic Arousal or touching non-private parts, but others involve touching bare breasts or rubbing clothed genitals.
  • Yui and Momo have both put their mouths on Rito's penis. The former was very brief and accidental, but the latter was deliberately attempting fellatio in the bath and it's not clear how far she went.
  • Kyouko's first major chapter has her end up mostly-naked with Rito in an incredibly-cramped storage locker. Rito's literal penis may as well have been shunted into Hammerspace, the manga instead framing contact between other body parts as penetrative sex. By contrast, Kyouko's bare vulva is very clearly stimulated by rubbing against Rito's leg, to the point an abrupt shift makes her scream.
  • One of the times Rito is gender-bent into Riko, Momo tries to finger her until Mea walks in on them. Again, it's not clear how far she went, but the anime is particular has a long pause that suggests Momo's fingers were well inside.
  • Both Lala and Riko climax on-screen from cunnilingus (especially obvious in the former's case). Dialogue and Visual Innuendo making it clear they had their clitorises directly stimulated by the tongues of a sleeping Rito and transformed Nemesis, respectively.
• Too Kinky to Torture: After Nana's pets go on a rampage and lick Mea all over, she...develops a fetish for it.
• Twin Threesome Fantasy: Once Momo teased Rito about the possibility of having a bath with both Yami and Tearju.
• Umbrella of Togetherness: On the cover of Volume 3. Amusingly, the other name is scribbled out leaving only Rito's name legible◊.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 39 where it is revealed that Yami's full acceptance of a peaceful life was actually the trigger to activate her Superpowered Evil Side, which exists to destroy peace.
• Wham Line: From Yami to Rito in chapter 72.
  Yami: You're the target of my love, okay?!
• When She Smiles: Yami's big pleased smile is unexpected but definitely not unwelcome.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: A minor one developing between Mea and Momo and it's a race to see whether the latter's "Harem Plan" will prevail or whether Yami will carry out her original mission to kill Rito. Mikan, Rito and Momo's "wake up" routine could fall under this also. Currently, the main game is between Momo and Nemesis over who should win Rito.

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