Ouran High School Host Club

Information of Anime

Haruhi Fujioka is a poor high student that managed to in enroll in to Ouran Academy, a school for the rich.  Haruhi got in due to a scholarship.  Looking for a quiet place to study, Haruhi stubbles a strange host club.  In shock, a $80,000 vase gets broken & the debt had to be worked off by become a host.  However, the club doesn't realize that Haruhi is a girl.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Basically, Haruhi is working off her debt as being a host for the Ouran Host Club.  However, only the host members know that she's a girl & do almost anything to hide that fact from others.  In the club, there are a lot of different character qualities.  There's the wild type, prince type, shota type, little devil type, & cool type.  Pretty much any type that catches a girl's interest.  We also have some twin brotherly incest yaoi love going at times.  Although Haruhi doesn't enjoy working in the club, she sees some of the benefits of it & starts to understand a bit of the host members.

The show doesn't have a main plotline.  It focuses on the host club's activities alone.  Later on in the show, it shows some backgrounds of the host club members in terms of their characters & past.  The show ends with Tamaki's past & how he nearly disassembles the Ouran Host Club due to family's future.  Like a lot of the previous episodes, Haruhi saves the club from disband due to her & the other member's love for the club.

My Personal Review

Ouran High School Host Club is really a funny show.  I would want to say that this is similar to Fruits Basket due to its reverse harem theme of one girl & many guys.  However, I've never seen the show before, so I can't really comment on that.  However, there are very little anime shows like this these days.  Although the manga was targeted to a female audience, the anime differs a bit by changing it a bit to appeal to the male audience.  However, it's still designed to appeal the female audience.

Animation

The drawings aren't too bad.  Sometimes, I felt that Haruhi is drawn differently.  Sometimes she really looks a guy & sometimes like a girl.  Most of the time, she's like a guy.  Also, the changes in the character designs that sets up the humour is pretty good.  Nice cute shocked faces & "dull" looking expressions, especially Tamaki Suou's.  However, there are times where the drawings look weird.  This happens when the episodes enters into a funny scene.  It's usually the limbs getting long & thin or fingers getting a bit too chubby.

The colours are pretty bright.  The show is colourful no doubt with a lot of roses appearing on the screen.  There isn't a lot of toning as it makes the characters & backgrounds look a bit flat on the 1D side at times.  A good thing about the colours is how the characters boldly stand out from the background.  Sometimes a little too bold.

The backgrounds aren't drawn too well.  Although it has some details, the lines aren't clean for some reason.  It's a bit blurry & uneven at times.  I'm not sure if it's on purpose.

The animation movement is quite smooth; realistic or silly.  Not only that, it's quite funny to watch.  They include scenes such as Tamaki's pitiful actions or the twins' direct approaches on the girls or themselves.

Sound       

The sound effects are on the "heavenly" side.  It helps establish that high class feel, while at the same time create those funny moments.  Most of it seems are on the silly side.

The voice actors were good.  They matched their characters very well.  Hagumi was a bit on the iffy side.  Since she's a short 18 year old, she sounded like she was a bit "bigger" than she should be.  The voices were mature & gave me the impression.

The music really sets the mood.  The classical music style really gives you that classy feel with its string sounds.  Even with the funny scenes, it maintains it's classic feel.  Plus, some of the songs kind of stick to my head.  But I don't hum or sing it out.

Story

Mainly Haruhi working off her debt & being surround by strange host club members as one would assume.  Many misadventures along the way, even though Haruhi stays with the club.  Plus, we see some past character backgrounds of some of the host members with some little character development on the side.  The show mainly focuses on the club activities most of the time.  After past the halfway point, it focuses on the character backgrounds of the host members in a lot of depth.  So much, that almost got boring to me.  A lot of it was surprisingly focused on the Hitachiin twins.  It was interesting to watch, but it felt like the show was putting in a lot of fillers.

The ending is open ended & I pretty much expected it after watching half the season.  I didn't see any story plots that would make the show interesting.  Overall, it wrapped the show ok.

Overall Conclusion

Ouran High School Host Club is surprisingly interesting to watch.  Not only that there is little of these types of anime shows available, it has a lot of humour to it.  I was actually turned away from the show when I saw the name & thought it was a girl's show (which is it) when I first saw it.  But I'm glad that I took the risk of watching it.  I highly recommend watching this if you want a good laugh & don't mind being a male watching a female show.

Ouran High School Host Club receives a grade of nine out of ten.  It's got a lot of laughs & interesting characters.  Plus, there are very little reverse harem anime shows out there in a love comedy genre.  The problem with the show is it lacks a proper storyline & the number of fillers it puts in after the halfway point.  Although it's funny & witty, it may become old over time as if the jokes are being recycled such as the slipping on the banana peel gag.

Last updated on January 14, 2008