Ouran High School Host Club

Synopsis:

Don't you hate it when people annoy the hell out of you just because they are there. Any little thing that they do just pisses you off to no end. This is how Haruhi Fujioka was feeling, just looking for a place to study and not even the library was quiet enough for her. She decides to head up a few floors in the prestigious Ouran Academy, which she's a student at, and comes across Music Room 3 which she assumes is unoccupied. However, upon entering, Haruhi discovers that Music Room 3 is home to the Ouran High School Host Club. A group of pretty, flashy, frivolous guys that provide a service to the school's female population by scheduling time to spend with them engaging in light conversation, serving gourmet coffee, tea, and sweets, even... acting out romantic banter that only exists in romance novels. But, because of Haruhi's tomboy-ish and unkept exterior, the group of pretty-boys mistake her for a male that's interested in the Club's services. Club president Tamaki Suoh is somewhat interested in the visitor and Haruhi is instantaneously bombarded with questions from the group as to why she came to Music Room 3 (all the while they still think she's a guy). But the interrogation quickly comes to an end when Haruhi accidentally knocks over a vase valued at $80,000. So in order to pay off the debt, the Club agrees that Haruhi mush join them as another host for the ladies of Ouran Academy. Only problem is that once they find out he is actually a she, they must keep it a secret amongst themselves as Haruhi is an instant favorite with the girls after they clean her up a little bit to look like one of the guys.


Reviewer: Endosanity
Number of episodes watched: 26


Review:

Ouran High School Host Club is the harem style anime that puts a new spin on things by being a reverse harem. Instead of the usual one guy being surrounded by a bunch of good looking women, this time it's one girl being surrounded by a group of (ugh, I can't believe I'm saying this..) good looking guys. And I gotta admit, Ouran High School Host Club manages to pull this off quite well to some degree. The only thing is that this anime wants to be a random and off-the-wall style comedy presenting some crazy situations and backwards stylized characters that most of the anime community isn't used to seeing and this is the series' high point. The big downside though is that the comedy routine that it's put with isn't all that funny as it had alot of potential it's just that the direction that it went with didn't seem to trust in it's own hilarity. In other words, the show constantly tried to drive every point of its jokes and puns home by repeating the punchline numerous times or using an over abundance of exaggerated facial expressions.

Another aspect that did damage to the series was giving each character a level of complexity that you mostly see in almost every type of anime genre, except comedy. It might have been different had all the episodes that were dedicated to delving into someone's past was presented with hilarity but instead a rather unexpected amount of drama was used making things boring, uninteresting, and even garnishing feelings of negativity towards some of the "fabulous men". I'll commend Ouran High School Host Club for trying to be different in the realm of romantic comedy but it tried too hard to force it's rarely used backwards storytelling upon the audience hoping to get some laughs but received nothing but a mere sigh instead.

A new twist on a plot that has been used time and time again, Ouran High School Host Club went a little over the top trying to appeal to the audience. This show managed to get a good laugh out of me every now and then but not enough to make it a great randomized comedy that it could have been. Ouran High School Host Club is a series that should have stopped trying to make the show presentable to the audience and instead trusted in itself making for a less scripted and more random comedy that would have come across better by making you laugh without trying to explain everything.

Ouran High School Host Club (opening)

Recommendation: |Below Average|

*Note - This series is loaded with typos courtesy of FUNimation so if you're a subtitle viewer, you might want to rent it first to see if something like that is even acceptable.