This article is part of the Love Hina group of articles.
(Where ages are quoted these are the ages at the time the character appears in the story - the story moves through a year fairly quickly so ages change quite fast)
Japanese Seiyuu: Yuji Ueda
Keitaro is a 20 year-old student who at the start of Love Hina is trying to get into Tokyo Daigaku.
After failing the entrance exams twice and becoming a second-year Ronin, he is kicked out of his parents' house and goes to his grandmother's hotel, thinking he might be able to stay there.
However, he finds out the hard way that his grandmother has turned the hotel into an all-girls dormitory. Through a combination of bad luck and timing, he encounters Narusegawa Naru in the open-air hot springs bath and infuriates her. He then proceeds to land on the bad side of the other dorm residents, before Haruka arrives and metaphorically bails him out. Ultimately he does end up staying at the Hinata Sou, though the reason and timing varies slightly between the anime and the manga. In the manga, Keitaro is granted the deed to the Hinata Sou itself; as he now owns the establishment, he becomes landlord by default. In the anime, he is granted only the landlord's title and duties.
Despite looking like a weakling, he can actually take quite a bit of punishment and still get up from it, which is just as well as he is always getting into situations where one of more of the girls get angry at him and hitting him. Usually this involves one of them being naked and him being responsible for it or watching them.
Through the course of the story Keitaro starts doing quite well in his studies, passes the entrance exams for Tokyo Daigaku after another failure and develops friendships with all the girls in the house, but in particular with Naru and (later on) Mutsumi.
Keitaro takes promises seriously, and it seems that he made a number of important ones during his childhood. First and foremost was his promise of 15 years ago (age 5) with a little girl he barely remembers that they would get into Tokyo University together one day. After taking up residence in the Hinata Sou, he quickly comes to suspect that Narusegawa Naru may have been the girl of his promises. He later experiences some doubts about this conclusion when he begins to learn more of Otohime Mutsumi's past and her connections with the Hinata Sou during their childhood, but later on the exact connection becomes clear and he finds out Naru was the one he made the promise to after all.
Episode 20 of the TV anime series revealed the second promise Keitaro made, though the story is not told in the manga. He promised a sentient, talking doll named Moé-chan that he would fix her broken legs one day.
Finally, late in the manga and in the Love Hina Again OAV series, it is revealed that Keitaro made a promise with his adopted sister Kanako that they would one day run an inn together.
His surname Urashima is apparently derivated from an old tale Urashimataro.
Japanese Seiyuu: Yui Horie
Naru is a 17-year old student at Keitaro's cram school with an extremely fiery temper. Of all the girls in the Hinata Sou, Keitaro manages to annoy her the most, usually by accidentally grabbing her in unfortunate places or walking in on her while she is naked or changing her clothes.
Despite her temper and frequent violence toward Keitaro, she develops strong feelings for him, though she has great difficulty in admitting her feelings even to herself. She is prone to extremely strong jealous reactions whenever Keitaro appears to be getting too close (physically or emotionally) to other girls.
Despite the fact that she was only two years old at the time, she and Keitaro promised to go to Tokyo Daigaku together, though being two years old she didn't remember for quite a while (this is why Mutsumi made the same promise with her - see Mutsumi's entry).
Naru is very intelligent; at the start of the series, she is #1 in Japan on the practice entrance exams. Just a few years earlier, however, she was in almost exactly the same position Keitaro was in - horrible grades and no hope of getting into Tokyo U. She was able to overcome her problems by studying with a Tokyo University student, Noriyasu Seta, whom she developed a serious crush on.
Naru had made a promise three times to get into Tokyo University. First with Keitaro, then with Mutsumi and finally with Seta when he was tutoring her.
Japanese Seiyuu: Satsuki Yukino
Mutsumi is a very gentle, very frail, clumsy and soft-spoken 21 year old girl who lives in Okinawa. Keitaro and Naru meet her while taking some time off for a brief vacation after flunking their entrance exams. (In the anime, Keitaro has a brief and near-fatal encounter with her on his way to the entrance exam.) Like Keitaro and Naru, Mutusmi had just flunked her entrance exam for Tokyo U, and was also taking a trip to get a hold of herself again. And like Keitaro, she too is a third year Ronin.
The young Mutsumi played matchmaker to Naru and Keitaro after it became clear that Naru wanted to go to Tokyo University with Keitaro. She deliberately lost a game of Janken (rock-paper-scissors) which was to decide who out of Naru and Mutsumi would become Keitaro's wife. She then made a promise with Naru that both she and Naru would go to Tokyo University later on, so that Naru would remember the promise (she was too young to be able to remember when Keitaro made the promise)
Despite being clumsy in small things, Mutsumi generally has good luck when it comes to life-changing matters and always seems to come out alright, even if she gets a few bruises along the way.
Japanese Seiyuu: Kurata Masayo
Shinobu is a 12-year old schoolgirl who, after a bad start in which Keitaro lied about being in Tokyo Daigaku and his subsequent failed attempts to make it up to her, develops quite a crush on Keitaro (or Sempai - a Japanese term for elder - as she calls him). In the anime, she is first introduced as a grieving girl who has run away from home due to domestic turmoil, however, in the manga she is already at the Hinata Sou when Keitaro arrives.
She is quite skilled in both cooking and housechores -- her family once owned a restaurant in town prior to their divorce (the divorce does not actually occur in the manga, merely a feud). She is overly caring of other's feelings, although this subsequently contributes to her own emotional frailty. Towards the end of both the manga and the anime, it becomes unclear whether she wishes for Keitaro to be with Naru or herself. On the day of Keitaro and Naru's wedding, Shinobu is reintroduced as a prominent, self-reassured woman who is quite attractive.
Japanese Seiyuu: Asakawa Yuu
Motoko is a 15-year old school girl who is extremely serious, athletic and into Kendo. She has difficulty dealing with other people, especially males; she finds men to be a distraction that keep her from being able to concentrate fully on her studies and kendo practice. Her relationship with Keitaro initially resembles Naru's relationship with him; he all too often finds himself on the receiving end of various attacks as a result of his frequent mishaps. She eventually mellows out as she becomes used to him and eventually finds herself developing feelings for him. In fact, she is the first of the girls (aside from Naru and Mutsumi) to confess her feelings to Keitaro.
As time passes, she fails the Tokyo University university entrance exam herself and becomes a ronin as Keitaro had been. The irony of her situation and its similarities to his was not lost on her.
Motoko has an older sister, Tsuruko, who gave up the life of the sword to marry. Motoko lives in fear of her sister, though the problem is primarily in Motoko's head; Tsuruko is not nearly as severe and frightening in reality as Motoko remembers. It's interesting to note that Tsuruko is actually Motoko's blood sister. Motoko and Su are the only characters in the series who are actually blood-related to their siblings.
Motoko is probably one of the most fully developed characters in either the anime or manga; the calm, almost serene Motoko who appears at the end of volume 14 of the manga release is quite a different person than the hostile, repressed individual Keitaro encountered at the start of the series.
Japanese Seiyuu: Reiko Takagi
Kaolla Su is a 13-year old foreign transfer student. It is not clear exactly where she is from, though both the anime and manga depict her as having a somewhat middle-eastern influence, and both specify that she is not Indian. She is a very hyperactive girl who is usually either kicking someone, trying to eat something or inventing some potentially dangerous new device.
She likes Keitaro, because he reminds her of her older brother. She has an older sister, too, Amalla Su.
It's her ambition in life to eventually return to her homeland and build a school to transform her country into a technological power that will rival Japan.
Japanese Seiyuu: Noda Junko
Mitsune (a.k.a. Kitsune) is a 19-year old freelance writer who is frequently drunk, teasing Keitaro, or both - often at the same time. She's a practical joker and troublemaker extraordinaire; her mission in life seems to be to ensure that things never get too dull nor those around her too complacent.
She went to the same school as Naru, and along with Naru developed a crush on Seta, and eventually takes over the Hinata Tea House when Haruka leaves.
Japanese Seiyuu: Megumi Hayashibara
Urashima Haruka is Keitaro's relative. She helps Keitaro manage Hinata and provides sound advice. She is most commonly referred to as Keitaro's aunt; however there is evidence in both the manga and anime that she may be his cousin, instead. The confusion seems to arise from the Japanese language term Keitaro refers to her with, which can apparently mean either 'aunt' or 'old woman', depending on context.
Haruka manages the Hinata Tea House at the bottom of the hill upon which the Hinata Sou sits. She's 29 years old, unmarried, with no children, and seems to play the role of peacemaker for the residents of the Hinata Sou.
Haruka had some sort of relationship with Seta in the past, though the details of their association are never made clear. It IS clear that they were in love and something or someone came between them. Ultimately, with the help of Keitaro and Naru, they overcome their past differences, and theirs is the first wedding of the manga series. After their marriage, Haruka leaves the Hinata Tea House in Kitsune's care and stays with Seta and Sara to begin a new life.
Japanese Seiyuu: Yasunori Matsumoto
Seta is a Tokyo Daigaku graduate and professor there who specialises in archaeology. Like Keitaro, he was a third-year Ronin. He's clumsy, a terrible driver, and an exceptionally skilled martial artist.
Seta spends a good deal of his time traveling the world on one expedition or another. His goal seems to be to find evidence of an ancient turtle civilization that once flourished in Japan. During the course of his excavations near the Hinata Beach Tea House, he uncovered an ancient stage where, he theorized, the ancient inhabitants once performed plays devoted to the gods. After the destruction of the Hinata Beach Tea House during the Urashima family traditional play production, Seta offered to let them use the ancient stage for their play in exchange for a role in the play (Journey to the West.) What was intended to be a mock battle became feircely real, unfortunately, and the stage was ruined. A hot water geyser surfaced from under the stage, forming a very large new hot springs bath. Haruka was able to recover the costs of rebuilding the Tea House by charging admission to the bath.
Seta is Sara's guardian, although she refers to him as "papa".
Japanese Seiyuu: Kobayashi Yumiko
Sara is Seta's adopted daughter, and initially delights in making Keitaro's life miserable. However, like most of the girls in the story, she eventually warms to him, even if she still calls him a dork.
Sara is left for a time in the care of the Hinata Sou residents by Seta, as he feels that travelling the world with him on expeditions would be too disruptive to her childhood. She eventually does return to travelling with him after his marriage to Haruka.
Japanese Seiyuu: Kuwatani Natsuko
Kanako is Keitaro's adopted younger sister. She lived in America for some years, and returned to Japan only to find Keitaro had just left for America himself. She assumes control of the Hinata Sou and immediately changes it from an all-girls dormitory back into a hotel. The residents are given the option of leaving, or of staying and working for her.
Kanako never came to see Keitaro as a brother after her adoption; she has loved him since they were children. When they promised to run a hotel together when they grew up, she always assumed it would be as husband and wife.
She recognizes that all of the girls in the Hinata Sou are in love with her brother after she tests them in a variety of ways. She tries to drive them away by being as mean and cruel as she could to them, in much the same way that they themselves had once attempted to drive Keitaro away. At first it seemed to be working as one by one everyone but Naru left the Hinata, but the others ultimately returned.
Kanako is a master of disguise and is able to impersonate anyone, which she uses to try and get control over the Hinata house. She also has feelings for Keitaro (remember that she is not related by blood to Keitaro, so this wouldn't be incest), reacting in much the same way as Naru does when she sees him kissing someone else (in this case 'Keitaro' was Mutsumi in one of Kanako's disguises, but it was real enough for Kanako).
She first appears in book 11 in the manga, and in the Love Hina Again anime OAV.Urashima Keitaro
English Voice Actor: David UmanskyNarusegawa Naru
English Voice Actor: Dorothy MelendrezOtohime Mutsumi
English Voice Actor: Jean HowardMaehara Shinobu
English Voice Actor: Ruby MarloweAoyama Motoko
English Voice Actor: Mona MarshallKaolla Su
English Voice Actor: Wendee LeeKonno Mitsune (Kitsune)
English Voice Actor: Barbara GoodsonUrashima Haruka
English Voice Actor: Jane AlanNoriyasu Seta
English Voice Actor: Ronald AllenSara McDougall
English Voice Actor: Julie MaddalenaUrashima Kanako
