Introduction

Ouran High School Host Club (Ouran for short) follows the lives of several members of a high society in a school for the privileged. The members run a Host Club, or basically a club that sits around and entertains women. They pay to sit around and watch the guys drink tea with them, basically. There is a lot more, but I’m going to just do you a favor. If you want to read on and spoil the first episode then go ahead. If not then I’ll give you the rating upfront and you decide if you want to watch it or not.

Rating: 5/10

Review

Alright, I’m going to warn you. I’m going to spoil the first episode. This is a big deal ya know. That’s part of the charm of the anime is that the first episode is really interactive. Alright, if you still want to read…

The anime follows around Haruhi Fujioka, a member of the Ouran High Host Club. Haruhi starts at episode one as a guy. You can’t really tell, but “he” is a girl who just wears slacks and a polo shirt. As the first episode progresses you eventually come to find out that Haruhi is indeed a girl. At the end, for those who don’t catch on to it, the secret is reveled to everyone.

There isn’t much to say about the plot of Ouran. The storyline follows the general school calendar system that most anime follow with. There is spring when they go to the beach and winter when they stay inside and hang out. Episode to episode you pretty much have different storylines going. Some storylines continue for multiple episodes, but overall there is no major plot past abunch of super rich kids having fun.

Oh and Haruhi is pretty middle-class. This means that she lives an alright life, but she has no room excess spending. This means that she is distanced from the Host Club’s group of people. I thought this was a pretty decent way to establish character with Haruhi.

Most of the anime focuses on fleshing out the back story of each character. There isn’t much past that. It’s entertaining, but there isn’t much action. It’s to be expected of a drama targeted at girls.

The only problem I found with the anime was a character named “Honey” who is something like 17 with “growth problems” or in other words looks like a kid. He’s really annoying and rarely adds anything interesting to the story. Don’t worry though, rarely you see anything too ecchi in this series.

Rating

Score: 5/10

Special Score: BOOOOONUS 2 points for having a decent ending for a drama anime that actually is entertaining.

Pros:

• Funny moments.
• Wacky antics.
• Entertaining story with great visuals.
• An ending that isn’t open or just out of nowhere.
• Makes you feel good when watching it for the most part, except on the boring episodes.

Cons:

• Honey is really annoying and is the worst character in the whole series but gets a ton of screentime.
• Another crossdressing anime, it’s not like there isn’t enough of them!!
• Episodes are hit and miss.

Related posts:

1. Great Teacher Onizuka
2. The Melancholy of Haruhi
3. Genshiken

Introduction

Genshiken follows an after college club called Genshiken: Contemporary Visual Culture Research Organization or Gendai Shikaku Bunka Kenkyūkai in Japanese. The club, in reality, is an otaku club where members watch anime, build models, and do various other otaku things after school.

The story follows their adventures they deal with various Otaku issues while a non-Otaku attempts to adjust to their society in an attempt to win a boys love.

Review

Genshiken is an extremely well done anime. You ask how in the world can an anime about otakus be any good. Well, I don’t know either, but it’s very well done. The story is well thought out and the progression is extremely well paced.

Basically you have a typical college club, but instead of drawing manga or doing other college club type things, they just goof around. The anime has two key plotlines. One is the very cute Kasuga attempting to fit in with the otakus in an attempt to win the love Kosaka, an extremely “KAWAIIIIIII” guy who is a major otaku. The other is following the general things Genshiken does which are often times random but always related to anime, models, manga, video games, etc.

Genshiken has the somewhat unique ability to keep you watching even though there, well, isn’t much going on. No matter how you analyze it, it just follows people hanging around talking about anime and doing otaku related things. You want to keep watching even though all your watching is two people discuss model building. Truly amazing.

I want to say that Genshiken was too short in a way. Twelve episodes didn’t feel like enough, but I asked myself what else could they have done to keep it interesting? There really isn’t much you can do to make an anime following the lives of nerds interesting.

There are a few more downfalls. The anime isn’t too true of a portrayal of otakus and their culture. You see a lot of the fascination with eroge (Hentai Games) and erotic Doujinshi but you don’t really get into the stereotypical looks of an otaku. The overly nerdy looking person who no girl would ever set eyes on that you see in a lot of anime. This isn’t really THAT big of an issue, considering if you look at the major hub for Otaku activity, Akihabara, you will see that really isn’t very true of a stereotype. You do though, wonder why all of the characters are well drawn and fashionable.

When I said few, I really meant one and by one I mean not really. There just isn’t much to complain about. It’s a very true look at otaku life in Japan! Oh well, other then if you don’t like anime you will not like Genshiken, or even get some of the jokes.

There is some really good artwork in Genshiken. The anime is fluid and well drawn and the music is well placed. Genshiken takes a more serious approach to the art-style, often lacking the stereotypical anime emotions more facial expression. That doesn’t mean you won’t find some sweat drops or extremely cartoony scenes.

Oh, while I’d love to review Kujibiki Unbalance in the same review, I can’t. It’s going to be an actual serious anime upcoming sometime in October. Basically Kujibiki Unbalance is the mega-stereotypical anime that Genshiken watches. It includes most everything “major” inside of anime. Childhood promises, aliens, swimsuit scenes out of nowhere, combat, etc. It was made into an OVA and will soon be released as a real series (taking away some of the ridiculous character models in the process that is kind of its charm).

One last thing, the English dub is done VERY well. The voices actuall fit and it’s not painful to listen to it. Even the Kujibiki Unbalance voices for the most part are well done. So if you don’t like reading subtitles while people speak in some kind of strange language then pick up the DVDs and watch the dub. Not that, a real otaku wouldn’t want to hear it in it’s original Japanese version.

Rating

Score: 8/10

Pros:

• Well thought out storyline Interesting plot. A slice of life anime that doesn’t put you to sleep.
• Great visuals, musics, opening, ending, and artwork.
• English dub is well done, so be sure to pick up the DVDs!

Cons:

• People not in Japan who want to be otakus.
• If you don’t like anime then you probably won’t really care or even understand this anime.

Related posts:

1. Ouran High School Host Club
2. Otaku Insanity – Stigma attached to Anime
3. Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi