Sunday, November 18, 2007

Legendary host club
Obviously Cowboy Bebop is my favourite anime and I’ve always compared all my other series to that. Basically I’m always raving on about how this is the only series that has the best combination of story line, music and animation. There are very few series that have been able to live up to these standards and the GITS SAC series and Wolf’s Rain have been my sorta second favourite series for a while now. But recently I watched Ouran High School Host Club, which has now become my absolute second favourite series I absolutely love it. Honestly at first glance when compared with cowboy bebop the animation is pretty simplistic at times, the story line is nothing new for its genre and there really isn’t much of a soundtrack.
But if you get over the initial impact the animation has a cute smoothness to it the characters when drawn properly all have a traditional style about them, which is most evident with Haruhi who has the old anime style bambi eyes that represent the purity and innocence of being a female (there’s a really funny scene were this is actually mentioned). And the male characters while obvious bishonens still maintain a level of masculinity so they’re not easily mistaken for females like a lot of shojo male characters are these days.
The story line has a familiar line to it and its very much like Fruits Basket in the way that you have the single female figure that has obvious hardships, in a group of male character that all have their own emotional problems. Ouran takes a new road with this though, Haruhi is not the distinctly clutzy character, who helps everyone without thinking, while struggling with her own heartache and insecurities. She is intelligent and indifferent to her situation and doesn’t hold anything back when it comes to critising those around her (and no matter what the male characters do to her she never seems to get that nervous maiden blush and giggles), qualities that modern anime heroines seem to be lacking.
Throughout the entire anime you see the male character developing an obvious attachment to her but there is never really the hint of a romantic love affair developing from her (she does like Tamaki but it still doesn’t have that giggling, blushing insecurity attached to it). She just seems to take everything as it is on the surface. Honey and Mori can see the bond develop and suspect developments but in the anime Haruhi seems ignorant of any of these potential developments. I love that about this series it never tries to dramatise anything about love.

There’s another thing that I found really funny about this series and seems to be becoming popular in a lot of anime’s but it’s the way that they make fun of otaku’s and especially fan girls, the audience that their aiming for they are at the same time totally taking the p**s out of. But it doesn’t degrade its popularity at all. The otaku’s culture or as its referred to here in Australia sub-culture seems to one of only a few that can looks at itself and opening laugh and criticise. Even with the serious fandom it can still maintain a scenes humour and enjoyment.


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