Daiteikoku:Clear Bonus Love

How to unlock Love
The Clear Bonus "Love" is obtained by completing Ending 7 - World Peace Was Brought (平和になった世界で), aka Maki's ending.

In a new game, you must select the event "Love" during the event phase, and you can give 1 admiral of your choice the Love bonus.

Love's effects
The bonus gives the admiral selected:
 * 1) Command Points +90
 * 2) Slots 2-4 unlocked (if locked or occupied by a fixed ship)
 * 3) +2% growth rate

Unlocking fixed ships
Love will unlock slots 2-4. This means it will not affect Fixed ships in the first slot, such as those of Tougou, Shibagami, Mikado, Doenitz, Coyote, Katherine, Sarah, etc...

It will, however, unlock fixed ships in subsequent slots, such as Nozomi's Haniwa Great Barrier ship, making it possible to assign the unlocked fixed ships to other admirals as well.

Growth rate applies retroactively
Don't worry about levels gained before applying the bonus. The +2% growth rate applies retroactively.

For example, if you have an an admiral with a base +2% growth, and a +0% laser bonus in their first slot, at level 4, they should have +8% laser, but when you apply the Love bonus on them, they will instantly get the 4 levels * 2%, for a +16% laser bonus.

As they level up after that, they will continue to receive +2% per level.

Yubari
Yubari receives a flat +60% bonus to her first slot instead of any of the normal bonuses.

Gigamacro
It's unverified what Love does on Gigamacro, but it's likely to be a unique interaction, like with Yubari...

Ukraine
Ukraine is unique in that his 3rd and 4th slots have All Stats -20% bonuses on them, even though they are locked. I believe he is the only admiral with locked slots that have slot bonuses.

The only way to unlock them is to use Love, which would give him the potential to have 2 All stats +60% slots and 2 all stats +20% slots at level 10.

Technically, you can get the highest efficiency out of Love on Ukraine, since you can use all 3 of the bonuses's rewards without tradeoff... As for whether to do this or not... All stats is a very strong bonus... but not having any skill, being a minor character, and 300CP even with Love make this choice less appealing than the recommendations below...

Parupuna
There appears to be a bug specific to Parupuna.

Her 3 final slots will be unlocked, as expected, and she retains her unique monster ships, now unequippable. However, when you actually unequip them, they do not appear in the ship menu afterwards, meaning you lose them.

It's likely this was not intentional, and they just weren't added to the menu options, making it impossible to reequip them... A shame, since between her unique ships and all stat bonuses it would have been a viable option on Parupuna...

Growth vs unlock trade off
There's an inherent trade off between the 2nd and 3rd effect, since admirals that benefit from unlocking slots, generally don't benefit as much from the improved growth rate.

There's not really a rule of thumb here though. As an example, let's compare Lolikov and Katherine
 * Lolikov only has a single slot, usually, with a low value HP slot bonus. The +2% is entirely wasted on him, but with his high base CP, unlocking 3 slots makes him a first rate admiral
 * Katherine already has all 4 slots, so will not get any benefit from the unlocking bonus. However, she has 4 All attack slot bonuses, gaining a really good boost with the growth rate effect, that help her go fully positive 2 levels earlier. Add onto this his CP hungry template and damage multiplying skill and Love makes her a first rate admiral

Slightly subpar admirals
It's often advisable not to choose your best admirals for Love.

An admiral like Tougou, at first glance, would seem to be a perfect candidate. He has 4 All Stats bonuses and a superb skill. However, giving Tougou Love, although not a bad choice, only makes him marginally better, since he was strong to begin with. In Tougou's case, the fixed ship also doesn't get unlocked, thereby not removing his main weakness.

By contrast, it's usually better to give Love to an admiral who's very close to being a first rate admiral, but needs a bit of an extra push to really shine.

Lolikov is a great example of this, since with a single slot, he's pretty poor, but as soon as you unlock all his slots, with the extra CP, he becomes one of your best options available.

Pick them early
Love gives you an immediate boost in strength, so the earlier you apply it, the more value you'll get out of it. By mid to late game, you'll likely already have a roster filled with strong admirals, between your high level starting admirals and recruits.

Tanaka or Koga are both great picks for the love clear bonus for this reason. Perhaps they aren't the admirals who would benefit the most in the game from Love, but they are available from the start and it allows them to break out of their template's weaknesses (Tanaka's inability to assign enough ships, Koga's inability to do much else with the anemone equipped)

Recommendations
Here are a few of the recommended picks for Love. Note that this list is not exhaustive and is the author's opinion, so don't feel constrained, and go experiment!

True Route: Katherine
It's highly recommended to give Love to Katherine if you are planning to complete either Ending 1 or 2. Without Love, Katherine is virtually useless in the final battles, while with the bonus, she is at least usable. Until the ending, she will be able to pair with Mirja making her a great and fun admiral with her damage multiplier.

If you are going for UHOS late, however, or don't feel comfortable using Katherine, you can also choose Scarlet (for Ending 2) or Reltih. Both of them have the same drawback - they are already very strong without Love, so Love only has marginal effect on them. However, Love on high CP admirals is really fun, and they also have solid slot bonuses.

Ultimate Idol: Charlotte
Ultimate Idol (+ Japanification) is your only chance to recruit Charlotte Parthenay. It's recommended to try giving her the Love bonus, since it makes a huge difference for her. 3 All Damage slots, a slot you can unlock plus her damage multiplier skill, and her CP hungry template, make it one of the best picks possible.

Hidden bosses: Mel
If you're going for Gawatsgar Vu, Ghost Hanny and/or Nigayomogi, then Mel to Laden is your best pick.

She is the highest potential admiral in the game with 4 all stat slots that go positive 2 levels early with love and cap out higher. She already has high CP, but Love makes her first tier. The clincher is her skill COPY, which, assuming you also recruited admirals with good skills, let's her get all the high value skill options for damage multipliers and flexibility. Just remember that you'll have to a) recruit those other admirals with high value skills and b) manage Mel so she copies and retains the skills you want her to use.

Love also helps Mel if you're trying to use her Jelly As hidden ship, which is a bit CP hungry.

Mel is naturally good in other playthroughs, as with Love she will pretty much always become your best admiral. Nozomi is also a good pick for hidden bosses, since they all have high laser strength.

Utility: Nozomi
Nozomi is the highest utility option available. The AL3 ship you unlock from her is not only the only AL3 ship in the game you have access to, it also takes 0CP to equip. The only other -900 ship you get is the Panty Temple AA3 ship).

You can further abuse this utility by using Shibagami and Alps' duplication tricks to get 4 copies of the 0CP AL3 ship, making this exceedingly useful.

Nozomi is perhaps not as great to use as other admirals on this list, but don't underestimate her either. Even with just 90CP, she'll still have her AL3 from her fixed ship, a boosted All Stat slot, and 3 equippable slots. She's great to use with low cost ships, like the clione fish or Mau Mau's dark battleships, or simply as a barrier decoy with a seal or kabuki.

Early-mid game carry: Hapsburg Lady
Hapsburg Lady is without a doubt one of the best options, if only because you can get her immediately, and turn her from a single slot so-so admiral, into an admiral that will shine throughout the game. She'll fall off slightly late game, but can still be a very strong submarine admiral with a damage multiplier that affects allies.

Just for fun: Mikado+Fugaku
It's worth doing Love on Mikado+Fugaku, if only to experience it. The gigantic 990CP for 3 slots and her Fugaku fixed ship make her a miracle... if only you could use her more than 3 times and keep the ships...

Yubari is unique, which also makes her worth trying out. If you haven't tried out her Aerial Defence upgrade, then perhaps consider a game where you focus on getting her to full strength, with Love.

SS tier

 * Mel to Laden - high CP + best bonuses + COPY skill make her the admiral with the highest potential in the game
 * Hapsburg Lady - early start + 3 slot unlock + all stat bonus + damage multiplier
 * Nozomi Takeda - 0CP AL3 ship on any admiral + 3 slot unlock + all stat slot bonus
 * Katherine - best damage multiplier skill in the game + mandatory Ending 1/2 boss fight character
 * Charlotte Parthenay - all damage on 3 slots + 1 slot unlock + damage multiplying skill

S tier

 * Tanaka Raizou - early start + CP hungry + even higher growth
 * Eagle Douglas - slot unlock + 3 all stats + decent CP
 * Reltih Adolf - super high CP + slot bonuses

A tier

 * Blackhorse - damage multiplier + 2 unlocks + all damage
 * Scarlet Tougou - high CP + great slot bonuses
 * Lolikov Banra - high CP + 3 unlocks
 * Mau Mau - all stats + CP hungry
 * Koga Hitomi - early start + can be effective even with anemone

Other fun picks

 * Mikado (non-Japanification route) - best admiral with Love, so SS tier while you have her... but limited to 3 fights, and you'll lose equipped ships on her 3rd fight
 * Yubari - unique
 * Goron Eundora - Goron's skill is almost impossible to trigger. Although unverified, unlocking his 3 final slots with Love should make it possible to calculate ship combinations that will result in hitting the magical 56HP by tanking the right hit. The 560% bonus would still be difficult to use... but this could be fun to try out.