Anime Review: Ouran High School Host Club.
Check out the review of the English Dub.
There are certain types of anime I’m not too crazy about. We all have our own preferences after all. Every so often I’ll watch an anime that I’d normally avoid. Even more rarely I’ll be surprised and find something good when I do that. That’s what happened when I finally gave in and watched Ouran High School Host Club.
The guys are pretty boys of several different types found in shojo anime, manga and games.
Ouran High School Host Club is a reverse harem pretty boy anime. Not something I’d normally watch. It’s also a bit more than that. The guys are pretty boys of several different types found in shojo anime, manga and games. I won’t bother listing the different types. They’re pretty much explained in the show when you meet them.
You also have the typical “girl who looks like a guy because she has short hair”. Yeah, that’s kind of a stretch, but it works because of the tone of the show.
It’s quite often played for laughs, as most good harem shows are. That’s really the appeal of the show. It’s downright funny. It’s almost a parody of some of the more serious pretty boy shows, and maybe even of the fans. They all play the part of whatever type of pretty boy they’re supposed to be when entertaining their customers. The reactions of the girls they entertain are pretty darn funny. I’ll give you a short summary of the show to explain.
She (Haruhi) is a very popular Host…
Haruhi Fujioka is a poor student attending the very, very, wealthy school of Ouran Academy on a scholarship. She can’t even afford the uniform, and since she dresses like a boy people think she is a boy. After an incident puts her eight million yen in debt to the Host Club, she has to work for them to pay it off. The Host Club entertains, talks with and flirts with female students who are their customers. Nothing inappropriate happens, it’s just tea and flattery. Somewhat like a group of, male, modern day geishas. Since they believe she is a guy, they believe her to be the girlish type of boy. That means she goes from being the Host’s servant to being a Host herself. When they all figure out that she is a she they take great pains to try and keep her gender a secret. She is a very popular Host after all.
As they used to say in TV Guide, madcap hijinks ensue.
I’d recommend this show. I’ll even go out on a limb and recommend checking out the manga because I’m going to be looking for it myself.
Anime, Review, Anime Review, Ouran High School Host Club, Shojo, Pretty Boys, Reverse Harem, Parody, Comedy, High School
October 30th, 2007 at 4:23 am
[...] from the pages of Shojo Beat come a hilarious comedy manga. You might remember that I reviewed the Ouran High School Host Club anime. My girlfriend has the first couple of books so I thought I’d give the manga a [...]
January 7th, 2009 at 5:02 am
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