high school anime: October 2006 Archives

I'm in the middle of an "Ouran High School Host Club" withdrawal. The final episode aired Sept. 26 in Japan and I saw it the next week via a fansub. Since then, I've watched all 26 episodes three more times.

Waaaah! I can't believe it's over! My only consolation is that the manga is still ongoing.

"Ouran" deals with Haruhi Fujioka's life at the affluent high school and with the all-boys Host Club who spend their time flattering and entertaining the ladies. Haruhi is a scholarship student who broke an expensive vase the club would have auctioned off. She ended up becoming a member of the club and pretending to be a boy to pay off her debt.

The characters are a hoot from the overly dramatic club president Tamaki Suoh to the unflappable Haruhi. Yes it is shojo anime which means Haruhi gets romantic attention from the boys in the club. There's drama since some of the characters have experienced personal tragedies while others carry emotional baggages of their own.

But "Ouran" is also a hilarious show. A couple of episodes were a dud like the spoof of "Alice in Wonderland." The manga version of that was brilliant though.

Some fans also groused whenever the show veered away from the manga. Personally, it didn't bother me since the show was pretty faithful to the original source.

SPOILER ALERT. DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE ENDING. The last two episodes introduced a character who doesn't appear in the manga. Eclair Tonnere (I'm not sure how you spell her last name) becomes Tamaki's fiancee and he announces that the club will disband after the two-day school festival. Eclair's ace is that she knows where his mother is. The Tonnere company is also buying Japanese businesses so Tamaki's nasty grandmother is using him to become part of this rich French family.

Tamaki also thinks that his selfishness is causing problems for the other members. And it is up to them to convince him otherwise. The ending includes a chase, Hunny and Mori beating up the Ohtori private police force and Haruhi/Tamaki moments. However, the epilogue hints that Haruhi is still a free agent.

My personal preference is to see her paired with the club's vice president - the brilliant, manipulative and cute Kyoya Ohtori. But alas, the pairing is a long shot in the manga. In the anime though, Kyoya's father tells Tamaki's dad he wants to marry Haruhi to his son in the future. The other man wants the same thing for his son.

The show ends with a seated Haruhi surrounded by the other members extending an invitation to the viewer to visit the club.

Now that "Blood +" and "Ouran High School Host Club" have ended I went in search of new anime to watch. I ran across "School Rumble" which is one of those school/romance anime.

While I wasn't wowed by the initial six episodes, I still borrowed the rest of the series and even the two OVAs out of some misbegotten sense of responsibility that one should finish what one started.

I'm seriously convinced that I've been dropped on my head as a baby. Why else would I waste four days straight watching this sorry excuse for an anime that supposedly was such a big hit in Japan? The second season just ended too. I'm not stupid enough to watch a second season of this tripe.

Not only are the characters drawn like any ho-hum anime, the story is the typical convoluted love polygon in this genre. The female lead, a clueless girl named Tenma Tsukamoto loves Ooji Karasuma, a poker-faced boy with a bowl haircut. She just can't seem to confess her affection to him.

The class delinquent is the male lead. Kenji Harima loves Tenma but misunderstandings, circumstances and other people including Tenma ruin his declarations of love. There's an assorted cast of characters that have their own love dilemmas. Two other girls also like Harima.

But after 26 episodes there's still no resolution on who ends up with whom. Then they drag it out to another season. I hear there's going to be a third season.

This show needs to be put to the torch. I hate love polygons especially if they keep dragging them out. The other side stories are boring as well. The style of the animation doesn't help pull this from the mediocre pile nor does the music. I regret spending a dime renting this. I'm such a baka ("stupid" in Japanese).