When scholarship high school student Haruhi Fujioka starts the new year at the prestigious Ouran Academy, she has no idea what she’ll be getting into. After accidentally stumbling into the unused classroom in which the host club entertains its female clients, she breaks a vase and must join the club to pay off the debt.
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Haruhi, apparently a natural at hosting, spends the rest of the series keeping up with the club’s hijinks, presenting as a man so that she can continue making money for them, and developing close relationships with the other members of the host club.
By focusing on a group of teenage boys whose primary goal is entertaining their female counterparts, the one-season Ouran High School Host Club, based on the manga of the same name, addresses teenage sexual desire in a way that seems encouragingly direct for those of us used to the roundabout moralizing of Twilight and its ilk.
In a self-aware parody of shoujo fiction, the boys all inhabit different “types” (the boy Lolita, the strong and silent one, and the prince, for example), and cater to their clientele by playing up those aspects of their personality. Their willingness to put on a show for the benefit of others contributes to the show’s many subversions, and both in terms of gender presentation and sexual orientation.
