Summary
- Ouran High School Host Club defined an entire generation of anime fans with its iconic story and characters.
- The series stands out due to the depth given to its cast, the romantic development between its two leads, and its many parody elements poking fun at otaku culture.
- Despite its age, the series continues to captivate fans and remains a staple in the shojo community.
The anime and manga industries are diverse and robust, covering a vast number of demographics, genres, and art styles. One of the most prevalent and renowned of these demographics is shojo, which encomes an array of stories that are typically targeted at young women and girls. This demographic has produced a number of classic series for the industry, especially romance stories.
While modern shojo anime is going through a renaissance of sorts, and more new series than ever before are getting high quality anime adaptations, there's no denying that the early to mid 2000s were filled with most of the industry-defining shojo series that brought a lot of fans into anime for the first time. One of the most iconic of the series released during this era was Bisco Hatori's Ouran High School Host Club.
Perhaps one of the most popular examples of a "reverse harem" series, Ouran High School Host Club has remained popular even now, and the original manga, as well as its anime adaptation by Studio Bones have remained beloved by the anime and manga community for over twenty years.
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Ouran High School Host Club Defined An Entire Generation Of Anime Fans
Original series created by Bisco Hatori; anime adaptation produced by Studio Bones
Bisco Hatori's Ouran High School Host Club originally began serializing in the shojo manga magazine LaLa, a sister magazine to another popular Japanese shojo magazine called Hana to Yume in 2002, running for eight years until it ended in 2010. During its publication in Japan, the series was picked up by Studio Bones in 2006 for a 26-episode, single season anime adaptation.
The series follows Haruhi Fujioka, an androgynous-presenting high school student who begins attending the elite Ouran Academy on a scholarship thanks to her excellent grades, despite not coming from an exorbitantly wealthy family like her peers. After looking for a quiet place to study, Haruhi stumbles into the academy's host club – a group of handsome young men that spend their free time entertaining the female students at the school.
Ouran High School Host Club's anime adaptation predates the "seasonal anime" structure, meaning that during its production, the animation team caught up to the events in the manga too quickly, which is what led the plot of the anime to deviate from the ending in the manga and having an "anime only" ending.
In a freak accident, Haruhi trips and breaks a vase that puts her in a ridiculous amount of debt to the club, one that she's offered to pay off by ing the club as their newest host. As each of the young men slowly discover that Haruhi isn't an unusually pretty boy, but is actually a girl who dresses in more masculine outfits, Haruhi resolves herself to continue the facade to the female clients of the club that she's male, charming them and slowly paying off her debt.
While there are many stark differences between the anime and encapsulating the stereotypes that the series was poking fun at. The original creator, Bisco Hatori, has also discussed how the series is meant to parody fujoshi culture and yaoi manga at Anime Expo 2019.
Ouran Has One Of The Best Reverse Harems Ever Written
Despite the genre carrying a level of controversy, Ouran succeeded in creating compelling male characters with more to them than their good looks
Despite parodying popular demographic and genre tropes, as the series continues, and Haruhi begins to bond with each of the club , it's clear that romance is in the air, especially with the lead male of the series, Tamaki Suoh. Tamaki is characterized as being flamboyant and charming, and perfectly encapsulates the trademark "bishounen" look from this era of anime and manga. This contrasted excellently with Haruhi's far more pragmatic personality, which made it easy to root for and expect the couple to be the "end-game" pairing.
Regardless of this, something Ouran High School Host Club does so well is expanding on its cast, regardless of the stereotypes they're based on. The aforementioned lead male of the series, Tamaki, is a great example of this. Throughout the series, Tamaki acts immaturely and rashly, especially towards Haruhi, and assigns each member of the club some sort of familial title. It's later revealed that this is due to Tamaki's lonely upbringing as a child that left him feeling empty and neglected, yearning for a family of his own.
The Hitachiin twins, Hikaru and Kaoru, are another example of this. In early episodes and chapters, the pair are treated as an obvious reference and parody to an infamous yaoi trope pairing together two twins that they play up to clientele at the host club, but when Hikaru develops feelings for Haruhi and becomes something of a rival to Tamaki, he's shown to have an intense jealous streak which negatively impacts his friendship with Haruhi when he recklessly abandons her during a thunderstorm – something she was previously established to be deeply afraid of – because he misunderstood her relationship with a childhood friend.
Even something like this, which could have been easily used as a means to further push the idea that Haruhi should be with Tamaki instead of Hikaru, was instead expanded on to reveal that Hikaru and Kaoru also shared a troublesome upbringing that caused the pair to develop intense codependency issues, something that both of them work to improve throughout Ouran High School Host Club.
The level of depth given to the cast helps Ouran High School Host Club stand out amid other series that fall under the "harem" or "reverse harem" genres, as many other series like it leave their larger casts as little more than one-note stereotypes that give the illusion of choice to the protagonist, while really only fleshing out whoever the end-game romantic partner is meant to be. While it's still relatively obvious that Haruhi and Tamaki will end up together, many of the other cast that express interest in her have a chance to shine in their own unique ways, and undergo considerable change leading up to the final moments of the series.
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Ouran High School Host Club's Lasting Legacy In the Shojo Community
Despite officially being 22 years old, the series will always be popular with shojo fans
Despite some poorly aged jokes and an anime adaptation that struggles to live up to the full depth of its source material, Ouran High School Host Club has accomplished a feat that many series, even now, fail to do: the franchise has made itself a staple in the world of anime and manga, and has captivated the hearts of almost every generation of anime fans.
While the chances of the series receiving a fresh animated reboot like a fellow classic series, Fruits Basket, is slim at best, Ouran is still receiving new merchandise and a live-action musical stage play. During the series' peak, the manga had over 19 million copies in circulation, proving that, even as the series begins to age, Haruhi and the rest of the hosts will always have a place in fans' hearts.
Source(s): Honey's Anime, Anime News Network
Ouran High School Host Club
- Release Date
- 2006 - 2006
- Directors
- Takuya Igarashi
- Writers
- Yoji Enokido
Cast
Caitlin Glass
Vic Mignogna
WHERE TO WATCH
Ouran High School Host Club is a 2006 anime series centered around Haruhi Fujioka, a scholarship student at the prestigious Ouran Academy. Mistaken for a boy, Haruhi s the school's Host Club, where handsome boys entertain female students. The series explores themes of friendship, identity, and social class, and features a diverse cast of characters including the charming Tamaki Suoh and the stoic Kyoya Ootori.
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