Only those with excellent social standing and those from filthy rich families are lucky enough to spend their time here at the elite private school of Ouran Academy. The Ouran Host Club is where the schools handsomest boys with too much time on their hands entertain young ladies who also have way too much time on their hands. Just think of it as Ourans elegant playground for the super rich and beautiful. These are the words that greet Haruhi Fujioka one of the only commoners with good enough grades to actually enrol at Ouran as she slips into an abandoned music room for some quiet study time. Instead she finds anything but peace as the academys infamous host club mistakes her for a boy Thanks to her ultrashort haircut and lack of an expensive uniform And they assume he is there to enjoy some manonman entertainment. In her efforts to escape this collection of carefree casanovas she accidentally destroys a renaissance vase thats worth more money than several generations of her family combined. And she winds up on the hook for every yen of it They recruit her as their dog Well well use the term errand boy to be nice And by the time theyve all realized their mistake Haruhi Fujioka has already been inducted as an official host Which unfortunately means posing as a boy for the remainder of her noncompulsary educational tenure. Haruhi is a practical levelheaded girl which is the direct result of her upbringing in a low income single parent household. Her background and thrifty ways fascinate the clubs charismatic president and cofounder Tamaki Suoh a halfwhite airhead who lived in France until the age of fourteen. Hes the last person in the club to realize shes a girl and since hes emotionally unable to deal with his instantaneous attraction to her he instead decides to adopt her as the daughter of his host club family. This all works out very well for the highly meticulous Kyoya Otori the cofounder and accountant of the host club as Haruhis natural chemistry with their female clients presents a business opportunity that he just cant pass up. The rest of the club is rounded out by the infamous Hitachiin twins Hikaru and Kaoru both of whom are troublemakers from Haruhis class as well as the adorable sweetsloving Honey and his strong silent protector Mori both of whom are highly skilled prodigies from respected martial arts families. Together these six No these SEVEN hosts serve their squealing insatiable clients as your typical reverse harem archetypes Tamaki plays The Princely Type Kyoya plays The Cool Type Honey plays The Boy Lolita Type the twins play The Mischievous Type As well as delivering heaping helpings of implied twincest And Mori pretty much acts as an accessory to Honey because aside from that I cant really recall anybody actually requesting his company. And now with Haruhi playing The Natural Type their harem is complete Ouran Highschool Host Club was produced by Studio Bones the producers of equally popular shows such as Soul Eater Black Butler and Oh man what was it called? Something about an Alchemist It doesnt matter that ones pretty obscure. Anyway in typical Bones fashion the production is beautiful at first glance but somewhat unbalanced when you look a little closer at it. Theres fluid graceful movement going on all over the place from the characters themselves as well as from the flowers that occasionally fly across the screen. Because of the distribution of the budget however it still has the everpresent problem of people freezing into statues in the background and this isnt just limited to background characters. Its a fairly common problem in anime but in this case it actually kind of works with the humor style of the show. This aside Studio Bones makes up for any technical failings with some of the most captivating art design youll ever see. Ive praised a lot of shows for having impressive detail in their artwork but Ouran really is a cut above the norm as it takes the flowery aesthetic that youd expect from a shoujo manga and uses it to its very best potential. The characters and their outfits are designed with bright lively pastels and they stand in stark contrast to the much softer darker pastels that make up the beautifully lit cleverly shaded backgrounds. Every inch of Ouran Academy as well as the few other environments that we visit are detailed from the architecture down to the very last flourished handrail. Its beautiful and so is the music which is conveyed almost entirely with classic style violin and piano. They never seem out of place complimenting the comedic scenes as well as the dramatic. The only place youll see consistent modern style music like drums and guitar is in the opening which stands as probably one of the most well made openings of all time. Unfortunately the original Japanese opening is all but absent from the DVDs only really appearing for one episode. Its otherwise replaced by an English language version which may be inferior in the eyes of purists but it still holds up well on its own. That opening is really the only aspect of the dub that I can see raising some irritated eyebrows as the acting in the english dub is a very close match to the outstanding Japanese track. Caitlin Glass whos mostly known for giving really big enthusiastic performances proves shes just as good on the other end of the scale going low and throaty but adding just enough femininity to make Haruhis exasperated cynicism palatable. Vic Mignona proves to be the perfect man to play Tamaki as a foppish ignorant spastic that he is and J Michael Tatum slithers his cool demeanor comfortably into the manipulative meticulous Kyoya. The Hiitachin Twins are played by Greg Ayres and Todd Haberkorn and while they do have significantly different voices they play the personalities of their respective characters perfectly while still retaining the same relative pitch and they complement each other very well. Luci Christian is mercilessly cutesy and childish as Honey while still somehow carrying a sense of maturity that defies appearance. Its hard to talk about Travis Willinghams performance as Mori Not because he does a bad job but because he does a good job putting genuine effort into a character that any talentless shmuck could play. In other words its a job that even Mark Laskowski could pull off so you can imagine how thankless a job it really is. There are a lot of minor or otherwise oneshot characters in this show but the two Id like to call attention to are Chris Sabat who plays a tough looking guy whos sick of people always being afraid of him and Monica Rial who plays the groups excitable manager Renge. Renge often appears onscreen via a mechanical stage that can pop up out of the ground anywhere and everywhere and she acts as one of the two commentators on some of the many shoujo tropes that Ouran likes to make fun of. She handles fanhoods and character archetypes shamelessly explaining them to us when necessary. Yes its exposition but its really really funny exposition. And the other commentator? A little girl who blatantly points out that Shoujo mangas are full of reverse harems and debauchery. In my reviews of Okamisan and Her Seven Companions I mentioned that Ouran is really good at transitioning between comedy and drama. Well the truth is I was underselling it. Ouran can transition smoothly between many different types of comedy and drama while never feeling forced or pretentious about it. A show like Family Guy falls flat on its face when trying to deliver dramatic or serious storylines The one about Quagmires sister was a particular low note But Ouran pulls it off naturally as every second of it is used to develop either the characters or the story. Every single character has a rich complex backstory with more than enough room to grow. Okay maybe Mori is the exception. The Hiitachin twins in particular get some of the deepest most introspective material of all cementing them easily as my favorites in the cast. The only time Ouran isnt funny is when its not trying to be funny and thats a rare trick to pull off. A lot of it comes from the fact that its able to ruthlessly satirize and deconstruct the shoujo genre and many of its subgenres without ever becoming mean spirited about it so in effect fans and haters of that material will both find plenty of things to love about it. So even if you cant enjoy this show for its girlish presentation and buckets of cartoony shoujo fanservice you can still enjoy it for its pitch perfect comic timing chuckling along with the joke as it lampoons those very elements. If theres one element that Ouran doesnt tackle its romance. This is supposedly a romantic comedy but the only romance that ever takes place is with the occasional starcrossed couple that the Host club has to mediate. There are a lot of affections being thrown around but when it comes to the main cast none of these affections are ever really reciprocated. Thankfully unlike School Rumble Ouran doesnt back itself into a corner by making these affections the main hook of the series. Instead the main focus is on friendship and character development and while the ending can be a bit unsatisfying from a plot perspective this is a character driven story and the subtle maturations of our hosts will still bring you to a very heartwarming place by the conclusion. Ouran High School Host Club is one of the funniest anime ever made. Its executed flawlessly trying its hand at a surprisingly large number of tones and effortlessly succeeding at nearly all of them. The artwork animation and music are all breathtaking which is clearly indicative of the love and time that went into this project. While it may not carry the label of Ironically badass that Princess Tutu has been blessed with its still one of those few shoujo titles thats just as enjoyable for male viewers Perhaps even more so As it is for female viewers. The characters are rich complex and loveable and care deeply for one another but not so much that they cant antagonize and prank each other in the process. So if youve got too much time on your hands then please step into this series and allow the hosts to pamper you just like their actual clients. I give this series a 9/10.