Review: Ouran High School Host Club

Read Ouran HSHC online here
Watch the anime here

Welcome back, my lovely readers!

I hope this Thursday finds you well, and looking forward to a fantastic weekend. With 30 days until my first semester of university is over, I'm definitely looking forward to this weekend. Well I would be, except there are still 30 days until the end of my first semester of university, and it doesn't look like my workload will let up until the last possible moment :'(
Winter is finally settling in over this metropolis, and I'm feeling a little of the November blues. So I thought, how better to fix my under-the-weather attitude than with a super-cheerful and lovely manga that is also an anime full of roses and sunshine? And there's also a cross-dressing heroine! That's right, I'm talking about the hilarious,  sympathetic, comedic, gender-bender high school romance, Ouran High School Host Club!
I've actually watched the anime, and the story matches up with the manga in most places, so I will be doing a sort of joint review of the manga and anime. Unless I specify that I'm referring to only the manga or only the anime, assume that I'm speaking about them both.

One of these things is not like the other...

Summary:
Ouran Academy is a super-rich private school for the super-elite young masters and mistresses of the richest families in Japan.

No really, it is the same person

The Host Club, described as "Ouran Academy's elegant playground for the super-rich and beautiful", is an after-school club where president Tamaki and his friends cater to the young ladies of Ouran Academy by serving tea, quoting romantic lines, and going all-out in themed cosplay. Haruhi is a "commoner" scholarship student who wanders into the clubroom by accident and ends up breaking a vase worth 80 million yen (about 800 000 usd). Haruhi doesn't care much for appearances and looks rather... unkempt, so the boys initially assume she's a boy too. They rope her into acting as the "dog" (ie. errand boy) of the Host Club in order to pay back her debt, but quickly realize that she has her own sort of charm and allow her to be promoted to a host, which would allow her to pay it back faster. Obviously they soon realize that she is, in fact, a she, and the story moves on from there.

Characters:
This story started off as a parody of a typical shoujo romance, and each of the main characters represents one  archetype of a romantic male lead.
Tamaki: president and "King" of the club, this blondie is your typical prince charming on a white horse. He is great at spouting romantic lines, but very easily provoked, often the butt of someone else's joke and a bit of an airhead.
Kyoya: dark-haired and wears glasses, so he is obviously the intelligent and manipulative character. He is the vice-president, but Tamaki is pretty much a figurehead while Kyoya is the true puppetmaster.
Hikaru and Kaoru: the mischievous twins. Without giving away too much of their backstory, I will say that they basically see the world as "us" and "them", and "them" only exists as playthings for "us". (Basically, they play many practical jokes and cause a lot of trouble).

From left to right: Hunny, Kaoru & Hikaru, Tamaki, Mori, Haruhi, Kyoya

Hunny: the one who looks 10 years younger than he really is and adores all things cute and sweet (ie., bunnies and cake). Shotacon* characters may weird some people out, but in this case he is a martial arts super-champion and also the oldest member of the club so I don't mind that he looks and sounds like a 7 year old.
Mori: tall, dark and silent. He honestly doesn't do much except babysit Hunny.
Haruhi: the boy next door type. She isn't super-charming like Tamaki, cute like Hunny, entertaining like the twins, or intriguing like Mori or Kyoya, but she is practical and honest, and her sincerity and lack of pretension give her a different sort of charm.

Story:
This story started off as a parody of a "typical" shoujo romance, and the beginning of the manga reflects this.
There isn't as much emphasis on character development as on creating as many ridiculous situations as possible. Time in-story stood still, and even though seasons passed, no one got any older. The anime is based mostly off of this time in the manga, and is full of hilarity. At the same time, a purely comedic story can't hold anyone's interest for very long without any sort of character growth, so we do eventually get to see some development of their backstories.
And while it's nice to finally have some character exposition, the manga loses its comedic feel and becomes almost melodramatic, and the anime pretty much fails at the serious elements. The anime is great at the funny parts, but the characters and their pasts are often misrepresented for the sake of more humor, so scenes that should be dramatic end up seeming silly or pretentious, and characters that should be sympathetic end up seeming cruel or simply uncaring.  I can't elaborate on that without giving too much away, but I will say that as we learn more about everyone's past, the story actually seems somewhat allegorical (once an IB english student, always an IB english student). Before the Host Club, all the characters were struggling with their own personal demons. Tamaki brought them together and the club was like a safe place where they became more comfortable with who they were and found acceptance. So the funny part of the manga, when seasons changed but no one moved up a grade, was like a metaphor for their childhood. Once Haruhi came, time started moving again. Haruhi sort of broke the barrier between the safe world in the Host Club and the real world, which they would eventually have to face. She was the catalyst that moved them towards adulthood, and although things changed, change is necessary for growth. In the end, the different tones of the manga are actually consistent with the deeper meaning the author was trying to portray. The anime, because it focused on the comedy, really couldn't capture the significance of those serious moments. And because it ended while the manga was still ongoing, the last 2 episodes are a "fake ending" that really don't fit with the rest of the story.

Overall:
The truth is that I really enjoyed both the manga and the anime. Host Club is actually one of the three manga series I'm collecting in real life (You may remember that Yotsuba&! is also one. Don't you wonder what the third one is?).
The anime is funny pretty much all of the time, and while I may hate that because I'm comparing it to the manga, as a stand-alone medium it is a decent work of comedy.
The manga, on the other hand, is not a deeply philosophical thesis posing as a romantic comedy, but it does a good job of bringing new depth to an old, cliched genre. That being said, you may not agree with my analysis of the manga. Interpretation always says more about the reviewer than about what's being reviewed, so if Host Club seems like a generic shoujo romance to you, you may not have the patience for it. I still recommend reading the first few chapters, but if it doesn't grab your interest it really may not be worth your time to keep reading.

Thanks, as always, for reading (and leaving a comment!). I'll see you on Monday for part 2 of the discussion.


*shotacon: a Japanese slang portmanteau of the words "Shotaro" and "complex". It basically describes any sort of romantic portrayal of pre-adolescent boys. That description makes it sound creepy, but it's not always explicit or even inappropriate, like in Hunny's case where he only looks that young and there is never any sort of actual romantic action. The female equivalent is lolicon.