Ouran High School Host Club was one of the most iconic shoujo series of the 2000s with cosplayers at every anime con and a huge following online at the time. For those not familiar, it is a mostly light-hearted reverse harem comedy series centered around Haruhi, a girl from a relatively poor household attending a prestigious school for rich kids as a scholarship student. Due to an unfortunate accident and the fact that the lazy way she dresses caused her to be mistaken for a boy, she ends up getting recruited to be part of the high school’s “Host Club” in order to work off a debt. She must then act as a male to entertain the (mostly) female patrons of the Host Club while also dealing with the various antics of the other Host Club members.

I was originally exposed to this series around when the US English releases where first coming out and read the first 6 or so volumes around that time. I continued to collect the series, but fell behind in reading the books as I got them. Now I’ve just recently started over and read the entire 18 volumes series from beginning to end. While it did have some genuinely amusing moments and even some touching moments with fun characters, it sadly felt like a bit of a slog to get through it all. I am glad that I read the series, but I don’t imagine myself ever having the desire to read it again.

Anyway, let’s get into the category breakouts:

-----Story - 6 out of 10-----
The story was easily the biggest sticking point for me. As mentioned above, the 18 volumes were a bit of a slog to get through. For something that’s largely light comedy content, the series is much more text-heavy than it probably needed to be and many of the storylines felt a bit empty. While the overall story has its interesting bits, I didn’t feel very invested in it until the romance aspect took more of a central focus in the last 5 or so volumes. Also, a major personal issue that I had with the series was how it treated time. Early on in my manga-reading life, one of my favorite things about the series Love Hina was its progression of time throughout the series; characters aged over the years and it actually let time pass at a rate which seemed to line up at many moments with the actual real-world time when the manga was being published! However, in Ouran an artificial passage of time was used for a lot of the series similar to US cartoon and comic series like Peanuts and The Simpsons. At times the text would literally say things like, “A new school year has started, but please ignore the fact that the characters are still in the same grade.” That just really bothered me and took me out of the story. They did eventually pass on to a real new school year, but in a way that almost made the early parts worse. Like, why couldn’t you have just done this early?! Other than that, there were a number of genuinely funny and touching moments, although it did feel at times that the series was nearly twice as long as it needed to be.

-----Art - 8 out of 10-----
There was very little to complain about in the art department. The character designs were largely distinctive and fun to look at. A lot of the clothing design was particularly interesting. While there were some occasional gaffs and some awkwardly re-used panels for flashbacks from time to time, the art overall was very good shoujo material.

-----Characters - 8 out of 10-----
With a core cast of seven characters who you see over and over for 18 volumes, they need to be enjoyable. For the most part, the cast is successful in this. The boys of the Host Club are all largely presented as one-dimensional archetypes, but that was kind of the point. They’re essentially all parodies of different tropes as they play their roles in the Host Club to entertain the girls, but they also have a few nice layers to discover underneath as they interact with Haruhi and each other. Haruhi herself is a rather nice character. While she plays as a bit of a typical “I understand who you all are deep down and therefore you fall in love with me” kind of shoujo heroine, this is counterbalanced by her other personality quarks such as chronic apathy about most things, severe bluntness, and being totally oblivious about some key points (usually romance related). Most of the side characters in the series are also interesting.

-----Enjoyment - 7 out of 10-----
Again, while it did feel like more work to read through this than I would have liked, I did generally enjoy myself and don’t regret reading it. The series had some amusing comedy bits, the characters were fun, and there were some touching moments and interesting character building. Unfortunately the series’ length and bloated nature did hurt how enjoyable this could have been for me and it just barely skates by with a 7 here. I won’t ever care to re-read the series and I only have the slightest interest in watching the anime adaptation at this point. If it wasn’t for the fact that I already own the anime on DVD, I probably wouldn’t bother at all. But depending on your tastes and reading style, you may like this more than me.

-----Overall - 7 out of 10 (Conclusion)-----
So overall, I can’t give this series higher than a 7. I’ve said it many times, but it drags a lot for what is mostly a simple comedy series about reverse harem trope parody and gender-bending antics. While it does have a larger story under the surface, it doesn’t get enough of a spotlight through most of the series to keep you invested while reading. The chapters start to feel like long drawn-out episodic gag-comedy segments which can be rather hit-and-miss and provide only the slightest influence to the overall plot. I feel like the series’ biggest failing is not committing enough to what it wanted to be: Did it mainly want to be a silly gag comedy or a somewhat-serious romance story? It felt jarring as it tried to do both equally. But that’s not to say there aren’t things to like here as well. If the comedy really connects with you, then you might enjoy it for the long haul. If you’re a faster reader, the text-heavy nature may not be that much of an issue for you and not feel like as much of a slog. And of course, if you get into the characters and design of the series, then it could even potentially be a favorite of yours. If what I’ve said interests you, then I’d recommend at least checking out the first two volumes to see if it’s your kind of thing. But if some of the issues I’ve brought up might bother you, then I would not consider the series to be essential reading at this point, even if you’re a big shoujo manga fan.