Ouran High School Host Club ep.6

May 9, 2006 | 24 Comments

Unfortunately this is not as funny as last week's episode. I think by taking the focus away from the Host Club themselves, the series end up losing the comedy part of its appeal. The anime tries to add a little comedy by giving Renge a short appearance, but in the end, the overall episode is not as funny as usual. Having said that, this episode did a good job in the dramatic content part of the story. Unfortunately, the character of the week is a rather annoying and unsympathetic character in my opinion, so I didn't really care whether or not he manages to achieve his aim. I think the character in question tried to take a shortcut to achieve his aim but in the end ended up doing what he supposed to be doing anyway. But then again, I never like this kind of character so your milleage may vary.

The episode begins with a boy called Takouji Shirou telling his piano teacher that he doesn't have the time to play piano. The boy then visit the Host Club, whose members are in the middle of cosplaying as Arabian characters. Shirou is shocked to see the group but nevertheless got straight to the point and tells Tamaki that he wants to be Tamaki's apprentice. Tamaki, who is not immune to flattery, immediately agrees to Shirou's request. Unfortunately for Tamaki, Shirou turns out to be a rather annoying brat. When Tamaki is in the middle of wooing a customer, Shirou points out that the girl's mouth is like a Carp. Tamaki's attempt to fix the situation only makes things worse and causes the girl to run away crying. The twins can't help themselves from laughing at Tamaki upon seeing the scene and tells each other that they only want each other as their brother. Of course, they do this in their usual playful manner, shocking Shirou in the process.

Shirou is even more annoyed when Hanni suddenly hugs him from behind and asks him if he wants to have some cakes with him. Shirou then proceeds to offend Hunny for acting like a little kid despite being older. Shirou then spots Haruhi and asks the girl if she's a transvestite. Upon hearing this, Tamaki and the twins try to cover things up by saying out loud that Haruhi is a boy and tries to get the boy to forget the conversation by handing him a tray containing fine tea sets. Shirou decides to drop the tray and blames it on Haruhi, causing Kyoya to tell Haruhi that she now owes the club an additional 100,000 Yen (around $1000). Eventually Tamaki is fed up with Shirou and orders to have the boy locked up in a cage. While inside the cage, Shirou angrily tells the others that he has no time for this. When that does not work, he tells them that he wants to learn to become a host and make women happy.

Tamaki agrees to show Shirou the ropes but can't figure out how to pigeonholed him. Kyoya explains what this means by telling Shirou that everyone in the club is categorised into types: the Prince type (Tamaki), the Wild type (Mori), the Shota type (Hanni), the little devils type (The twins), the cool one (Kyoya), and the natural type (Haruhi). Since they can't decide how to classify Shirou, Renge suddenly appears and decides that Shirou should the mischievous type. She then forces the boy to put band-aids all over his arms and legs and force him to say the kind of lines that a character like him usually says. Shirou, however, has had enough of everyone's antics and decides to flee from the club. Haruhi remembers how Shirou once said that he has no time and thinks that they should find out more about him. Because of this, the others force her and Hanni to dress up in elementary and middle school uniforms to infiltrate the younger class.

Unknown to Haruhi, she was forced to dress this way simply because Tamaki wants to see her in that outfit. Haruhi and Hanni end up entering Shirou's class but Haruhi is annoyed when the others just walk in without worrying about being caught by a teacher. Meanwhile, Kyoya points out that there is a photo of Shirou with a girl in the wall. When the gang go to the music room, they see Shirou hanging out with the same girl from the photo. The girl asks Shirou if he'd like to play the piano with him but Shirou refuses and tells her that he'd rather watch. Because of this, Tamaki decides to ask another girl to give him background information about the girl who is with Shirou. Tamaki quickly finds out that the girl's name is Kamishiro Hina and that she will actually be moving away soon. Upon finding out about this, Tamaki decides to take Shirou with him and then confronts him about his intention in approaching the Host Club.

Tamaki knows that Shirou isn't actually concerned with the happiness of all women. He's just interested in making Hina happy. Despite this, Tamaki is quite willing to help the brat. He points out to Shirou that Hina actually wants to play Piano together with him. Because of this, Tamaki decides to give Shirou some Piano lesson. A few days later, Hina arrives at the Host Club and find herself being greeted by the members. Inside the room, Shirou is waiting to play a duet with her. Hina becomes happy upon seeing this since her wish to play Piano with Shirou is finally realised. While the kids play the Piano, Haruhi makes an offside comment how Shirou looks like Tamaki and Tamaki strangely agrees. He, however, seems to change his mind a few days later after Hina has moved away. Apparently Shirou still hangs around in the Host club and ends up becoming popular with the fangirls. Tamaki can't help but feeling annoyed that the kid's popularity exceeds his own.

Impression:

I am not really a big fan of this episode mostly because I never like characters like Shirou. He actually reminds me of similarly bratty character from Fruits Basket, Souma Hiro. It's kind of strange that I dislike these characters because I actually like Cartman from South Park, who is clearly a lot more juvenile than these two. But then again, in the majority episode of South Park, Cartman always get his just dessert everytime he starts being obnoxious towards others. On the other hand, Shirou got everything that he wants despite his off-putting behaviour. While I realise that this series is not the serious kind, I can't help but hoping that Shirou got to learn a little bit of humility before the episode ended. I am also a bit annoyed because the episode focused mostly on the brat. As a result, the Host Club simply get a supporting role here. I find this unfortunate because the story is at its funniest when it focuses on them.

Thankfully there are still some funny moments scattered around the episode. The one where Haruhi and Hunny are trying to imitate a middle high school students was comedy gold because they don't look like a middle high school students at all. Tamaki and other host club members' evil reaction was rather amusing to see especially since you can clearly see Mori's evil smile. I thought Mori, of all people, is the last person who'll enjoy seeing Haruhi dressing up like middle high school student. But I guess it's always the quiet one that is the most dangerous. Renge addition to the coaching scene is perfect. It makes more sense for her to teach Shirou about being a mischievous character since she knows so much about archetypes of male characters in dating video games. Mori looking scary when Shirou offended Hunny was also one of those moments that you have to see yourself. It's nice to see that the brat is actually afraid of someone for a change.

© memento 2003