Through a seemingly cruel twist of fate, Haruhi Fujioka
has become the newest member of the esteemed Ouran High School Host Club: a
collection of the most popular and beautiful men in the entire school. Even though Haruhi is a girl, she maintains
the façade of being a boy to work off the massive debt she owes to the
club. While it’s taken time to adjust,
Haruhi is coming to learn more about her six gorgeous fellow Hosts and see
there’s more to them than their outward gimmicks. And perhaps, with more time, the Hosts can
learn a thing or two about themselves as well.
So I’m half and half on Ouran High School Host Club right
now.
Eight episodes in and I know the
show is trying and can be entertaining and even fun.
Buuuuut there’s a large part of me that cant
get used to how cruel and ridiculous the Hosts can be towards Haruhi (4/6
anyway, Honey and Mori haven’t done anything wrong so far).
Tamaki wants Haruhi all to his vanity
obsessed self, Hikaru and Kaoru see Haruhi as a plaything like everything else
in their lives and Kyouya is getting his kicks out of Haruhi being his guinea
pig in daily social experiments.
So
you’ll have to forgive me that my favorite moments of Ouran so far have been
when Haruhi completely takes control and shows these guys that she might be a
member of the club but she suffers no fools just because everyone sees her as a
frail and vulnerable girl.
And yet, both
sides can stand to learn a lot about themselves and each other and THAT is when
Ouran is truly at its best…with some comedy working for sure.
Let’s start with Hikaru and Kaoru.
Their mini backstory about the little “tell
us apart” game hints that these two have much darker issues than you’d
think.
I think both even flat out told
Haruhi they see her as a toy to play with cause that’s all the world is to
them.
Leave it to Haruhi to shake up the
dynamic by telling them apart instantly and without hesitation.
Haruhi isn’t the average dopey eyed client
that comes through the Host Club everyday.
Girls got good instinct.
The
resulting civil war between the twins was fun to watch cause I’m a sucker for
chibified humorous scenes.
And while
that civil war was apparently all an elaborate ruse to win a bet in the end,
there’s still signs that Haruhi’s instant separation of Hikaru and Kaoru has
had quite an effect.
They still act like
a single, indistinguishable unit but Haruhi’s left her mark and I hope they
grow from it.
Next we got some fun insights into Honey and Mori.
Turns out Mori isn’t just super protective of
the tiny Third Year for no reason.
We
learn that their families had a servant/master relationship before Mori’s
family married into Honey’s, making the two of them cousins.
And yet, the prior status is one Mori
continues to uphold fiercely.
When Honey
got lost in the indoor Water Park, you could tell he was worried in spite of
his continued stoic demeanor.
Leave it
to Haruhi again to get the big guy to open up and even carry her through the
insanely dangerous jungles of the park (Seriously Kyouya, live Aligators your
sick nut case?).
But the big surprise
was Honey arriving to save Haruhi and Mori from armed security guards.
Yes, it was a huge misunderstanding but it
was worth it to hear about Honey’s incredible history as an accomplished
Martial Artist who’s helped train Police and SDF forces alike in combat.
Like, holy crap, that is pretty freaking
funny.
Honestly, Mori and Honey might be
my favs of the Hosts cause they don’t have an agenda with Haruhi.
Honey just wants to have fun and Mori’s just
quiet but a guy you know you can count on if the going gets rough.
Ok, so I can chide Tamaki, Hikaru, Kaoru and Kyouya for
their at times cruel, unusual (and downright perverted in the case of Tamaki)
but Ouran is always trying to balance the scales beyond their outward
facades.
Kyouya tried to go full on bad
boy with Haruhi, saying she could pay off her debt with her body…and Haruhi saw
he wasn’t even being serious despite his tone.
It was a very serious moment and probably the darkest for Kyouya yet but
I know some girls are into that kind of thing.
As for Tamaki…well let me just say he had some good moments in this
set.
When you drop the “I must have
Haruhi all to myself” act, dude has some nice qualities.
His penchant for being a hopeless romantic
leant itself nicely to probably the best episode of the show so far: When an
elementary school student came to him to learn how to make a girl happy.
Seeing Tamaki actually figure out what was
causing Shiro such despair and helping him to work past it is an arc I had
almost zero complaints about when it came to the Host Clubs self professed
“King” (especially when Shiro totally ragged on Tamaki for being such an idiot
in the beginning, you go kid).
Seeing
Shiro playing Piano with his first love was a well earned win for this
show.
Buuuuuut you still have Tamaki
being 110% creepy towards Haruhi, claiming he sees her as a daughter when he
totally wants to do the dirty deed with her…grooooooosssss.
I even had to agree with Hikaru and Kaoru
that the only reason Tamaki didn’t want Haruhi wandering around in a sexy
swimsuit wasn’t an act of nobility…but because he just wanted to see her in it
all by himself.
Our heroines eventual
main love interest, ladies and gentlemen…what a class act.
One last side note before I wrap up, Renge popped up in a
couple of small parts in this set but her best moment was at the indoor
pool.
Not only was she rocking her own
sexy swimsuit but apparently she was cosplaying a character from another
certain Anime I’m a fan of.
The stomach
tattoo is unmistakable and Renge even confirmed she was “cosplaying” Quon
Kisiragi from Rahxephon.
If the
connection seems random, it’s not actually.
Studio Bones is the group behind Ouran’s animation and Rahxephon was one
of their earliest projects (and one of their best, I freaking loved Rahxephon,
still do).
While Ouran High School Host Club is a comedy first and
foremost, my favorite bits thus far have been when the Hosts quit acting like
spoiled idiots and use their talents for good…or when the world (or Haruhi)
back slaps their naievete hard.
But this
second set of episodes took good first steps towards showing the potential for
everyone to grow over the next 18 episodes.
Tamaki being one of the stupidest, self absorbed idiots in all of
Anime…that’s not going away anytime soon is it?
Oh well, let’s move on.
See ya
next time for more Ouran High School Host Club right here at the Gundam Anime
Corner.
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