I was sitting in front of my laptop on a casual weekend after work browsing netflix for some light hearted fun to watch and found Ouran High School Host Club added to the library. Comedy and romance is a killer combination for me so and it is on my planning list so... oh whatever lets watch it. Superficially everything about this just screams dumb trashy fun and in a way yea it was but it is also so much more? I did not expect this series to blow me away as it did.
Ouran High School Host Club for me is somewhat of an unintended masterpiece. I say this because I just cannot shake the feeling that this was just made for really light hearted fun where the writer just throw in whatever they think is cute and funny. There are countless layers of parody and self referential humor from the genre its suppose to represent, make fun of and also the actual series itself. I have never read or watched any BL media before so I really feel I am missing out on many hilarious parodic references to the genre. Despite that I do read and watch a lot of Yuri and maybe that is the reason I can somewhat relate and understand the referential jokes, or maybe I seen enough BL memes. Other than its obvious BL themes, the series also makes fun and parodies many other things such as Shoujo tropes, High School depictions in Anime, Stereotypical Rich People and even itself! The layers of parody in this series oh my god, there is just too much to list down and each of them really slaps in their comedic quality. Usually a comedy series rely on their diverse cast of character personalities to keep things fresh and introduce more creative avenues for comedic situations, but Ouran High School Host Club rely on their many referential parodies on tropes, genres and the very show itself! This is something really creative and I really love it!
The characters each obviously represent a common archetype of the BL genre or any male character in Anime really. There is the cool smart one, the playful handsome one, the stoic cool one, the cute but is actually a senior one, and... the incest couple?
is this a common trope in BL? is Incest itself a common trope in anime??? I don't Know! ANYWAYS
Each character is really consistent with their personality from beginning to end which I really love. The show really hooked me with their over the top and carefree comedy in the beginning which really made me laugh out loud constantly. I love it when a series makes me care to continue watching the next episode solely on relying on the quality of their comedy and not their plot. And its comedy itself would make me more than interested and invested honestly, but they have to wrap up the series with a bang by actually making a plot driven ending. They just have to impress me even further. The ending of this series starts formulating in the last 3 episodes and there was a shift in tone from comedic to earnest character drama. In merely 3 episodes they manage to make a fitting and heartfelt ending that makes one take a step back and reevaluate the whole whacky comedic journey these characters went through... is this all just whacky fun? or is there... just something more sentimental and meaningful about it...
Or maybe its really all just whacky fun!
Anyways to sum it all up! It is heartfelt, it has really intelligent layers upon layers of parodies! The comedy is actually quite intricate and smart...
Or maybe it's just really dumb!?
I don't know! All I can say it is really funny! smart or not! The characters are not the deepest but they all are given certain degree of depth which is utilized to their fullest potential in order to deliver one of the best endings to a rom coms I have seen in a while! And their OP just encapsulates the carefree cheesy comedy of the series that I love so much! Just listen to it!
KISS KISS FALL IN LOVE!
