Ouran High School Host Club, by Bisco Hatori

I mentioned my Strong Feelings toward the anime of this series in my last post, so I figured I ought to clarify.

I've been asked before to explain why I dislike the anime so much, when I really do like the manga. I cannot! Seriously. I can't put a finger on what drives me so nuts about the anime, aside from the occasional sloppy animation and changes from the original--but honestly, if those things got to me that bad, I'd never be able to watch any anime based on manga. This is not to say the anime is bad, or even that it doesn't have its good points; it's just not for me. Ymmv.

Ouran is a shoujo reverse-harem high school (obviously) romantic comedy set in a contemporary, if fictional, Tokyo. I don't know if "reverse-harem" is the technical term per se, but considering the set-up similarity to Negima or Maison Ikkoku, only here with one girl and a plethora of guys, I think it's apt.

The star of the series, (I'm not calling her the "heroine" for reasons that will soon become clear) is Haruhi, who's attending the uber-prestigious, ridiculously high class and filthy rich Ouran High School. The daughter of a widower, she's on a merit scholarship; and when she accidentally breaks a vase worth 8 million yen (roughly 80K in U.S. dollars--$1 to ¥100 is the typical translation, ignoring fluctuations in value), she finds herself roped into working at the school's "host club"--a club composed of six guys who meet in the music room and act as hosts to their female classmates, serving them tea and snacks and chatting with them. This is actually reflective of a common entertainment industry in Japan, although hostess clubs are more prominent there than host ones (a lot of Japanese will, in fact, argue that host clubs are designed solely to serve the women who work in hostess clubs, on the basis that they would prefer to relax around professionals--the assumption being that 'normal' women would never frequent them. Uh-huh).

"So, Haruhi starts working as a hostess?" Well, no. Like I said, I didn't call her the heroine of the story for a reason--she starts working at the club as a host. They get away with this pretty much because Haruhi doesn't give a rip for proper gender roles, and her clothes when she initially started attending Ouran were baggy secondhand threads (the club sets her up with a spruce new uniform--guys', of course). In fact, the guys in the club initially thought she was a boy (some were a little slower on the uptake than others); and the girls who frequent the club and become patrons of hers do as well.

The series from that point on is pretty much "Haruhi Tries Not to Strangle These Guys in Exasperation and Also Learns Some Things About Herself (But Mostly Tries Not to Strangle Them)." Hatori pretty gleefully twists and mocks standard harem tropes, both within the plot--the guys play very caricatured versions of themselves while hosting (the Silent Type, the Shota, the Twins, the Uber-Smooth Prince, Whatever On Earth Anyone Sees In Kyoya [okay, that's mean])--and without, like the arc where fangirl Renge shows up and tries to force everyone to act the way they would were they more stereotypical. It is a romantic comedy, though, and later volumes start to get more serious as the romantic part begins to outweigh the comedy one.

I haven't read the final volume yet, though (at the risk of spoilers?) I think we can all make an educated guess at who of the six--Tamaki, Kyoya, Huni, Mori, Hikaru and Kaoru--she's going to end up with. Me personally, though, I'm going to keep shipping Haruki/Kasanoda--because 'Haruhi the yakuza wife' would be the most awesome thing ever.

The series is complete; the manga has 18 volumes and went from 2002-10, while the anime ran for 26 episodes in 2006 (meaning the anime made up its ending, since the series was still ongoing, as these things so often do). Viz is publishing the manga as part of its Shojo Beat line, while Funimation licensed the anime for English. We don't have the anime at the library, but we do have volumes 1-17 of the manga--and we've got volume 18 on order!