Naru Narusegawa is the second protagonist of the
Love Hina series. Naru Narusegawa is 17 years old, just about to graduate from high school, and a resident of the Hinata Inn. Naru Narusegawa is very intelligent, having placed top in the nation in the college practice entrance exams at their cram school. Naru Narusegawa is popular, beautiful but constantly tries to hide this as she studies to gain entrance to Todai. However, Naru Narusegawa has an extremely fiery temper and a tendency to inflict violent physical punishment (most usually on
Keitaro).
Naru Narusegawa
arrived at the Hinata Inn as a result (she believes) of her friendship with
Kitsune, who introduced her to Granny Hina. At that stage she does not remember staying at the Hinata Inn as a very young child.
Of all the girls at the Hinata Inn, Naru Narusegawa is most often the unwilling and unwitting victim of Keitaro Urashima's clumsiness, which often results in her ending up naked, partially clothed, or placed in any number compromising positions. Keitaro Urashima invariably suffers as a result.
Despite initally taking a (literally) violent dislike to Keitaro Urashima,
Naru Narusegawa comes to develop very strong feelings for him. The main part of her character arc is that Naru Narusegawa has great difficulty in admitting these feelings, both to herself, to the hapless Keitaro and to the world in general.
Like Keitaro Urashima, Naru Narusegawa strives to get into Tokyo University for two reasons: the first is a promise she made to her one-time tutor (and object of an enormous crush) Noriyasu Seta, the second is the dimly recalled promise made to someone whose name and face Naru Narusegawa cannot remember.
In the
love hina anime television series, Naru is voiced by Yui Horie in Japanese and Dorothy Elias-Fahn in English.
Naru Narusegawa is also one of the most popular girls in
The Love Hina RPG!
