Love Plus Manaka no Moto

Reading Time: 3 minutes

In the Love Plus world, Takane Makana is beautiful, popular, and head of the class and yet somehow, she’s interested in you ^^; That’s just a third of the fantasy that the Nintendo DS video game Love Plus is trying to sell you on. And while I don’t think I’m sold on the premise, I am sold on the character designs. Mintaro (ミノ☆タロー) is the character designer for the game, and he also did the concept designs for Tokimeki Memorial ~Only Love~ (ときめきメモリアル ~Only Love~).

I was a bit skeptical of the content of these Love Plus character books due to them being only 48 pages, but the low price of ￥840 along with the good experience I had with a similar sized book, Macross Frontier Visual Collection Sheryl Nome convinced me to buy them.

Manaka no Moto starts out with a single character profile page, followed by a lengthy image gallery. The gallery is 22 pages long, and features an assortment of full page and quarter page illustrations. Some of the art works are from the “special” in-game sequences, and others are drawn new for this book. The “rocker girl” illustration was drawn new for the book, and each of the other books have the title girl in that style of clothing. In total, there are 31 illustrations in the gallery section.

Even after the gallery portion ends, there are still more illustrations; rough illustrations from some of the finished ones in the front, various hairstyles that Manaka can have throughout the game depending on your preferences, and the SD character drawings from the game. There is also concept art, where various looks for Manaka were thrown about, including one where she had light brown hair.

Manaka no Moto finishes with a 2-page interview with voice actress Saori Hayami. The other two books follow this exact format, except with pictures of the other Love Plus girls in Nene no Moto and Rinko no Moto. I don’t know if I’ll review them, as I can’t really find too much additional to say about each. Maybe I’ll just copy paste this review since I’m sure most people just look at the pictures!