(As with Black Butler, I am aware that OHSHC has a very well-known and loved manga series from which the show was adapted. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to read or access to the manga at the moment and this post will only cover the anime. In addition, Hunny and Kyoyo's names are spelled differently depending on what you're reading so I'm using the forms that appear in the actual manga--courtesy of an Amazon preview.)
I swear, I’ve got to be losing my mind.
It was one thing when I developed a strong and passionate love for Black Butler. That was fine. It was one show, one thing for me to devour episode after episode like some kind of pop-culture-starved pre-teen girl. I could spew my fangirl reserves that lurk beneath the surface of my outward appearance all over that particular franchise because at least there were deep and meaningful things that were going on beneath all of the jokes and filler episodes and fanservice. There was resonance, something on a deeper level for my English major self to latch onto and endlessly use as an excuse to write excessive amounts of words about it.
To be fair, it’s not like this show knocked Black Butler out of first place in terms of shows that have my heart forever. But it did manage to snag me by the throat and not let go for the duration of its 26-episode run, and that’s what has me concerned for my sanity.
This isn’t the type of show I would watch, even if it was a live-action Western drama that everyone else was raving about on Facebook and Twitter. I’m not a RomCom type of gal, Eastern, Western or otherwise, so if someone gave me the premise of this particular show and said it was good, they’d have to do more to sell it to me than say, “It’s a really funny RomCom!” A friend of mine tossed out a couple of points regarding the show, but the only thing I remembered discussing was a scene where someone was chasing another person while riding in a horse and buggy and the definition of a host club. I had a vague idea of what host clubs were, which are more or less PG-rated man brothels. I do not want to watch shows about PG-rated man brothels, especially when the men involved are not actually men but teenagers in high school. Yet I kept seeing this show pop up all over the place, as it apparently has a rather infamous position amongst the larger anime community.
And then, since I had time to kill before procrastinating on homework, I found the show online and decided to see just how ridiculous it was.
Several hours later I had almost blown through half of the series and could. Not. Stop.
The rate at which this show won me over is insane. By episode two I knew I would have to watch every single one of the 26 episodes even if it killed me, and part of that was because my god is this show funny. It’s funny in that batshit-nuts kind of way, breaking down the fourth wall and knowing that the whole thing is supposed to be one big joke. Even the club's leader, Tamaki, admits in the opening narration that the host club was where “the school’s handsomest boys with too much time on their hands entertain young ladies who also have way too much time on their hands.”
It’s pretty clear through this statement that even the characters don’t take this thing seriously. Like I said, the entire show (and the manga from which it was adapted) is supposed to be a satire of not only the shojo genre and the types of clichés that thrive in it, but the fanbase surrounding them as well. The amount of screaming girls in this show is enough to make me plead for God to strike me deaf and for the duration of most of Renge’s appearances I wanted to punch her in the face. Everything is supposed to be ridiculous and over the top to the point where each member of the Host Club knows exactly what type of role they're supposed to be playing and use that to their advantage. The whole thing has it's tongue planted firmly in its cheek, which is where a lot of the strength and appeal comes from. …and then they play the serious card by inserting a bunch of dramatic moments in between weird beach parties and rabid fan girls and an entire episode dedicated to one of the characters having a cavity.
The worst part? It works. It works so damn well.
Seriously, the amount of whiplash I got from these dramatic moments should have taken my head clean off. One minute I’m laughing at the absurdity of the boys’ hosting and the next I’m grabbing a tissue because holy crap I actually care about these little pipsqueaks.
I attribute that entirely to the fact that the characters are so likable it’s almost gross. They managed to make a bunch of preppy, snobby rich kids that are more or less fully-realized stereotypes some of the most charming and entertaining people, and I'm not talking about their baiting lady-talk. I mean each of them as individuals are all fun and interesting outside of their designated Host Club personality. Sure, they all adhere to the "type" they've been given on some level, but there's more to each of them than just being "The Devilish one" or "The Cool One." Like any good stereotype, they exaggerate the truth to simplify identification, and in the case of the Host Club, the reasons for their existence is not only as genre commentary, but as a business strategy in the actual context of the show. "A Type For Every Girl" is essentially the idea.
What I think makes it all work is the fact that those stereotypical traits are not so exaggerated that everything about them is predicable. Tamaki's arrogance and melodrama isn't a facade or a cover for insecurity. He really is that arrogant and melodramatic, but it's balanced out by his sincerity and genuineness towards other people. Hunny doesn't have some kind of twisted and sad back story that explains why he acts like a child; he just does so because that's how he feels comfortable. Both of the twins seem to struggle with the idea of being separate individuals, but they also don't harbor any resentment towards each other and barely make any attempts to operate as their own unique entities. And while it's implied that Kyoya's father is responsible for a lot of the pressure put on him to achieve levels of success, his statement to Haruhi that "he could think of nothing more fun" than striving for excellence gives the impression that Kyoya is naturally a Type-A Perfectionist even without his father's influence.
Of course, I'd be lying if I said everyone got their fair share of development and depth. The twins are so rarely separated from each other that it's hard to extract their individual personalities. Kaoru is nicer and more sociable, but there wasn't much more that I found to be distinguishable. Mori gets so little time devoted to him that you can't remove Hunny from his character because everything about him would dissolve. Hunny himself isn't that complex, either. He has moments of maturity and...uh, normalcy (his defense of Tamaki's anger during a particularly infamous beach episode comes to mind--and this article does a great job of explaining said infamous beach episode), but they're few and far between. Most of the time he's just kind of strange and you can only get used to his behavior rather than understand it.
Even Haruhi, the launching pad for the bulk of the show's criticism, comes off as a little dry and empty in comparison to some of the other characters. Her apathy towards a lot of things is humorous and relatable (as she's the "straight man" of the group aside from Kyoya) but there came a point where I almost felt like she didn't enjoy anything. I also wanted to see how her mother's death affected her more than what they presented, because even in regards to that she seemed...well, apathetic. The one or two moments we got to see her reflect on her mother felt kind of flat. After the first episode, she dropped the idea of talking to her mom in her head almost completely, and that could have been a great way to include some more information on their relationship.She isn't boring, but giving her something to be enthusiastic about would have brought a lot more depth to her character.
Not to mention that none of the characters really change or are affected by the events that happen throughout the season. Everyone more or less stays who they are, with maybe a little more respect and awareness for poor people added to the mix...if that even counts as development. Then again, that isn't the focus of the show. Ouran is composed more of what could be considered "filler" episodes that don't weave into a larger plot and the purpose isn't for anyone to go on a life-changing journey. It's for you, as a viewer, to laugh at the stupid things that pompous rich kids think and say and the commentary that the show is making. It's a traditional sitcom but with characters whose eyes are freaking gigantic and have perfect hair.
Actually, I want to talk about the character designs for a second, because they are ridiculous. And I mean that in a good way. Part of the show's critique I think can be seen in these character designs which are more or less exaggerated in every possible way. For starters, these kids are all (knee-less) legs and arms. If they were to exist as regular people, they would be frightening. Is that a bad thing? No. The overall look is consistent and everything is still proportional in terms of the limits of the designs, but holy crap look at how long those legs and arms are:
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| I'm not seeing any knees... |
It's not that it's grotesque or even disproportionate, but in comparison to even something like this:
...they look like spiders. Not to mention that many of these characters--Kyoya and Tamaki in particular--tend to stand as if they have a spine made of pipe cleaners or a hard core case of scoliosis which emphasizes the long limbs and torsos. And again, it's just a matter of stylistic choices rather than bad artwork. The idea of having a tall, alluring kind of figure probably has mass appeal and would therefore be a smart decision. Either that or my affinity for lanky dudes is blurring my judgement. Who knows. Regardless, it's still an appealing look that goes well with the general cartoon-like tone of the show.
Then you have Haruhi's eyes which, even by anime standards, are effing enormous, to the point where she looks like an actual freaking owl in certain scenes:
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| Whoot. |
The animation itself is quite solid, and the way they pull off all of the over-the-top comedic drawings is impressive. There are also a lot of great facial expressions for each of the characters, even aside from the exaggerated, cartoony ones. You know who these characters are by the way they stand and present themselves as well as the looks and expressions they possess.
Unfortunately, the structure of the show doesn't allow for much in terms of finale, at least not the way they did it. The "finale" is two episodes worth of buildup and introduces two characters in Tamaki's cranky snob of a grandmother and a French woman named freaking Éclair who doesn't do much outside of be a pain in the ass and act quite rape-y towards Tamaki. One of the episodes includes some information regarding Tamaki and his relationship with his mother that we really could have used much earlier in the season because, looking back, it makes his interest in Haruhi's mom a lot more complex.
The final episodes themselves seem to pull drama out of the air and rush everything to some sort of quasi-finish. Not to mention a lot of people were confused by the fact that the show doesn't end with Haruhi sharing spit with Tamaki which, on one level is nice because it's different but on another doesn't make sense given the ENTIRE SEASON worth of build up for it. It was one of those things I kept waiting for and waiting for and was disappointed not because I was fawning over the two as a couple, but because I felt cheated out of an ending that, by all accounts, the show was moving towards. If the writers don't want to pair her off with someone, fine, but don't bait us for 26 episodes with that possibility. Grr.
Anyway.
I like a lot of the classical/instrumental pieces that are littered throughout the show. They add a nice regal feel to the general atmosphere without being annoying or silly. That being said, the opening and closing are both pretty atrocious--at least the English versions. It could just be the quality of the dubbing itself (2008 isn't old, but it was still seven years ago) rather than a lack of talent on the singers' part, but I skipped the opening and ending for the duration of the show because, aside from the poor quality, the lyrics themselves were sub par. The Japanese versions are far more tolerable, but you won't see me downloading either of them into my iTunes library.
On the plus side, there was a song released for...a reason that I honest to god cannot find anywhere called Mata Ashita! that is infinitely superior and catchy and features the entire Japanese cast of the show. I'd say I want a dub of that, but looking at the dubs of the OP/ED I don't know how good that would be. At least, as a song in it's own right. I have no doubt that Vic and the rest of the cast would pull off an English version that, if nothing else, would be stupidly amusing as hell.
Here's a video of that:
Speaking of Vic, he and Caitlin Glass were apparently the ones who fought to get Ouran dubbed over here and Vic in particular wanted to play Tamaki. Seeing what I have of him from Con videos, that isn't even remotely surprising. But he and the rest of the cast do a phenomenal job of bringing these characters to life. I mentioned before that Caitlin Glass' voice is feminine yet still androgynous, and it she keeps it that way without making Haruhi monotone (you'd never know that she was Miria in Baccano!). Luci Christian's Hunny is adorable and cutesy without being obnoxious or hard on the ears. I'm a big J. Micahel Tatum fan (surprise, surprise) and his portrayal of Kyoya is great as well, if maybe pushing the age barriers a little bit. Kyoya's voice is the only one out of the group who doesn't sound like he's in high school and it tends to stick out. And of course, Vic Mignogna's Tamaki is delightfully off-the-wall. He yells, he sniffles, he pouts, he gets serious...and Mignogna makes it all authentic.
The only thing I was left curious about is why they decided to leave the honorifics in the dub which, from my (limited) experience, are typically translated into another type of pet name or left out altogether because it's a cultural/linguistic thing that doesn't have any real equivalent here. On the one hand I thought that would be alienating to a viewer who knows nothing about honorifics or why they're used (and, you know, had to Google what the hell "senpai" was), but on the other it makes sense in light of the show's subject matter. Since it's poking fun at otaku culture, including those honorifics is almost like a jab at English-speaking otakus.
On the other side of the coin, the episode or two I watched in Japanese was great as well. I’ve gotten used to dub/sub hopping, since oftentimes streaming services like Hulu or Netflix only have one season or a few episodes dubbed and the rest are subbed, but with a dub as good as the one for this show I was afraid I’d go into the Japanese version and be disappointed. I found it to be just as good and enjoyable as the English dub. The only thing I found jarring was the fact that their cast boasts much deeper voices than the English one, so hearing Tamaki speak like, an entire octave lower was…shocking, to say the least.
If you can, watch at least a couple episodes from both.
And at last, with all of these words being said, I'd recommend you check the show out, even if you don't have much experience with anime. The jokes about the otaku culture aside, it's still a laugh-out-loud funny and enjoyable show that doesn't require a degree to appreciate. Plus it makes for a fabulous way to decompress if you're stressed out, and we all know there are never enough distractions in this world.
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