Ouran High School Host Club

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Ouran High School Host Club
Original title 桜 蘭 高校 ホ ス ト部（ク ラ ブ）
transcription Ōran Kōkō Hosuto Kurabu
Ouran High School Host Club logo.jpg
Manga
country JapanJapan Japan
author Bisco Hatori
publishing company Hakusensha
magazine LaLa
First publication 2002 - September 24, 2010
expenditure 18th
Anime television series
Country of production JapanJapan Japan
original language Japanese
year 2006
Studio Bones
length 24 minutes
Episodes 26th
Director Takuya Igarashi
music Yoshihisa Hirano
First broadcast April 5, 2006 - September 27, 2006 on NTV
synchronization

Ouran High School Host Club ( Japanese 桜 蘭 高校 ホ ス ト部（ク ラ ブ）, ōran kōkō hosuto kurabu ) is a Shōjo - Manga series by the Japanese artist Bisco Hatori . The manga was also known as anime - television series , radio plays , computer game implemented live-action series and film.

The romantic comedy is about a Host Club ( dt. "Host Club") at an elite school, consisting of beautiful teenagers who maintains the girls at school. The story of a host club is modeled on real-life clubs of the same name that are part of Japanese nightlife. In them the customers are entertained and flattered by the hostesses or hosts - however, sexual services are excluded.

action

The 15-year-old boyish Haruhi Fujioka receives a scholarship at Ouran High School , a fictional elite school in Tokyo . This academy is actually reserved for wealthy and highly gifted pupils and students. Although she doesn't really like this school, she wants to realize her dream of becoming a lawyer like her late mother by studying at Ouran High School .

One day when she was looking for a quiet place to study, she found the host club in the abandoned music room of the school . This consists of six hosts , male students, who entertain and employ the wealthy students at the school. Haruhi breaks a sinfully expensive vase the first time they meet and is now supposed to work off the debts as the host. By chance, the entire club finds out that she is a girl, and this is where the real adventure begins. Since normally only boys are accepted in the host club, she should actually leave again. However, Haruhi reveals unexpected qualities and with her naturalness, openness and directness she makes herself popular with guests and hosts alike. For this reason, too, the Host Club would like to accept and keep Haruhi. So the group decides to cover up Haruhi's real gender and make her a full member.

Each host represents his own type and has a nickname such as “the king”, “the cool”, “the wild”, “the little devil” or “the childish type”. Haruhi quickly learns that the individual "roles" are nothing but a facade and only serve the well-being and continued existence of the host club (comparable to theater roles). The series revolves around the development of relationships between the individual characters in a soap opera fashion and addresses clichés , stereotypes and gender roles.

Characters

main characters

Haruhi Fujioka ( 藤 岡 ハ ル ヒ )
Haruhi is the real main character. She has chin-length, dark brown hair, brown eyes and actually wears glasses. She will be given contact lenses later . Because of her short hair, the host club initially mistook her for a boy, especially since she also dresses like a boy. Her hair is only so short because the day before a cheeky kid smeared a chewing gum in her hair. Haruhi is the only student who does not come from a rich or noble family background, but lives with her father in a modest apartment building. Her mother died immediately after she was born. Haruhi thinks her classmates are bloated and snooty at first. Since joining the host club, she has always insisted that she dislike the host club and that as soon as she worked off the debt, she would leave it immediately. Her attitude changes after she gets to know the individual club members better and finally falls in love with Tamaki.
Tamaki Suo ( 須王環 ), b René Richárd de Grantaine
Tamaki is the attractive president and founder of the host club. He comes from a French noble house . Tamaki has blond, chin-length hair and blue eyes. At first glance, he appears narcissistic and haughty, and he is also prone to theatrical exaggerations. In reality, Tamaki is very educated and well-mannered, courteous, and always sincere. He is also a gifted piano player . He took Haruhi into the host club when he still believed she was a boy and treated her like his child. Over time she grows dear to his heart and he falls in love with her. However, he initially thinks it is more of a kind of "father-daughter love". In general, when it comes to Haruhi, he is very irritable and takes part in a wide variety of competitions against the Hitachiin twins.
Kyōya Ōtori ( 鳳 鏡 夜 )
Kyōya is tall, has black, chin-length hair and wears elegant glasses. He is the vice-president of the host club, Tamaki's best friend, and is responsible for the club's finances. Without him, the club would have gone bankrupt long ago. His business methods are, however, quite iron and often opaque. In front of the guests he behaves cool, nonchalant and aloof, towards the group he likes to be calculating and resentful. In reality, he is not only concerned about the group's financial well-being, but also a good listener and often the voice of reason. Kyōya comes from a rich and powerful family of entrepreneurs whose main business is the industrial manufacture of medical instruments and hospital utensils. His father is initially angry that his son is killing time with a host club.
Mitsukuni "Honey" Haninozuka ( 埴 之 塚 光 邦 )
Mitsukuni is the smallest in the host club, he has chin-length, dark blonde hair and brown eyes. He likes to carry a pink stuffed bunny around with him and eat tons of cakes and sweets, hence his nickname "Honey". His emphatically cute appearance, as well as his childlike demeanor, however, are pure appearance. He uses both purposefully and with ruthless recklessness to get what he wants. It also helps him to increase his popularity with the guests of the host club. Although Mitsukuni looks cute and innocent, he is unsurpassed in hand-to-hand combat, just as his family has been known for their martial arts for many years. Mitsukuni is national champion in karate and judo . In later sections of the plot it turns out that he has a brother with whom he is in constant competition as to which of the two is the better fighter.
Takashi "Mori" Morinozuka ( 銛 之 塚 崇 )
Mori is very tall for his age, very slim and has short, somewhat wildly protruding black hair. He is very taciturn and is adored by many students, which he apparently does not notice at all (at least he pretends to be). He prefers to focus on staying around Mitsukunis and taking care of the latter. Years earlier, his family had been entrusted with protecting the Haninozuka family. He masters kendo and judo. Hardly anything is revealed about his family background.
Hikaru ( 常 陸 院 光 ) and Kaoru Hitachiin ( 常 陸 院 馨 )
Hikaru and Kaoru are identical twins . Both have slightly protruding, red-blonde hair and tea-brown eyes. They are literally inseparable, their character is childish and perky on the one hand, and very precocious and calculating on the other. In the past, they never had any friends because they were always busy with themselves and never let anyone get near them. Their behavior was based on fear of separation and subsequent loss of identity . In addition, she was both annoyed and confused by being constantly confused. That changed when Tamaki suggested they found the host club with him. After it was founded, the twins learned, thanks to Tamaki, to approach others and become more open-minded. They like to mimic the incestuous Shōnen Ai lovers towards the customers of the club . They often play pranks on their friends, and they like to tease Tamaki with his crush on Haruhi. Haruhi is actually the only one who can tell the two apart, no matter the circumstances.

Important supporting characters

Renge Hōshakuji ( 宝 積 寺 れ ん げ )
Renge, like Tamaki, grew up in France and comes from a rich and influential family of entrepreneurs. She is petite, has waist-length, pinned up and dark blonde hair and brown eyes. At first she seems excited, cheeky and cheeky, but in truth she is very precocious, cultivated and well informed about her classmates. At the beginning of the series she adores Kyoya (much to the dismay), but that's only because that Kyoya a fictional character from the computer game Uki-Doki Memorial High (a relationship Simulator) is similar. After Kyōya rebukes her, she gives up her crush. Renge appoints herself as the "manager of the host club" and supports it as best she can (not at all). Her main job is to comment on already tricky situations and to organize new themed events. Renge's trademark is to climb out of the floor of the music room unexpectedly enthroned on a hydraulic lifting platform and laugh in an exaggerated manner.
Ryoji Fujioka ( 藤 岡 涼 二 ), called Ranka ( 蘭花 )
Ryoji is the father of Hahuri. He is 35 years old and has been raising her alone since his mother died. Ryoji is bisexual and works at night as a transvestite in a corresponding bar under the stage name "Ranka". His first encounter with Tamaki and the Host Club is extremely cold, and he also dislikes that Tamaki has a crush on Haruhi. Ryoji initially thinks Tamaki is a low-level womanizer and over time he has to learn that Tamaki means it honestly. Thanks to Ryoji, the host club itself learns a lot about travesty and the everyday life of the “common people”.

Publications

Ouran High School Host Club has been published in Japan since the September 2002 issue in individual chapters in the manga magazine LaLa . In August 2010 it was announced that the manga in the November 24th 2010 issue of LaLa will end with a 52-page chapter. The Hakusensha Publishing House brought this individual chapters on a regular basis in the form of anthologies out of which have appeared between 5 August 2003 and 5 April 2011, a total 18th

In the US, the series is published by Viz Media in the manga magazine Shojo Beat , in Australia by Madman Entertainment and in France and Spain by Panini . The series of Carlsen Comics is published in Germany. All volumes have been published since January 2012, the translation is by Alexandra Klepper.

Anime

In 2006, the studio produced Bones a 26-part anime - television series based on the manga. It was directed by Takuya Igarashi , the character design was created by Kumiko Takahashi and the artistic director was Norifumi Nakamura . The main features of the plot remain close to the original, but details have been left out or added. The animation essentially consists of classic cel animation , supplemented by computer animation for surface textures, flying leaves or light reflections. In accordance with the principle of limited animation , the backgrounds are static, the movement foils of the figures are reused and there are also still images. The end credits are illustrated by Bisco Hatori himself.

The series was broadcast from April 5 to September 27, 2006 (shortly after midnight and thus on the previous television day ) by NTV in Japan, later broadcasts by Chukyo TV and Yomiuri TV . The anime was licensed for the American market by FUNimation Entertainment . The complete series was released in 2008 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the anime label Anime Virtual in three DVD boxes with two DVDs each. On October 29, 2010, the series was then re-released as a complete edition under the same label, now renamed to Kazé.

synchronization

The German dubbed version was made by Elektrofilm.

role Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) German speaker
Haruhi Fujioka Maaya Sakamoto Katja Primel
Tamaki Suō Mamoru Miyano Asad Black
Kyōya Ōtori Masaya Matsukaze Felix Spit
Mitsukuni Haninozuka (Honey) Ayaka Saitō Julia Stoepel
Takashi Morinozuka (Mori) Daisuke Kirii Michael Schwager
Hikaru Hitachiin Ken'ichi Suzumura Nico Sablik
Kaoru Hitachiin Yoshinori Fujita Jan Rohrbach
Renge Houshakuji Kozue Yoshizumi Catrin Dams

music

The music for the series, especially classical orchestral pieces, was composed by Yoshihisa Hirano . The opening credits of the series, Sakura kiss , sings Chieko Kawabe , the closing credits Shissō comes from the Japanese rock band Last Alliance .

Further adaptations

radio play

Since 2003, three radio play CDs have been released in Japan. In addition, two issues of LaLa magazine, in which the manga appears, radio plays were enclosed.

Ren'ai Adventures

On April 19, 2007, a Ren'ai adventure to Ouran Host Club for the Playstation 2 console was released in Japan only , produced by Idea Factory and sold under their girls' games label Otomate.

In the spring of 2009, an apparent remake of the PS2 adventure game for the Nintendo DS appeared in Japan under the same name with the appendix DS in the title, which also comes from Idea Factory.

TV series and film

An 11-part adaptation was broadcast as a television series ( Dorama ) between July 22nd and September 30th, 2011 . On March 17, 2012, a 105-minute film was released in Japanese cinemas. Actors were: Haruna Kawaguchi as Haruhi Fujioka, Yusuke Yamamoto as Tamaki Suo, Ryō Ryusei as Umehito Nekozawa, Shunsuke Daitō as Kyoya Otori, Masaya Nakamura as Takashi Morinozuka, Yudai Chiba as Mitsukuni Haninozuka, Shinpei Takagi as Hikaru Hitachiin and Manpei Takagi as Kaoru Hitachiin .

reception

The manga sold over four million times in Japan by May 2006. Over 300,000 copies of the last volume were sold in the first two weeks.

Jason Thompson calls the manga a fun comedy with a large number of jokes and clichés. The manga scene writes that the series captivates " with beautiful character designs and interesting figures ". In the course of the plot, the readers can discover “ one or the other surprising facet” of the six guys in the host club, who at first seem like a template . The drawing style is characterized by the extensive use of grid film and delicate lines.

The German magazine Animania praises the great humor, jokes and slapstick of the anime . “ Romantic entanglements and Shojo clichés ” also provided entertainment. The minor content and design changes to the template are to the advantage of the implementation. The animation quality is not without flaws, but overall " on a good level " and the backgrounds are opulent. Funny scenes would be supported by a greatly reduced super deformed style and suitable sound effects. The restrained music also offers a suitable backdrop. For the German dubbed version, the speakers were well chosen and the localization was overall successful. The fan magazine Funime often calls the series underestimated, as one knows many elements from Princess Princess , He's my Master or the style from Revolutionary Girl Utena . But the plot quickly revolves around the various characters of the club members and is usually completely exaggerated. The series does not take itself seriously, parodies other series and itself and develops a flair that is kept to the end. The animations and drawings are kept simple and the music appropriate.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jason Thompson: Manga. The Complete Guide . Del Rey, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-345-48590-8 , pp. 261 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Men are from Mars - Women are from Venus . In: Animania 05/2008, pp. 12-15.
  3. ↑ a b c MangasZene No. 35, p. 16f.
  4. ↑ Ouran High School Host Club Manga to End in September. In: Anime News Network . August 23, 2010, accessed August 24, 2010 .
  5. ↑ List of publications by Hakusensha (Japanese)
  6. ↑ Historic Shoujo Manga Circulation Numbers , ComiPress, May 23, 2006
  7. ↑ Japanese Comic Ranking, April 11-17. Anime News Network, April 20, 2011, accessed April 3, 2016 .
  8. ↑ FUNime No. 56, p. 28f.