Ouran High School Host Club: Series 1 - Part 2

Introduction

Boy I feel sheepish. A couple of months ago, when the first half of Ouran High School Host Club was due for release, I received not the Region 2 check discs, rather the Region 1 retail release for review. Having received some erroneous information and made some incorrect assumptions, I had thought that the Region 2 release would be more than it turned out to be. At least that is what I discover now that I have the actual Region 2 check discs for Part 2 at hand. The commentaries and bloopers from the Region 1 release are absent, and I must assume that they are absent on the Part 1 set as well. It also turns out that there are one or two technical niggles…

The Ouran Academy is a prestigious, exclusive school for the children of the rich, the elite, and the powerful. Those who attend expect the fineries, the better things in life, and the school delivers in its facilities and its grand architecture. There are scholarships of course, which is how Haruhi Fujioka becomes a student. Haruhi's poor, can't even afford the uniform, likes to remain understated and inconspicuous behind thick spectacles, in grungy clothes, and behind a stack of books. It's this desire for anonymity that led Haruhi to a quiet place to study one day. However, Music Room 3 turned out to be the venue for the Ouran Host Club. When you're a child of the rich, and have an inheritance to look forward to, education becomes less of a priority, and students have a lot of time on their hands. The Host Club exists to entertain Ouran Academy's female students, and the boys who are members pride themselves on their elegance, charm, and attractive qualities. They exist to make girls feel loved. There's something for everyone in this club, the epitome of elegance is their leader, the blond Tamaki Suou, while for utter cuteness there is the childlike Mitsukuni 'Honey' Haninozuka. Takashi Morinozuka makes up the strong and silent demographic, while twins Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin play with scandal and taboo to titillate the girls. Kyoya Ootori handles club finances, which is where the 8 million yen fine comes in. That's the fine that is incurred when, while trying to escape from this strange new world, Haruhi knocks over and smashes an antique vase. Haruhi is adopted as the club's lapdog, working to repay the debt, but when Tamaki gets a glimpse at the gorgeous eyes that are hidden behind the spectacles, he realises that Haruhi will drive the girls wild, and that the Host Club have their newest member. The only problem is that Haruhi's a girl.

The final thirteen episodes of this 26 episode series are presented across two discs from Manga Entertainment.


Disc 1

14. Covering The Famous Host Club!
The Ouran Newspaper Club is facing hard times, its readership has dwindled to just two, and those are the reporters. The President Akira Komatsuzawa needs to increase circulation lest his club be disbanded. His eyes turn to the popularity of the Host Club, and he realises that a pictorial issue will draw in the female demographic. However, Komatsuzawa has ulterior motives, and a tabloid sensibility to news accuracy.

15. The Refreshing Battle in Karuizawa!
Tamaki's panicking, the worst has happened, Haruhi has vanished, been kidnapped, abducted. Actually, it's the summer vacation, and she has a part time job working at a Bed and Breakfast in the resort town of Karuizawa, but Tamaki won't let that get in the way of a good panic. Soon the Host Club have followed her there, meaning she won't get a moment of piece and quiet at all that summer. Not that working for her father's transvestite friend Mizumi was all that peaceful. Now that the scions of the rich and elite are there, they have to compete for the sole remaining guest room, and Mizumi will be the judge.


16. Operation Haruhi & Hikaru's First Date!
Delivery boy Arai went to middle school with Haruhi, and the Host Club members are charmed with his tales of how Haruhi used to be when she was younger. That's all except Hikaru, who unexpectedly throws a jealous tantrum. A slap from Haruhi may be precipitous, but it's when Kaoru explains his brother's behaviour that they understand. The solution is simple; he should go on a date with Haruhi. Now it's Tamaki who's throwing a tantrum.

17. Kyoya's Reluctant Day Out!
For someone of Kyoya's position and lineage, it just doesn't do to wake up in a department store full of commoners, but that's what happens when the Host Club decide to have a day out, then drag his comatose form with them without his knowledge, and then leave him on a bench when they go exploring. When Kyoya wakes up, he finds that he's lost, lacking a wallet or even a mobile phone. Fortunately, Haruhi is there, shopping.


18. Chika's "Down with Honey" Declaration!
A middle school student with glasses shows up at the Host Club entrance, asks to see Honey, then the two of them immediately enter into a martial arts battle. They must be brothers. Chika is Honey's younger brother, and he's enraged by his brother's apparent abandonment of the Haninozuka family ethic, offended by his embrace of all things sweet and fluffy, and baffled by his abiding superiority in martial arts. He thinks he's a far better candidate for head of family, and strictly following family rules, he insists on battling Honey whenever they meet, only to be soundly beaten. Tamaki decides it's time to reconcile the siblings.

19. Lobelia Girls' Academy Strikes Back!
Haruhi's vanished, kidnapped, for real this time, and the Host Club join forces with Haruhi's father Ranka to get her back. The Lobelia Girls' Academy saw an opening and they pounced, ready with another recruitment pitch to rescue Haruhi from all those beastly boys, and induct her into the Zuka Club. She's needed to take the part of a damsel in a play after the star bowed out, but there is a far more insidious plan afoot, with a young girl's innocence at stake.


20. The Door The Twins Opened!
Hikaru and Kaoru weren't always God's gift to teenaged girls, anything but. Twin brothers, they were always joined at the hip, but they were also so alike that it was impossible to tell them apart. They actually made it a game, to find someone who could win the 'Guess who is Hikaru' game. They always wanted to win, but they also secretly always wanted to find someone who could see them as individuals. This contradictory nature meant that they could be extremely cruel, especially to girls who were attracted to them. Then one day a boy named Tamaki appeared, wanting them to be in a new club he was starting, and he boldly stated that he would play their game to win.

Disc 2

21. Until the Day it Becomes a Pumpkin!
Halloween is coming, and rather than the usual parties and trick or treating, Haruhi and the twins' class would rather have a Fright Night Test of Courage. An after hours adventure in school, with teams of students competing to scare each other out of their wits, and the rest of the Host Club isn't invited. Haruhi, Kaoru and Hikaru are teamed up with the student chairman of class 1-A, an abject coward, and find there is more fun in scaring each other, than looking for other teams. Meanwhile, Tamaki is dead set on getting in on the act, while Halloween is simply designed for the head of the Black Magic Club Nekozawa.


22. Mori-senpai Has an Apprentice Candidate!
Ritsu Kasanoda is heir to one of the more powerful gangster families, a position that earns him a spot at Ouran Academy, even if he is totally out of place. He's cursed with a bad boy look and an evil glare that keeps him from making friends, while his own entourage treat him as the boss, not daring to address him as an equal. He needs help, and that help can only come from one person, Mori, who is equally aloof and foreboding, but still surrounded by fawning teenage girls and well-liked. Then Ritsu meets Haruhi, and things get… confused.

23. Tamaki's Unwitting Depression!
Ritsu's learned Haruhi's secret. The Host Club is in disarray, Tamaki is seriously stressed and reverting to cowering in a corner, and all because Ritsu may be in love with Haruhi. Of course no one else knows, so when Ritsu comes to the Host Club to spend time with Haruhi, a whole bunch of people are getting the wrong end of the stick, although the explosion of moe is only making the club more popular. Cycling between righteous energy and utter deflation, could Tamaki be coming to terms with his own feelings?


24. And so Kyoya Met Him!
Kotatsu tables in the Host Club remind Kyoya of his first meeting with Tamaki two years previously. He tells Haruhi how a cynical, non-inheriting, third son of an influential medical industrialist, became involved in something so frivolous and hedonistic as the Host Club.

25. The Host Club Declares Dissolution!
It's the 43rd Annual School Fair, although at Ouran, it's a little more extravagant and organised than the usual school open day. The Host Club has opened its doors to all visitors, and now mothers can get to experience the one to one devotion that their daughters have been enthusing about. It may not be the best idea though, as the Host Club member's parents are also invited, and things look bad when Kyoya's father only shows up to deliver a stinging rebuke. But when Tamaki's grandmother arrives, with an aloof and standoffish girl named Éclair in tow, it doesn't look good. That's confirmed when Tamaki announces his engagement to Éclair, and the immediate closure of the Host Club. And what's that Haruhi's feeling?


26. This is Our Ouran Fair!
The second day of the Ouran Fair arrives, and Tamaki is nowhere to be seen. In fact, events are beginning to spiral out of control, with the announcement that Tamaki will be leaving for France that night, and leaving the Host Club and his friends behind. But Haruhi has finally cleared her debt, so everything should be okay, right?

Picture

Ouran High School Host Club gets a 4:3 regular transfer but there's an error that sees the anamorphic flag incorrectly set. I had to switch the aspect ratio manually whenever I pressed play. Fortunately Manga are aware of this, and it should be rectified for the retail release. The image is clear and sharp and despite the extra content packed onto these discs, I saw no problems with compression artefacts and the like. There is the usual issue of NTSC-PAL standards conversions, with a slightly softer image, and you'll notice an occasional jerkiness to the pans and scrolls, although this isn't a show that relies heavily on them.

The animation is wholly pleasant, with simple but memorable character designs, vibrantly brought to life with more than the usual energy. The world design is wholly elegant, with an emphasis on the bright and fluffy. When your first impression of the show is a replica of Big Ben built as part of the school, but rendered in bright pink, then the direction of the show becomes clear. The Host Club are fond of costume changes, and a shower of rose petals heralds every new appearance. There is a lot of thought that has gone into the look of the show, and it really works well.

Sound

Assumptions again! The DD 2.0 English and Japanese soundtracks do come over from the Region 1 set, although a slight nitpick was the volume level for the Japanese track being much lower than the English track. It's noticeable when you swap tracks on the fly. The biggest problem is that the separate signs only track from the Funimation release has been stripped out, and I must assume that the same has been done for the first half of the series as well. This is a mistake on the part of Manga, and one that really shouldn't have happened. In anime, there is usually a translated subtitle track for people who wish to listen to the original Japanese track, and a signs only track for those who wish to listen to the English dub. The signs only track is necessary to translate captions, road signs, and any instance of on screen text relevant to the story. Ouran High School Host Club is a show rich in comedy, and one thread of it is the visual. There are a lot of captions and comments in this show, all of them in Japanese text, and if you watch the English dub without a signs track, then you miss the jokes. For Ouran, if you want those jokes, you'll have to switch on the translated subtitle track, at which point you'll realise that the subtitles don't match the English dub, which will distract you. And you may as well watch it in Japanese. Or you can turn the subs off, and just turn them on when there is a caption, which will mean skipping back, and extending a twenty-minute episode to twice the length. Being a Japanese dub fanatic, I have no problem, but if you want to watch the show in English, it is effectively hobbled. I did notice that the subtitles for episode 20 could have used a bit of proofreading, while in episode 21, while these aren't dubtitles in any form, there were subtitles for non-existent Japanese dialogue, which were variations on the English dub. Also the Japanese soundtrack drops out for a smidge 2.05:15 into disc 2.


For some reason, anime comedy never seems to work for me when it's dubbed into English, and this is another one of those occasions. I'd say the English dub for Ouran was fair to middling, but the Japanese track is much better. The themes are very poppy and suit the tone of the show well. However this is one of those shows that re-records the theme tunes in English for the English dub. You know that feeling when you walk into Matalan, and hear a familiar tune begin to play, and then the vocalist comes in and it's obvious that rather than pay the fees for the genuine track, they've gone for the cheap option. That's the same feeling I get when I hear one of these cover versions. Fortunately the original Chieko Kawabe theme is still there in the Japanese version.

Extras

I was under the impression that part one came with commentaries and bloopers in the UK, but apparently that wasn't the case, and it isn't the case for this second half either, which loses three commentaries and a bloopers audio track in the transfer from region 1 to region 2. Given what I thought of the commentaries on the first region 1 set, I don't think that they are any great loss.

What you do get on this set, both on the first disc, are five unintelligible pages of Del Rey Host Club manga, and a set of trailers including Black Blood Brothers, Jyu-Oh-Sei, and xxxHolic.

Conclusion

Watching this show I have been asking myself a question, well actually I've been laughing uproariously, but in between while I've been wheezing for breath, I've been debating whether value for money means devaluing a product. In terms of the sheer financial cost of this show on DVD, it's hard to beat, with pre-release discounts meaning that you can in effect pick up both halves of this series at less than a pound an episode in some retailers, while buying at the full RRP is still a bargain. But I do get the niggling feeling that show is cheapened this way, and certainly the absence of extra features is a sign of Manga keeping costs down. Fortunately this isn't a result of the dreaded double dip, the show is actually debuting this way. You also have the extreme to compare, with companies like Beez offering deluxe boxsets for their shows, retailing at three times the price for one third the content. The proof of the pudding is in the sixpences concealed within, and at the recent MCM Expo, Manga announced that the first half of Ouran was the best selling shojo title in the UK yet. It certainly deserves to be, but I still have a niggling feeling that I would have cherished this show more if it had followed the traditional six single volumes route. Of course my wallet thinks I'm an idiot.


In terms of content, you'll be happy to know that Ouran High School Host Club ploughs the same comedy furrow in its latter half, and I still find it to be one of the most entertaining anime comedies I have yet seen. It's the innate sitcom nature combined with a collection of truly engaging characters that makes it so unmissable. You can read more about my opinion of that in the review for the first half. Fortunately, it isn't simply a case of more of the same, as the episodes in this half do move the story along, and they also look for more moments of comic genius, rather than recycling earlier jokes. For instance, there is less of a focus on Haruhi's cross-dressing in this half, a joke that was well and truly mined already, and the class comedy also takes a bit of a breather here. In their place, the episodes get a little more reflective, and also explore the characters of the show more. There are quite a few origin episodes here, relating how the Host Club came into being, and how each of the members came to join. The final few episodes of the show grab hold of something of an arc, bringing a grand threat to the existence of the Host Club, and a challenge that the members must join together to overcome. It's the typical non-ending ending that an adaptation of an ongoing manga gets, with a suitably emotional and uplifting climax, without really resolving any of the major character issues in the hope that a second season will be commissioned.


We start off in the same zany vein though, with a selection of episodes that follow the established routine, especially the first, which sees the Host Club butt heads with the fourth estate. It's an early indication of what Tamaki means to the other host members, in the way they protect him from the worst of tabloid journalism, and that certainly sows the seeds for the latter half of the set. Haruhi gets a grateful chance to get out of drag when she goes off on her summer holidays, only for the Host Club to follow hot on her heels, and there's plenty of relationship shenanigans. It's interesting to see the differences between the twins Kaoru and Hikaru develop here, especially as it seems briefly that Hikaru may have feelings for Haruhi as well. Again his reactions tie in to his own isolated childhood. Kyoya then faces the panic any member of the upper classes would face having to spend time in a mall, but Haruhi gets a look at the generous and caring individual beneath the cynical veneer. While the comedy continues in these early episodes, we begin to get more and more of an insight into the characters, until the final out-and-out laugh-fest when the Lobelia girls return to co-opt Haruhi into their feminist sisterhood.


Thereafter, the comedy episodes are interleaved with character episodes, and events begin to take an ever more serious edge. We learn the effect that Tamaki had on the Host Club members when he first met them, and what they were like before. The contrast is greatest in the twins, who were isolated and self-centred, always aloof, and distrustful of others, yet painfully clinging to hope despite their cynicism. Tamaki accepts their challenge to tell them apart, but challenges them in turn to look beyond their introspection. Even the Halloween episode, which is played broadly for laughs, finishes with a reflective air, with Kaoru pondering the inevitability of change, and realising the Host Club is just a temporary release from harsh reality. The cross-dressing comedy finally makes a comeback when Mori gets an apprentice, Ritsu, who promptly falls for Haruhi even before realising that he is a she. Even when he realises, he's sworn to secrecy, which prompts a lot of curious reactions from onlookers.


The final three episodes are positively bleak, as we get to see that harsh reality that awaits everyone. The upper classes have problems of their own, with company rivalries, arranged marriages, unrealistic expectations all crashing the Host Club party. The truth behind the Host Club becomes clear, that it's actually a family for those children who have no family, other than the various nannies, maids and butlers they get fobbed off to. It's fun and trivial camaraderie, an escape from overbearing parents who arrange their children's lives to the finest detail, school, college, relationships and careers. When Tamaki's grandmother lays down the law, it looks like it will put paid to his family, but like all true families, they are reluctant to let him go.


It's a surprisingly deep development in a show that has rarely been more than ephemeral, but it does give it a satisfyingly emotional climax. Even though I was left wanting more, at least it went out on a feel good crescendo. The Ouran High School Host Club is a delightful series, one of the most entertaining of the year so far, and the obvious choice to put a smile on your face. No anime fan should be without it.