The unordered list approach has worked just fine for the last few posts, so I’ll go with that again. Hopefully it makes reading a little easier; you can skim over bullets you aren’t that interested in (and so can I, if I consult this later).

• I’ve already noted OHSHC’s use of character tropes regarding Tamaki, and it seems to work the same way all around. In one of the podcasts (of which there will be another someday, I swear!), Cuchlann and The Kitty Meister made some comments on OHSHC’s minimizing the importance of gender roles — that is, at no point does gender practically matter all that much, and we can take that as a statement about gender roles, if we want to. The show seems to handle character stereotypes similarly, setting up familiar scaffolding around its characters and building within it people we actually come to care about, sometimes in surprising ways. It’s as if the creators threw a bunch of stereotypes in a room, then challenged themselves to turn them into characters so compelling that the audience would forget about the stereotypes that begot them, sometimes for entire episodes at a time. Renge, the resident fujoshi (well, since all the girls who frequent the host club have those tendencies, the resident uber-fujoshi), might be an exception, but then she may not count, as she’s the most vocal meta/fandom character, a significant role in its own right.
• The creators really had an eye for visual cues. The animation gags are varied and funny; the metaphors, while generally not especially subtle, hit me in all the right ways. Episode 24 really outdoes itself in this regard.

  

  And this example is only the most obvious in the episode. I wonder if I’d appreciate the show more if I knew more about visual art (not to mention music) — no, I’m positive I would.

• In the end, we come to an idea that seems to turn up often in shows I particularly enjoy: those who get the most out of life are those who love what they do, regardless of what it is they do, exactly. To put it into an analogy, Tamaki:Hosting::Akari:Gondoliering. Both channel their raw enjoyment into helping others, whether intentionally or not. I can see the benefits of the love-what-you-do angle, which actually worries me a little, as I’m naturally a do-what-you-love type, and while those sorts can do great things if they apply themselves, they often hurt themselves and others along the way with their single-mindedness (see: James Joyce). But I don’t think these shows suggest that everyone must love what they do before they do what they love; that both types exist in the world results in a sort of balance.
• This is more personal than anything, but I thought the later episodes were stronger than the earlier; I started enjoying the show more around the halfway point, which, don’t get me wrong, isn’t to say that the beginning is bad. In the absence of perfect consistency (which is rare anyway), I prefer it this way, as later episodes generally have more of an impact on me, and few things annoy me more than a story that starts out strong and gets weaker toward its latter parts.

At one point I would’ve made some comment here about OHSHC possibly turning you gay, if you’re male, but being worth it anyway, but that’d subvert the show itself, which suggests that perhaps our gender terminology — and, hell, several other of our taxonomies — might be a little outdated. So watch it, and maybe, like me, you’ll be glad you finally listened to all those people who have been telling you to.

p0nt1fus I think I’ll marathon Ouran High School Host Club this weekend. How many man points do I lose for doing that?

…I didn’t expect to find anything of note after two episodes, even considering the number of people who replied and told me that my preconceptions were, shall we say, off. Actually, surprise itself may be the source of my fervent desire to jot things down so early on.

I had decided, for some reason, that Ouran would surely be your average (or, well, slightly above, given its reception) shoujo wish-fulfillment show. I mean, a man-harem? Not that I’m about to deny the ladies harems of their own when I so irrationally enjoy harem shows, but even I’ll admit that most harem shows are…shall we say, lacking in some areas? I was, thus, fully prepared to hate this flamboyant young man — surely he would be inhuman in his perfection, a shoddy mess of fanservice.

Imagine my surprise when Tamaki turned out to be sympathetic (and hilarious) because being smooth around women is the only thing he’s good at (so far, at least). It’s his dicking-around that causes the first major plot complication, after all. Now imagine my delight when he was one-true-paired with a character who can see right through his bullshit. Those of you who have recommended Ouran to me at some point or another may be thinking something along the lines of, “well yeah.” Generally my tendency to make snap judgments with the assumption that I can (and will) always revise them later is annoying but harmless, but sometimes, sometimes…

I’d like to say something here about how Ouran is meta-shoujo, but I don’t know enough about shoujo to fully process all the potential commentary, so I’ll skip that for now. I just like meta-stuff, but, barring meaningful comments thereupon, I’ll leave you with this: the unspoken implication of the host club’s taking advantage of women for fun/profit/etc. amuses me, mostly because self-righteous douchebaggery in general amuses me when performed around a character who can see it for what it is and will probably (hopefully…come on, Haruhi, make me proud) start to expose it as time goes on. Mind you, I’m not saying that the host club is founded entirely on self-righteous douchebaggery, but I feel pretty confident right now in saying that’s a part of it.