Maid-chan no Anime: Ouran High School Host Club

Konnichiwa! Maid-chan desu!

Ouran Acadamy! Home of the rich and those who married rich a few hundred years ago.

But between all those well-bred students are some who succeeded in getting a scholarship. One of those “Commoners” is Fujioka Haruhi. She doesn’t think very high of those noble, high-nosed, idling youth and just wants to study. Her dream is to become a lawyer like her dead mother.
But something happens…

That something is very expensive to Haruhi, who doesn’t have much money. To pay for the damage, the Ouran Host Club forces her to join and become a host to work off her debt. The Host Club is a place where bishounen entertain the bored girls of the academy.

In case you wondered, Haruhi is a girl. But because she had to cut her originally long hair and cannot afford the expensive school uniform, the Host Club members, who are dumb humans without Maid-chans imagine interpretation routines, confuse her for a boy.

Haruhi, with her apathetic and sometimes slightly gloomy aura, is an instant hit for the girls in the school. If she continues to be so popular, Haruhi might even be able to pay back the money for the vase before she finishes school!

But of course it cannot go unnoticed for long that she is not a boy, and it happens as it had to.

But a girl cannot be a host! So the Host Club members decide to keep it a secret. And such begins her work for the Host Club in earnest.

Maid-chan always thought the members found it funny that one of their hosts is a girl without anyone else knowing. Nobody ever mentioned the toilet situation though, and Maid-chan is confused where Haruhi goes during normal lessons, boys or girls? Certainly not boys! But then…

Anyway, the Host Club often holds special thematic events, like life in the jungle. Or what the rich boys think it means.

And what they think is often strange, but that is probably because they are all strange characters. This strangeness is even made bigger by the “type casting” in the Host Club.

The boss is Suo Amaki, called “the King” because he has the most customers.

Despite his hair color, he is not the brightest. Tamaki often refers to himself as the “father” of the Host Club. In his world Otori Kyoya is the “mother”, something the always reserved Kyoya mostly just ignores. He knows that he is the “shadow king” that controls not only the financials from the background.

The most colorful hosts in Maid-chan eyes are the twins. Hitachin Hikaru and Kaoru are looking so much like each other that nobody can tell who is who. Nobody except Haruhi, which earns her more than only the respect of the brothers.

The twins like to play pranks, and in the Host Club they play the role of a shonen-ai pair. Forbidden love between twin brothers! Maid-chan does not understand why, but the student girls really like this.

A different pair are Haninozuka Mitsukuni (called Honey) and Morinozuka Takashi (called Mori). Mori’s family has been servants to the Haninozukas for centuries and Mori does not want to change that.

By the way, both are in the same class. Honey is the Host Club’s “little boy” type and uses this with great effect. Even more effect have his blows, because he is so good in martial arts he would be considered a weapon of mass destruction if running around freely.

Shortly after Haruhi joins, the Host Club also gets a manager, Houshakuji Renge.

Renge being a manager is mostly because it is too troublesome to try to kick her out. She mostly is invisible, likely playing ren-ai games. But sometimes she appears, coming out of the ground standing on a revolving podium like a ballerina statue.
Maid-chan thinks her role as an otaku manager can be seen as a winking reference to the “girl manages sport club” stereotype in dating sims, as the Host Club is a reverse harem.

Another person who plays a role in the series is Haruhi’s father. He is a hard working parent, always looking after his cute little daughter.

He is hard working as a drag queen in an undefined establishment. Maid-chan thinks he is the reason why Haruhi could so easily adopt to the… interesting characters in the Host Club, especially Tamaki.

Speaking of Tamaki: He often says he wants to protect his “daughter” Haruhi but his feelings are visibly a bit different from that of a real father. It happened the moment he saw Haruhi in a dress the first time.

The other members of the club more or less ignore that Tamaki has fallen in love, and Haruhi likely does not realize it too, nor her own feelings that slowly seem to go into this direction, too.

But before anything can get serious, there are a lot of funny events happening during which Haruhi gets to know more and more about the members and their motivations.
Maid-chan especially likes the episode where Kyoya finds himself in a commoner’s shopping mall without money and gets shown around (and paid for) by a grumbling Haruhi.

Isn’t he cool? Even when having no idea how to order a burger and paying with Haruhi’s money!

But everything has an end. For the Host Club this happens when a girl appears out of nothing and tells Tamaki that she is the only one who can give him what he wants. But the price is to come with her to France.

Since without the “father” and founder the Host Club can no longer exist, Tamaki announces to his friends that the club will be discontinued after the current event. Is this really the end?

Conclusion

Ouran High School Host Club is older than a decade. But the humor is still as fresh as on the first day.

Maid-chan likes when an anime skillfully uses cliches or uses references to the daily life, and Host Club does both. Especially the things you find in shoujo-mangas are represented.

Still Host Club has a unique setting, and while the characters are based on cliches (both in-world as hosts and out-world by the creator), they nevertheless do not feel generic.
The anime also has that certain flow where you just can’t stop watching until the episode has ended. The only downside is that the art style is a bit strange from time to time.

Ouran High School Host Club certainly does not need to hide himself in the light of newer productions!

All in all, Maid-chan thinks this anime should get a very solid 8/10, only barely not reaching the 9 points because the age is showing in some corners.

See you next time!