Hatsukoi Limited (TV)

Alternative title:
Hatsukoi Gentei (Japanese)
初恋限定。 (Japanese)
Genres: comedy, romance, slice of life
Themes: Ecchi, school
Plot Summary: A series of short stories depicting the complicated love lives of eight middle school and high school girls, their classmates and relatives. These stories later intertwine to form a main story involving most of the cast.
Running time: 24 minutes per episode
Number of episodes: 12
Episode titles: We have 12
Vintage: 2009-04-11
Releases: We have 6
"Gensou no Basho, Sorezore no Michi no Ue (幻想の場所、それぞれの道の上)" by marble (ep 6)
"Hatsukoi limited (初恋 limited)" by marble
"Sora ni Mau (空に舞う)" by marble (ep 9)


Discription:

We begin with a not-so-limited number of boys and girls in middle and high school, the oh-so-typical setting for multiple "first loves" to bloom. And bloom they did, as each episode focuses on one or two girls with their first experiences at this simple, yet confusing feeling called love. If you have any kind of fetish in your 2D girl fandom, they probably have it in this show. We have a cute girl who's dangerously strong despite the looks. The optimal cool beauty who's quite a newbie in the love department. The worst (best?) onii-chan complex in any anime ever. The big-bust swimming girl who actually doesn't like being well-endowed. The cool beauty #2 tennis superstar. The all-systems-completely-normal girl that had the best episode in the anime. And finally, my personal favorite, the ultimate rendition of tsundere. These seven girls are paired with no less than nine guys – the kind yankee, the normal guy, the semi-normal guy, the ero-kappa, the siscon, the anti-siscon, the tennis guy, the swimming guy, and the alpha painter guy. Along with side characters, this provides probably a very confusing relationship chart considering it's just a 12-episode anime. After a few episodes though, you would eventually get a hold of these characters, simply because they are… er… simple.



The attitudes of each character are so strongly-typed that they seem to give every single cliche in the harem book a run for its money. The girls, they are hot. The guys, most of them are losers in their own domains. How does Hatsukoi Limited succeed then, being the complete encyclopedia of what is right and wrong about harem anime? My answer may be as confusing as "first love" itself! The anime merely "clicked" on me. I read the manga beforehand and I really didn't think it were anything special. But then the anime came and had this awesome presentation, all elements laid in perfect symphony with each other. The animation, the music, the story pace, all very entertaining. Everytime I watch a single episode, it feels like an event. For many weeks, it had been my Sunday show, getting and watching the raws first before watching the same episode AGAIN with the subs. I would make worthless Twitter posts about how awesome the episode is even if I can't describe it well within the character limit. In this time when I treat most anime as an "I can always watch an episode later" afterthought, Hatsukoi Limited is the single anime which I just HAVE to watch as immediate as possible. This is indeed, love at first sight.