Since its release in 2006, Ouran High School Host Club has established itself as a fan favourite. It has a reputation for being a bit strange, but also extremely funny. This is my review of Part 1, which consists of the first 13 (of a total of 26) episodes of the anime.
The Ouran Host Club is where handsome boys with too much time on their hands entertain and charm girls, who also have too much time on their hands. It is the school’s own personal elegant playground for the super-rich. The school’s honour student, Haruhi, who happens to be the poorest person in the whole school, accidentally breaks the Renaissance vase that is to be featured in the school auction, and has to repay the debt by serving as the ‘club dog’…
This is the funniest anime I have seen in a long while. The characters, the dialogue and the situations faced by the characters are all absolutely hilarious. The jokes work well most of the time, and the laughs keep coming at a constant pace. It goes without saying then, that the show is incredibly entertaining, and viewers should find it a great deal of fun to watch.
The animation is basic but pretty. It uses bright colours, and the characters are cutely drawn. The visuals feature a lot of creativity. There are the sudden changes in the looks of the characters depending on their feelings, and the appearance of witty comments on screen, and these really add to the fun. The voice acting is also excellent, and the Japanese cast who provided the voices of the characters ought to be commended for doing such wonderful jobs.
The hosts specialise in using their own personal characteristics to meet the needs of their guests. There are the ‘princely’ type, the ‘boy-lolita’ type, the ‘little-devil’ type, the cool type and so on. Just listening to this very brief description of some of the characters who work at the Host Club should give you an idea of what a wild and weird place it is. When they first appear, the hosts are seen to be in love with themselves, and appear terribly arrogant and even obnoxious. But once viewers get to know them, the characters actually all turn out to be genuinely likeable.
I enjoyed Ouran High School Host Club Part 1 tremendously, and the score reflects this. However, please bear in mind that this is a review of only half the show. I have not seen the remaining episodes and do not have any insight into the ending. So at this point, I really cannot comment on the anime as a whole. But if the rest of it is as good as this first half, Ouran High School Host Club would be one ‘in-crab-ibly’ entertaining show. I am certainly looking forward to watching Part 2 and bringing you a review of it, hopefully in the not too distant future.