Title: Ouran High School Host Club
Published by: Madman Entertainment (Australia / New Zealand)
Based on: The manga series by Bisco Hatori under the same name.
Genre: Drama, Romance and Comedy
Audio: English and Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: 1080p High Definition (16:9) (Althrough on my TV, it only showed up 4:3)
Runtime: 650 Minutes + 187 minutes of extras
Cost: $84.95 from the Madman Online Store
Classification: This title is classified M for Mature Themes and Sexual References
Blurb: Sick of all the fanservice shows out there on the market that show off swarms of cute girls in order to appeal to the male demographic of anime fans? Want something a bit different? Well Ouran Host Club is the opposite to this, as a series talored to delivering the fanservice to female viewers with a number of young men.
Special Thanks: Special thanks goes to the Madman Entertainment PR Team for providing me with a review sample of this title.
This is a pure female-oriented fanservice show, I shall say that upfront. Whilst most fanservice shows seem to be oriented towards the male demographic, usually with well endowed females, this series focuses on a group of young men who are what you would consider stereotypes for male characters (Eg. The Gentleman, silent type, shota, cool type and twins). I suppose you could say that this series was warranted and quite a few of my female friends have stated that they enjoyed this series. As I am not reviewing purely on the fanservice content, I invite you all to read my thoughts on Ouran High School Host Club.
Bookish Haruhi can’t afford to slack, being on a scholarship and out of place among the moneyed at the prestigious Ouran High School. No matter – the Host Club is now open! A group of handsome boys dedicated to selling their charms to their bored female classmates, Haruhi is suddenly in debt to the club after breaking an expensive vase in their lair. The only way to pay for the damage? Haruhi will work as a Host! The only problem? Haruhi is a she!
This series doesn’t really have anything too unique in it, we have had series about girls crossdressing as guys and seen series with every stereotype included in the boys personalities. What is interesting though if how they chose to implement it. Let me be honest straight up, this was a series I actually enjoyed, it was not so much the individual episodes but instead how overall, the series milked the characters stereotypes and personalities for the greatest comedic effect. The episodes were for the most part, episodic in nature so with the exception of perhaps one or two, they had no link or relation to the other episodes. To me, this “filler” episode way of delivering the storyline doesn’t usually work, but perhaps because of how each episode tried to focus the boys (and girl) in different environments, it did work and still allowed for adequate character development.
In terms of the episodes, they were varied, with some being more realistic, fanservicey and fillerish then others. To be honest, the more the series focused on being completely random, the better it was. Such as in one of the episodes, the group has a little girl arrive in their clubroom and spontaneously calls them a Reverse Harem and Debauchery, which was due to her running out of fairy tale books in her house, so the servants read her shoujo manga. They also tried to add the completely out there episode among the mix, such as a parody of Alice in Wonderland involving all the characters shown in the series up to that point. Whilst the series was strong in the “helping” and “fantasy” storylines, how well did it fare when it comes to presenting more serious episodes?
Well, it was very hit and miss. The episodes overall did a surprisingly good job at developing all the characters in the series, to the point that I would say the character development presented was better then the actual overall storyline. Every episode, whilst being different from the last, did a good job at staying on track and usually involved one or two of the characters getting development whilst trying to implement fanservice into it, including back to back episodes featuring a swim resort one episode then a beach episode the next. The fanservice I would deem as trying too hard at times, however after a few episodes I found myself seemingly immune to the characters antics and treating them as normal characters regardless of what they try to pull on the characters in the episodes.
The characters overall were a well diversified bunch, each having their own trademark traits that they use to ensnare the minds of their female victims customers. I am glad that they chose to make Haruhi the overall protagonist of the series however, and she is without a doubt the character that kept me watching past the earlier episodes. Haruhi is one of the few level-headed characters in the series and actually questions why the Host Club acts the way it does and coming from a middle-class background instead of a posh-one, also adds to an interesting perspective in a school such as this. In other words, she is the character preventing this series from going from what it is, to rich boys investigat….. err, never mind. The boys of the Host Club are well developed during the course of this series, in both their past and their present. They are a cleverly thought out group who bring both comedy and story to this series, however in the event of characters such as Tamaki, they could have toned down his over-the-top personality.
If anything, whilst the fanservice may be too strong for some peoples taste, behind it is an enjoyable episodic-natured series that has a lot to offer to the viewer.
I had a slight issue with the series when I was watching it on my Playstation 3 Blu-ray Player, althrough I haven’t tested it on another one as of yet. I was only able to view the series in 4:3 dimension instead of the 16:9 promised on the box. It might be a separate setting on the disc or television that caused it, however I wasn’t able to watch it in 16:9. However, the design overall was somewhere between average and great. The character designs were without a doubt vital to this series success, and I think they were pulled off very well, and were not realistic so as to to enable the designs to go chibified or display abnormal facial expressions. Environmental designs were average though, and whilst they evidently put effort into designing some of the environments, most of the primary environments that the club frequented were average with only minor extra details added.
Opening Sequence
Sakura Kiss (English Version) by Kristine Sa
Ending Sequence
Sprint (English Version by Justin Houston
Straight up, I really don’t like either song. The Japanese dubbed version of the songs are what I would consider barely scraping average quality, whilst the English dubs are for whatever reason, not enjoyable at all. Even with some decent animation, these songs are ones I skipped over after the first episode.
Going to the music choices now, the series tries to keep the theme of a posh school, therefore has a significant number of rather good classical tracks which were an appropriate choice. When it comes to voice acting, I do like their choice of voice actors and actresses, with a number of good cast members such as Greg Ayres, Luci Christian, Monica Rial and one of my favourites, J. Michael Tatum. Caitlin Glass who voices Haruhi does the best job in the series however, managing to suit the serious personality of the character well, but at the same time being able to pull off most of her mood changes during the series.
In terms of the packaging, it is more or less appropriate. The cover art features all the characters, with all but Haruhi and Tamaki being chibified, and a theme suitable to the series. As with all Blu-ray sets, the set comes in a Blu-ray box so if you store your anime together, you will find that the box is significantly smaller then most DVD boxes. The back cover features an image with all the characters and as usual, some smaller screenshots of the series. It has the same pink and rose motif as the cover does. Opening the box, you will instantly be presented with a inside cover art of all the male characters in the series crossdressing, I will leave it up to you to determine if it is your cup of tea or not. There are a total of 3 Blu-ray discs, with each featuring two to three of the series characters on each, chibified with a rose theme backdrop. Overall, appropriate for the series.
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As mentioned in the information presented at the start of this review, there is a total of 187 minutes of bonus content in this Blu-ray collection. “What is included?” you ask? Well…..:
- Actor Commentaries – One or two per DVD.
- Outtakes
- Textless Songs
- Ouran High School Host Club Manga Pages
- Trailers
Actually, there isn’t all that much for the 187 minutes of extra content…..
Finally, I would like to state my personal opinion on this series. I don’t enjoy fanservice in an anime when it is the full focus of the series, and some would consider this to be a fanservice series. However, if you look past that, you actually end up with a rather solid series that has some great character development and a less-great but none the less enjoyable storyline (Well, most episodes, some are just down-right creepy). For anyone after something a bit different, this might be appealing to you.
Final Score
Storyline: B-
Character Development: A-
Design: C+
OP/ED Sequences: D
Music: B
Voice Acting: A
Packaging: B
Extras: C
Personal Opinion: B
Final Score: B
