Comedy, The Anime Way #2: Ouran High School Host Club

Comedy, The Anime Way...

One of the most common settings for anime and manga are schools. There’s countless examples, from the “slice-of-life” comedy drama Azumanga Daioh, to the sci-fi Haruhi Suzumiya and the surreal Nichijou. – and in this month’s column, the high-scool anime in question is a romantic one. Lovely stuff.

I’m not one for romantic comedy usually, but this anime is by far one of the best examples of the genre around. The fact that it doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously (it’s actually a parody of more serious romantic manga) is the main reason, but there’s also elements of humour which we British certainly appreciate and have mocked for many decades. Most of all the appeal, however, comes from the main characters themselves. This brilliant, lovely, seven-strong ensemble consists of some of my favourite characters in all of anime and manga: the members of the Ouran High School Host Club.

The Basic Plot

“Lineage counts first, money a close second.” This is the unofficial motto of Ouran High School, an educational establishment so wealthy and elite that it makes Eton College look like a run-down inner-city comprehensive that’s been badly fire bombed. Every student there is utterly and totally rich: except for one, androgynous newbie Haruhi Fujioka, who entered the school via brains and a scholarship scheme.

On the first day of the school year, Haruhi goes into the seemingly unused Music Room #3 in the hope it will be a quite place to study. However, it is already occupied by one of the many clubs at the school. The “Host Club”, which consists of six good looking boys, each fulfilling a niche that almost any girl would find attractive. The club is lead by princely blonde narcissist Tamaki Suou (the charming one) who describes the club thus: “Ouran Host Club Is where handsome boys with too much time on their hands entertain and charm girls, who also have too much time on their hands.”

Other than Tamaki, the club also consists of Kyoya Otori (the cool one), the bespectacled vice-president who spends most of his time keeping an eye on the club’s accounts and manipulating those around him; incestuously homoerotic identical twins Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin (the little devils), a mischievous duo who enjoy playing tricks on others and mocking Tamaki; small and cuddly Mitsukuni “Honey” Haninozuka (the cute one), whose passion for cuddly toy animals is only surpassed by his unstoppable desire to eat all the cake in the world; and Honey’s best friend Takashi “Mori” Morinozuka (the strong, silent type), a tall, quiet boy who will often go through entire passages of the series without saying a word.

As Haruhi tries to get out the room, disaster occurs. Haruhi accidentally knocks over an antique vase, priced at 80,000,000 yen (around £650,000). In order to pay for the damage, Tamaki orders Haruhi to join the club (as the natural one) and work off the debt. However, it’s not until Haruhi becomes popular that Tamaki discovers a problem: Haruhi’s a girl.

However, Tamaki remains undeterred. Instead he orders that Haruhi has to pretend that she’s a boy to everyone else in the school. Haruhi is not too bothered with the crossdressing, but she is annoyed by Tamaki’s dominating nature, his huge jealously, and the fact that everyone at Ouran has no understanding what it’s like to be lower class (or “common” as they say).

As the series goes on we meet the other pupils at Ouran. There is otaku (anime anorak) Renge Houshakuji, the self-appointed manager of the club who tries to improve it using her specialist knowledge; the frightening cat-loving president of Ouran’s Black Magic Club Umehito Nekozawa; Ritsu “The Human Blizzard” Kasanoda, a scary faced yakuza who is surprisingly nice to know; and Takeshi Kuze, president of Ouran’s American football team who has the odd habit of eating oranges without peeling them.

Some Anime Explanations

A host or hostess club is a form of Japanese entertainment business. In it the hosts / hostesses generally entertain customers of the opposite gender. Hostess clubs, in which women entertain men are most common, but there are also host clubs in which men entertain women, and some clubs cater for same sex couples. Activities performed and offered by hosts / hostesses include mixing drinks, flirtatious conversation, singing karaoke, and other forms of stage performance. Unlike strip clubs, host / hostess clubs offer no nudity or dancing.

Ouran is a parody of the manga genre known as “shojo”, which is manga marketed at teenage girls. The series satirises the genre, but you don’t need to have read much in the way of shojo manga to see what is being mocked. Many of the things which occur in the series are things you see in romantic fiction written in English. Most of these come from the club members, each representing their own romantic take on things. Also, for those who read last month’s column on Martian Successor Nadesico, which amongst other things covers the “harem” genre (a man surrounded by lots of women), Ouran is an example of a “reverse harem” (a woman surrounded by lots of men).

One of the romantic aspects in the series is “moe” (pronounced “mo-e”), which refers to the budding of flowers, and can mean amongst other things a fetishistic obsession with something or an attraction to a particular animated character. There are many times in Ouran in which the “flames of moe” are ignited.

Class War

Left-to-right: Haruhi Fujioka and Tamaki Suou.

With regards to Ouran’s comedy, much of it is connected with something the British have been mocking for years: class. Now, as this is set in a school, I should point out I don’t mean school classes, but class as in “the class system”.

This seems rather odd, because Japan doesn’t have a class system as we would identify it. There are certain aspects of class of course. Like Britain, Japan’s a monarchy. Certain groups of workers such as the office-based “salarymen” are considered to be middle class. However, the Japanese class system is nowhere near as establish as the British one.

In Ouran though, class is very much an issue. This is because everyone in the school is very wealthy and therefore can be considered to be upper-to-middle class. However, Haruhi comes from what we would consider to be an average working class status. This results in two things; firstly, Haruhi becomes popular as a host almost immediately because almost everyone else in school has never met a “commoner”; and secondly, almost everything Haruhi finds normal becomes a source of fascination for the other pupils.

For example, in the opening story Haruhi is ordered to do some shopping for the rest of the club and goes to an ordinary supermarket to get what they want. Amongst the things she brings back is some instant coffee. As no-one else in Ouran High School has drunk it before, Haruhi demonstrates how to, and everyone is amazed. Because of this instant coffee becomes a craze and the number one drink at the Host Club.

Meanwhile, because of the affluence of the other members, the Host Club can do some rather flashy things with regards to their activities. Most of the episodes in the anime and stories in the manga open with the club members wearing different themed costumes in order to attract their clientele. Examples include policemen, medieval knights, 18th century French aristocracy, and various Japanese period costumes. This results in some quick gags early on in the episodes / stories, as well as injecting some early moe.

Third-Dimensional Hosts

While at first it may seem that the characters are purely just stereotypes, in fact each one of the Host Club members has hidden depths. These add to the story and make it much more enjoyable than it would be it was just parody and romantic mishaps.

Some spoilers are approaching. These end at the next sentence in bold…

Let’s start with Haruhi. While she might be classed as the natural one of the group there are lots of aspects of Haruhi’s life which are not as normal as they seem. Not only is there the issue of her crossdressing at school, but her father is also a crossdresser and works in a transvestite bar. Also, Haruhi’s mother died when she was only five. This results in Haruhi’s ultimate ambition, which is to become a lawyer, like her mother was.

Tamaki meanwhile has several problems too. He is the half-French bastard son of the school’s chairman, and his grandmother who is really in charge of the Suou family is cold towards him. In exchange to coming to Japan and possibly become the family heir, he is not allowed to see his sickly mother again.

Kyoya may be clever, but he needs to be. As he is the youngest of three sons he believes he has little chance of gaining any true power in the family business empire, so he has to work like Hell in order to outdo his elders.

While Hikaru and Kaoru may be somewhat cheeky there also rather contradictory, in that they like being similar but are also keen to be separate too. Haruhi is the only one who can tell the two apart. As the series goes on, especially in the manga, Hikaru begins to develop a crush on Haruhi, and later on Hikaru decides to stop the ambiguity by dying his hair a different colour.

Honey and Mori’s relationship is more than just friendly, as it turns out they are cousins, with Mori’s family originally being servants to Honey’s. Their interests are also physical. No, not in that way! I mean that they are both keen martial arts. Mori’s an expert in kendo, while tiny Honey is so adept at both judo and karate that he’s under special orders not to use his full powers in case foreign countries think he’s a WMD.

Spoilers now end…

In terms of the club as a whole, the best thing about the ensemble cast is that you are almost bond to form a fondness for at least one of them.

This is especially true with regards to your own particular love interests. If you are sexually attracted to men – and as a bisexual, I am – then the chances are that you will eventually become keen on one more than the others. If you are sexually attracted to woman – and as I’ve just indicated, I am – then you still have Haruhi, and given her background why wouldn’t you like her?

In terms of the club members I would say that my personal favourite is Honey. He’s just so cute, sweet, huggable and adorable. Whether he is chain-eating cakes or playing with his cuddly bunny, I can’t help but become slightly fond of him. Even in the manga his words are written in a cuter font and his speech bubbles are decorated with flowers. In fact, in order to emphasise just how cute Honey is, I should really be writing this in a cuter way, like so, because it’s just so right and Honey is just so cute! I know it sounds weird to most people, but that’s the effect this series has on you.

Final Round-Up

Haruhi Fujioka, central protagonist.

With its mix of characters, situations and targets, Ouran is certainly one of the better comedy anime/manga series made, and in my personal opinion one of the best romantic comedies ever.

There are some key things to point out through. The anime version of the series is a great show, and an award winning one as well. In 2009 the series was voted as the “Best Anime” by readers of NEO magazine, the second best anime magazine in the UK, out of the two (the other one is MyM, whom I write for an have no bias towards whatsoever ^_^ ).

However, the series ended before the original manga was finished, which means that if you want to get the full story you’re better off getting the books, of which there are 18 volumes. This is no bad thing as the manga is just as entertaining. There are some differences between the two. For example in the manga Honey’s name is instead spelt as “Hunny”.

The manga also includes several characters and storylines which for whatever reason never made it to TV. For example, Takeshi Kuze and his American football team never appear in the anime. Nor for that matter does Mori’s younger and more outgoing brother Satoshi. One of my favourite stories which never made it features Tamaki and Kuze organising a sports festival at the school, but with the Host Club split between two teams, with Haruhi, Tamaki, Hikaru and Mori on one, and Kyoya, Karou and Honey (or rather Hunny) on the other.

One other aspect of Ouran is that not only is both a manga and an animated series, but it later got adapted into a live action series and a live action film too. Now this raises an interesting notion. Namely, if it can be adapted in so many ways, what’s there to stop it being adapted any further by other people and other countries – like ours? Yes, to the annoyance of some purists you would probably have to tweak it a bit so for British audiences, but I can easily imagine Tamaki and Haruhi becoming Tommy and Harri (as in Harriet).

Funniest Moment

Hard to decide. There’s the fifth episode in which the Hitachiin twins have a massive falling out, causing them to fight constantly and no-one being safe from their rage. There’s also the twelfth episode where Honey develops a tooth cavity and is therefore forbidden from eating anything sweet, causing him both pain in his mouth and emotional agony, although it’s funny to see him trying to get his sugar fix.

But I think both of these are topped by one scene in the eighteenth episode, which stars Honey’s younger brother Chika, who hates his brother’s fondness for cake. This is demonstrated in the funny yet creepy scene where Chika discovers that Honey has a weekly “special cake night”.

How You Can Get It

The entire anime series is available in English (subtitled and dubbed) and in Region 2. It’s released by Manga Entertainment on DVD.

The original 18-volume manga series is available in English and is published by Viz Media (not to be confused with the adult comic book Viz) under their “Shojo Beat” label.

The live-action adaption is not available in English.

The Vital Statistics

English name: Ouran High School Host Club

Japanese name: Ōran Kōkō Hosuto Kurabu / 桜蘭高校ホスト部

Manga length: 18 volumes between 2002 and 2010.

Anime length: 26 episodes between 4th April – 26th September 2006.

Live action: 11 part TV series between 22nd July – 30th September 2011, followed by a film which premiered on 17th March 2012.

Creators: Original manga drawn and written by Bisco Hatori.

In next month’s column, Ian Wolf covers attacks by base guitar-wielding Vespa riders and robots growing out of a boy’s head in the surreal comedy FLCL.