Ouran High School Host Club/Headscratchers

I know it's necessary to set up the plot, but still, why didn't Haruhi's scholarship include a free uniform?

• Scholarships can be for tuition only, not covering the costs of uniform or books.
• Or her uniform was damaged before the semester started and not replaced, like her original hairstyle.
  • Most scholarships are for tuition only. It's also possible (given how early it was in the school year) that Haruhi simply hadn't had a chance to get a uniform, since it's implied that they are individually tailored and likely only available at the school itself.

Why in world does the FUNimation site give every episode a TV-14 rating? It may have moments of slightly mature content, but the show's almost always tamer than the average episode of The Simpsons and those are almost always TV-PG.

• The Simpsons has a family household and the neighborhood around it as the show's setting, not a high school with a club that basically advocates female pleasures.
  • "female pleasures" basically comes down to at most Squeeing at mildly suggestive things, while The Simpsons maintains its rating even in episodes with characters explicitly having sex with each other.
  • I'd hardly call Hikaru and Kaoru's act a "mildly suggestive thing".
  • Still hardly deserving of TV-14, especially considering it is an act. I suppose they'd rather just overrate it than deal with the trouble of accusation of an underrating, since most of their audience doesn't really care about those.
  • Media companies don't set their own ratings.
• Because raters have every incentive to be conservative with their ratings, since only a few fans complain if they think something is overrated but moral guardians raise holy hell if they find something underrated.

I know Haruhi is supposed to be some combination of The Stoic, a Deadpan Snarker, and The Snark Knight, but it went too far in chapter seven of the manga. The Zuka Club used her just so they could humiliate her friends and her father (which they didn't know about but still did anyway) and record the entire thing, and she didn't care at all. I mean, get pissed, look indignant, throw a punch, something. Most people don't like being used to embarrass their friends and family.

• Speaking of which, what happened to the Zuka's fanclub members plan to beat up Haruhi if they didn't like her performance? The whole reason the Ouran club and Haruhi's dad watched the play was so they could protect/evacuate her in case they need to, but the issue is suddenly dropped once they find out the Zuka clubs plan (or was the threat just something the Zuka club had them make up so the Ouran host club would come see the play?)
  • They were probably too upset that their idol was actually going to kiss someone this time.
  • Haruhi does get angry at Benibara in the Anime. The episode ends before they escape because it's funnier that way.

How come Haruhi had to crossdress to join the club? It might've been a great opportunity for it to rise on a new level. "Ouran High School Host Club - we serve men and lesbians now!"

• Possibly because the Guests wouldn't like men they don't... ahem... 'know' sitting in the same room as they are while having a session - or maybe because it never quite occurred to the host club that they could do such a thing.
• Because the hostess club had a monopoly on male customers, and it probably "wouldn't do" to cater to such prurient things as sexual interests of any sort, the club is only there so that the ladies of the school can have a pleasant time enjoying the company of the hosts (Or so Tamaki would say. I wish I were kidding).
• Rule of Funny. Also, this troper thinks that the Haruhi's androgyny, is an Affectionate Parody (among many others) of the somewhat (ahem) feminine look that Bishounen males have in Shojo manga/anime. It's also possible that there's a play on the standard character design in use; the idea that a group of guys couldn't tell that Haruhi was a pretty girl who regularly had boys fawning over her simply because she wore a sweater instead of a dress is itself ridiculous.
  • It wasn't just the sweater though. She was wearing thick glasses, looked generally disheveled, her hair was unkempt and cut short, and - no doubt thanks to her father - didn't exactly act or talk like girls normally do. Besides, aside from Tamaki the club members did caught on quickly about her true gender.
    • Haruhi got bubblegum in her hair and the haircut was an emergency (and probably self-inflicted) solution. (that's canon) The glasses were another emergency solution after she lost a contact on the first day of school (also canon) As for the sweater... Maybe it was laundry day? Haruhi is the only one without a maid, remember, and she probably has to do all of her washing at a Laundromat, too.
    • Well, Tamaki was the last of the club members to catch on that she was a girl, and all the others seemed to be playing along with Haruhi's pretence because they were waiting for him to figure it out (they weren't going to tell him; that wouldn't have been funny). By the time he'd twigged, Haruhi had found that she rather liked dressing as a boy—and besides, do you think Tamaki would let his "beloved daughter" serve as a hostess to men, especially men he didn't know?
  • But Haruhi never did pretend to be a boy... the subject simply never came up, and they never addressed her with gender-specific pronouns. And it doesn't appear that Haruhi likes dressing as a boy so much as she doesn't particularly care either way; gender-neutral is as close as she comes to dressing as a boy on the weekends and the only clothes she ever complains about - male or female - are the high heels she wears in Episode 2. She even wears the St. Lobelia uniform without complaint or hesitation. I think her true intent is challenging the Host Club's preconceived notions about gender and their "Beauty is Everything" beliefs with her "It's what's inside you that counts" philosophy.
• You have to remember that she wasn't crossdressing on purpose- she just wore what she felt like and didn't care how it looked. And she was only there to work for them and pay for the vase; they hadn't planned on making her a club member until they saw how nicely she cleans up. They eventually just made her host without everybody realizing she was a girl, then when they figured it out, they just didn't get rid of her. It's really less "Dress as a man so you can work for us" and more "Work for us to pay off your debt- oh, you're a girl? Well you still need to pay off the debt."

How could anyone have possibly won the "Which One's Hikaru Game"?

Even if you could tell one apart from the other, there would still be no way to tell which one is Hikaru because they're always hiding which one is which and you can't tell what someone's name is just by looking at them. It's like if you have two boxes and have to guess which ones has something in it when they're both always closed. Or like forgetting which relative has which name even if you remember their face. Even if they look completely different, you'd still only have a 50% chance on the first try because what it looks like doesn't give you an indication as to what's inside/what their names are unless you've been informed before what the correct option is like.

• This troper always thought the "Which One's Hikaru Game" was just something the twins would do now and then because they were bored. No one was ever supposed to win. That's why they were so affected when they found out Haruhi could tell them apart.
  • It's made fairly clear in the series itself that, yes, the entire point of the "Which One's Hikaru Game" is that the twins don't intend for anyone to ever be able to win it. It's a way of keeping themselves closed off from others and a reaction to the way that many people treat them as though they're interchangeable. Well, that and they're kind of jerkasses. Tamaki makes some fairly insightful observations on the subject during the flashback to his recruitment of the twins into the Host Club.
• It's not so much the getting it right as it is the knowing there's a difference. The twins lie when Haruhi guesses correctly, which is probably what they always do. Haruhi is the only person who calls them on the lie by pointing out how she knew. Everyone else just accepts being wrong.
  • It's This Troper's opinion that it's very possible to tell on repeat viewings - Hikaru tends to speak first and be slightly more bold, while Kaoru tends to be the one immediately agreeing - but if that's the case, then in at least a third of the shown cases, they boldly lie about which is which.
  • Word of God: Hikaru stands on the right because he usually talks first (and so that their hair is like a set of pulled curtains, but they change their hairstyles back and forth so that doesn't help any), which goes with Hikaru being the bold one and Kaoru being the cunning one. This difference is most easily seen in a scene about nine or ten volumes into the series, where Hikaru goes up to Haruhi and asks about something, and Kaoru (off ahead and to the side, close enough to hear but far enough not to be included) realizes that Haruhi was lying to protect the Hitachiin brothers' feelings. (For some reason, I can still identify them most easily at least 80% of the time or more, not including instances where they were not identified by name in the scene, by reading a couple of their speech bubbles and making an intuitive guess instead of trying to remember whose hair is combed which way today or who is wearing which shirt. Maybe Tamaki's method of winning "Which One's Hikaru" really does work once you get to know the two characters?)
    • In the Anime, you can tell by listening carefully to their voices. One is slightly higher/lower than the other.
      • Or because one of them's Watanuki and the other's that pervy Jewish kid...

If Haruhi's gender was exposed, would all their customers demand their money back for the books and things? Would she be run out of town on a rail?

• With the way the customers react to all the Ho Yay, probably not.
  • But Het Is Ew, so at least some customers might initially protest, leave the club in shame, or both.
    • They're cool with Ho Yay among the boys. They might not be happy with themselves being roped in.
• I imagine they would have some serious questions regarding their own sexuality
• Come on, now. Can you see Kyoya ever giving a refund under any circumstances? I don't think he'd give them their money back if the stuff he'd sold them infected them all with swine flu...
  • Well, it's not like anything was sold to anyone under false pretenses. Note that not once does Haruhi ever claim to be a boy or deny that she's a girl. She may wear a boy's uniform but she has never actually lied on screen to anyone about her true gender. It's not her fault if they can't figure it out.
  • In the final episode of the anime, Haruhi is dancing publicly with the host club in a dress that would obviously show her cleavage or at least some feminine feature. And nobody seems to notice or care, or maybe they're all just...a little slow.
  • At the end of the manga, everyone discovers. The customers decide that next time they see Haruhi, they would ask her about crossdressing; they weren't really angry, just surprised.

Does Tamaki's dad know that Haruhi's a girl? In the anime he (somewhat creepily) offers Haruhi a rose in full view of all the parents. Is the heat off now that he's divorced?

• This Troper assumed that he knew because he saw her application to get in. The scholarship does come from him (or at least his family) after all. The episode "Haruhi in Wonderland", while it is a dream, does imply that Tamaki's dad had met both her and her father back when she had long hair.
• Maybe it's the The Not-Secret. I mean, come on. The entire school couldn't be that dense. Maybe the students really think she's a boy, but the faculty either plays along or just ignores the crazy stuff, thinking it's just some weird game the students play.

Isn't Fuyumi upset at all about being passed by her father? It's not unheard of in the Ouran-verse to a have a matriarch e.g. Tamaki's grandma.

• Tamaki's grandma probably married into the Suou family.
• In the manga, she is married and already moved out of the house.
• Maybe she just isn't interested in being the heir.

Renge aparently is constantly listening to everything the club members ever say and do based on her ability to pop up on the podeium on a whim. How can she not know Haruhi's gender?

• Well for one thing, she's dumb as all hell. She's also at least slightly unhinged.
• Perhaps she does know, but is Genre Savvy enough to know that The Reveal must come very early or at the very end. By the time Renge arrives, the opportunity for an early reveal has already past. Revealing it before the end would just cause the story to Jump the Shark, and Renge is having far too much fun to end things now.

Eclair takes her opera glasses with her into the shower? That was just two shots out of the last episode, but it almost qualifies as a Non Sequitur Scene.

• I get the feeling it was meant as Fan Service.
• I wear my glasses in the shower, because I've had them for six years and wouldn't be able to find the shampoo otherwise. Sure, Eclair's opera glass is stupid and inefficient, but she might need it. Just because we see her not wearing them at one point in the finale doesn't mean she can see without.
• Eclair's opera glasses were blatant symbolism to the prejudiced and highhanded way she viewed the world around her. Losing them in the last episode simply meant she was shedding that ideal.

Isn't Haruhi a girl's name? So wouldn't everyone just be able to tell her gender from hearing her name?

• Japanese names are at least a little bit more gender neutral than English names, and there are cases of men having women's names even though it's unusual, so everyone may have just said "Oh, I wonder why his parents gave him a girl's name" and gave it a pass. Though why no one asks her about it is pushing suspension of disbelief a bit.
  • It's not the least bit surprising nobody questioned her name. Disregarding names that were at one time almost exclusively given to men ("Shannon") and names that are seen as gender neutral ("Cameron"), I've personally encountered plenty of "male" names given to females; Tyler, Taylor, Alex, Jordan, Blake, Adrian, Chris, Drew, Bryce, Devon, Max... While I listed recent American/modern Western European naming trends, anyone who is even a cursory anime fan knows that Japanese naming conventions in terms of gender are similar to the modern West. On a side-note, I've noticed that it's much more rare to give a male a feminine name than it is to give a girl a masculine name.

How much hosting has Kyouya actually done?

• Not much, we've only seen snippets of times he does host. My theory is that he simply hosts when he feels like it and plots/plans/markets the rest of the time. Plus, someone has to do accounting and stuff - why not Kyouya, who (unless indicated otherwise) wants to?

Okay, there's enough manga for two more seasons, so why the HELL aren't they in production?

• Seconded. Like, a thousand times.
  • Probably because the original anime had somewhat of a definitive ending and the production company doesn't have the budget/doesn't want to allocate the budget to a series that is not the hottest new thing/some other reason that has something to do with 'we think just one season is fine'. The fans think otherwise, but for now we'll just have to deal. :(
• There are two reasons for a Shoujo manga to be turned into an anime. The first is to advertise the manga. And the second is to give fans of the manga attractive male characters (And attractive female characters depending on which manga it is) that are in color and move which is much better than black and white still pictures.

Is Renge part Japanese?

Her last name. Or is it the all too familiar "Screw the foreign last names!" rule that appears when authors can't think, or care for, finding names in languages they don't know?

• I think she is Japanese. Didn't she say when she was introduced that she only lived in France since she was ten?

Why does everyone on this site say that Haruhi is cute?

I mean yes, she is cute, WHEN SHE ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE A GIRL which happens a grand total of THREE times during the anime (I haven't read the manga yet) and two of those I didn't like the way her hair looked. The rest of the time she looks a lot like the main character in a Shounen action anime.

• A lot of people would argue that she looks cute with her short hair; I mean come on, those eyes are ADORABLE (This coming from a girl)!!
• Not everyone is straight, a girl, and/or always likes girls who specifically adhere to a certain look. She often looks like a cute girl in boys clothes.

What the heck is up with Tamaki in ep 8?

When Haruhi is eating crab, Tamaki gets scared....for no good reason as far as I can tell. That scene manga makes a lot more sense, so why change it?

• I didn't think he was acting scared... I think he was just irritated/frustrated that Haruhi was purposely not acknowledging him at all.

Has anyone ever notice how Tamaki hardly ever swears? Sure he got a "jackass" and "bastard" in there, but other than that, he's got a pretty clean mouth.

• Why does this bug you? It makes sense for his character. He's polite. Also, his dub voice actor doesn't like to swear in his roles and will try to find a way around it unless it's absolutely necessary for the story.
  • It doesn't bug me, it's just something I noticed. But, if what you're saying is true, and Vic doesn't like swearing unless he has to, then why didn't he use alternative words. For "Oh, there's a reason. A damn good reason" he could've said "darn" or something. And for "You bastard...!" he could've said the original line "Kyouya!"
    • While the 'Jackass' comment was a bit jarring (yet still hilarious), the "You bastard..." line is actually sort of justified considering the situation. Tamaki just walked in on Haruhi, the girl he's in love with, and a half naked Kyoya standing next to a bed together. He probably jumped to conclusions (this IS Tamaki after all) and became angry thinking Haruhi was about to be assualted and by his best friend even. We all know that's not the case, but I digress. We already know Tamaki'd have no qualms against beating up anyone who hurt Haruhi, so swearing at the 'assailant' shouldn't be too out there.

What is wrong with the clubs at this school?

Ok, I get: They are rich, so they are excentric. They are japanese, so they come up with weird ideas. Tamakis father is the principal, so he won`t prohibit his own sons club. But what about the other parents? Doesn`t it bug them that there is a HOST CLUB at Ouran? Ok, it`s a pretty tame one, but if my child (especially if I had a daughter) told me that there`s a host club at her school I would definitly get upset. Considering that many of the families which send their children to Ouran are in the ascendant, it doesn`t seem wise to upset them. And even if I was convinced that there`s nothing going on at this "Host Club", I would finally get enraged as soon as I found out that there`s a BLACK MAGIC CLUB, too.

• • Well,In episode 25,one of Tamaki's clinet's mother had stated her disapprovel of the club. Cue Tamaki going all 'Oh my, what a pretty lady' on her and she soon swoons over Tamaki like her daughter does. Who's to say Tamaki((althouhg ever word that comes out his mouth is geniune.))Hasn't done this before to all the Host Club Client's parents((More likely the mothers,than the fathers though.))
  • OP, you would be enraged at a club that consists of only a handful of members (only two named in the manga), the leader of which walks around the school with a puppet and suffers from severe photophobia? I'm pretty sure any parent who was worried about the Black Magic Club would only need to attend a meeting to see that they aren't exactly a threat to the well being of the other students. High schools and colleges have silly clubs all the time- real-life-quidditch teams and Dungeons&Dragons clubs are both common enough. I fail to see the real issue with kids acting gothy and pretending they can do magic (when, obviously, they can't). Add to that the fact that the very rich tend to be less than concerned with actual parenting- they might worry about their kids grades, but it's unlikely they would talk to them enough that such a random and over all unimportant club would come up in conversation. Plus, there's the fact that Nekozawa himself seems to be fairly flush. If ever he received a complaint, I'm guessing he would just donate a new wing to the school.

Haruhi's Hair

• What is with Haruhi's hair? We have seen it long on at least three ocasions I can think off (The dancea party, her date with Hikaru, the final episode.) And at least one of those times she was wearing a wig. But the other times the sudden growth in hair is unexplained!
  • Hair extensions, duh!

What's with the new school uniforms they tried to introduce?

• I believe it was in the Halloween episode. Renge does a dramatic entrance and then starts going on about how the girls at Ouran will be changing from the big, yellow, Pimped-Out Dress uniform to a more normal, pink school girl uniform. And then... we never see that uniform again. As far as I can remember, the other girls never wore the new uniforms. So, what was up with Renge introducing them? Did they plan on using them if Ouran got a second season or something?
  • She was just cosplaying.
    • Are you sure? Because I could have sworn I remember her saying something about it being the new girls' uniform for Ouran when she was talking.
      • Having just watched the episode, I can confirm it was cosplay for the new installment of the video game she's obsessed with (Uki Doki something or other).

Why didn't Hunny-sempai just go to the dentist

In the episode, "Hunny's three bitter days" everything could have been averted if he had just scheduled a dentist appointment after he realized he had a cavity.

Why did Haruhi never get a passport?

Seeing as the twins offered to take her to Bali but couldn't because of a lack of a passport, why did she never get one? Is there some restriction on international travel in Japan?

• I think the implication was that she had never had the need for a passport before and it would take her too long to get one for the Bali trip. She probably never had the means, need or desire to travel internationally before (and then wouldn't need to get a passport), which isn't really all that uncommon. Why waste money and time on getting a passport if you aren't going to use it in the immediate future?

Why was Haruhi's reaction to the twins for the infamous cookie scene so bland? I figured she would be more annoyed with them licking her face...