Manga Review: Ouran High School Host Club Volume 1

Ouran High School Host Club, Volume 1
By Bisco Hatori

This popular manga/anime series is set the private Ouran Institute where "Lineage counts first, money a close second, and six handsome especially idle students have formed the Host Club… to entertain females also burdened by a surfeit of leisure time".

Into this group walks Haruhi Fujioka, a student who is attending the school on scholarship. Haruhi also happens to be a girl who dresses like a boy. When she breaks a valuable antique, she finds herself forced to work off an $80,000 debt to the Host Club.

In the course of her adventures, she helps the members of the club and the ladies they entertain sort out their romantic entanglements while she introduces them to such "commonfolk" concepts as ramen and instant coffee.

Bisco Hatori has a talent for loading the story with one-liners and sight gags that add to the enjoyment of the romantic plotlines without distracting from them. The scenario and cast of characters are ridiculous for the most part, but Haruhi manages to be both fascinatingly original and totally convincing.

If you're interested in comedy or romantic manga, you're probably already familiar with Ouran High School Host Club. If you're not, you'll find the art style and pacing can take a bit of getting used to, but once you get into the flow of the story it moves along steadily with plenty of laughs to be had along the way.

Comments: 5

Rose H. Feb 19, 2009, 12:16pm EST

Interesting concept and a very well written post - thank you.

reply to this comment

señoritafish (oxyjulis californica) Feb 19, 2009, 1:22pm EST

I've been hearing about that one for a long time, not to mention seeing the charas cosplayed at cons. It sounds like one to put on the list; always up for something funny. And yet I keep hoping for another good series that doesn't have teens as lead characters. Cowboy Bebop/s are few and far between, alas (and even the oldest there is younger than I am). As far as art style, if I can get used to the distortion of Code Geass, I suppose I could used to anything. Thanks for the review.

reply to this comment

Katrina Michaels Feb 19, 2009, 9:32pm EST

The anime was recently released in the dubbed version in the US, but I saw the subbed version a bit back and absolutely loved it. Its quirky and fun and full of great moments.

reply to this comment

joshua k. Mar 26, 2009, 12:43am EDT

Hello, i'm new to this group, it's nice to meet all of you. I thought this series was very funny and entertaining, especially with Tamaki (Father) and Kyoya's(Mother) relationship that is like a manzai duo. I've only read the first volume, but from what i read, i will definitely read the rest of the series. Bisco Hatori’s other manga Millennium Snow is quite nice as well, which i read before learning that manga actually had genre's (Shojo, shonen, Josei and ect..), though was irrelevant because i like shojo despite being a male. And by looking at the marketing demographic on Shojo's Beat's website, I'm far from the person who reads/ subscribes to their magazine. Strangely that made me think of Ouran Host Club, because a lot of males might be turned off by the cover or premise of this story (which in all fairness is a reverse harem), but in fact its something that they would find entertaining and give a different perspective on the whole school anime genre(since most anime provide fan service to males). Another series like this would be The Wallflower, though the better part of this series is in the second half. thank you for reading this.

reply to this comment

Rebecca [Future Teacher] May 15, 2009, 11:23pm EDT

I've been reading the series myself and I find it to be pretty good. I do want to watch the anime at some point especially since Vic Mignogia is a VA

reply to this comment

Manga Review: Ouran High School Host Club Volume 1

Comments: 5

Join the Conversation

You might also like

More by Rick S.