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Ouran High School Host Club Episode 1 Recap — 53 Comments

  1. I tried watching Ouran but I don’t know… Maybe it’s cos I’ve read the manga and seen the anime, but I just can’t stand seeing the actors. They’re not really what I imagined Haruhi and Tamaki etc… to look like (And yeah, I don’t like Yamamoto Yosuke) so whenver I saw them on screen I just wanted to yell “No! That’s not what they’re supposed to be like!” Lol. Maybe it’s just me.

    • Same case with me.. Tamaki should be the wierd but the thoughtfulness and charm of Tamaki is lost with this adaptation for some reason. Or maybe I just can’t accept the actor playing Tamaki because… Of his looks (there, I said it). I might watch later episodes to see the ending

    • I think Haruhi is okay but Tamaki ( I am wondering, will it be better if it is done by Kame, Ikuto etc…) it brings back lots of good memories, I started it from the Anime and then the manga (didn’t finish yet, right?) Anyhow, Koala, thanks for the recap and glad that you like it.

  2. Aw, no comments yet! (Hopefully there will be one by the time I post this doubtlessly long comment up!)

    Ouran is my favourite anime. I’m not sure whether I like the literal anime-to-live-action translation of the manga, but one thing I do agree with you is that the cast is perfect. I don’t follow J-dramas, so I wouldn’t kn0w if there are better actors for the role, however I do think each of the actors embody the characters very well. Particular props to the casting of the twins and Haruhi. Especially Haruhi. These gender switcheroo dramas really do hinge on the likeability of the main character, which is why I never particularly liked You Are Beautiful (ugh, the main character whose name I’ve blocked in my mind), or Hana Kimi (though I did like Ella in her other roles. I didn’t mind Maki in the J-drama version because she was so bland. Besides, the male leads totally stole the show in Ikeman Paradise).

    Wow Kawaguchi Haruna is absolutely pitch and looks perfect. Where did they find her?

    After watching this, there were parts I did like. I think I am going to follow it, which is saying a lot because I’ve been really picky with dramas for a while now, and I haven’t wholly enjoyed any drama since Dream High. The anime-style of this is something I’m hesitant about, but I’m hoping it will improve.

    I’m also hoping the ratings for this will improve as well. It isn’t fair that it got a graveyard slot. Not sure how ratings/cancellations work in the J-drama world, but I’m really hoping they won’t cancel it, and that the drama improves. There’s so much potential here.

  3. My favourite manga!!! When i read your earlier post, i was wondering to myself: wouldnt it be awesome if the guy who do tamaki’s voice in the anime can also act in the live action…but after reading your recap… maybe it’s not so bad, in fact, sounds like fun! Irasshaimassen~~

  4. Being a fan of both the manga and the anime version, I sure did keep my expectation low when I first heard about the cast list. However, once I saw an interview with all 8 of them, I knew it’s gonna be a winner.
    I’m totally hooked on this live action version after episode 1 🙂
    Their chemistry is awesome! I don’t even care whether anyone looks like their manga counterparts or not because they play their characters perfectly.

    I kinda think of this as another HanaDan. Anyone remember the commotion when the actors lineup was first announced? Poor Mao-chan was branded as too “ugly” to play Makino back then. I don’t think people even associate her with the “u” word nowadays. 🙂

    • Yup, it reminds me of HanaDan. In fact it reminds me so muche that I intend to watch HanaDan again but may be after Ouran. I don’t want to mix up all the lighthearted fun with HanaDan’s angst and drama.

  5. Coincidently, before reading your notes about live action Ouran High School Host club, i have the opportunity to finished the entire 25 episode of its anime series, which I lurve so much..it was hilarious. Reading the recap, making me wanting to watch the live drama. It always amaze me how they can cramp all stories into only 8 episodes but still delivered a great story. I think they probably extend it to second season…like they do with Nodame. Anyway, i’m going to watch it soon. Thanks Ms Ockoala for the awesome recaps!

  6. Kyaaa….will u be recapping the next one?I love the anime n manga but am currently unable to watch the live action.
    Your recap definitely will help with my craving for ouran~

  7. Oh.my.goodness. I went into watching this one with no experience what-so-ever with the manga or anime. Results? I laughed my head off. Such a quirky, funny show. Tamaki’s rubber face had me on the floor, and when he took off his shirt to wade into the water I was dying. Haruhi is absolutely adorable – I can tell she’s gonna be a favorite! The over-the-topness of it all makes it work for me. Absolutely hilarious!

    (The only thing that I struggle with is the twins and their “secret forbidden gay twincest faux love, in the shoujo allusory fashion”. Btw, what exactly does that mean? 🙂 )

    • exactly what it says — suppose they are two guys of the same age, who grew up thinking they were twins. only they are not but their parents are away or dead or something and they don’t know they are not actually related. They realize that they love each other (making it both gay and faux-incest), and they struggle with the growing strong attraction, that is forbidden from society and hidden from each other. And, all of it done shoujo style.

      Welcome to the world of fanfics 🙂

    • Or worse they really are related and fall in love with each other…that’s been done a few times with that Angel anime and that manga/j-movie I’m in love with my Sister.

      The whole incest slash thing is getting pretty common. Do you know the show Supernatural that has the brothers Dean and Sam Winchester? Yup they have slash fanfic too and even addressed it in an episode when they found out about…which was HILARIOUS. (To clarify in the Winchester’s universe there is someone who writes their lives as novels, thinking it’s fiction, because he receives visions and as a result there is a convention and fan fiction for the series of books which Sam and Dean find out about)

      • haha… I LOVE Supernatural!!!!!!!!

        “There’s Sam girls and Dean girls and… what’s a slash fan?”
        “As in Sam/Dean…together.”
        “Like, together-together?”
        Hahahahahahahaahaaa. Thank you, Chuck!

      • looool yea I know that as hilarious the Sam & Dean
        The funniest was when Dean found out!! 😛

        well throughout the seasons they’ve always been mistaken as gay 😛

    • Well I was struggling with that while watching the anime, I don’t know about the dorama, but in the anime they get more interesting (well all the characters get more interesting and we get to know them as individuals) and even the twins, we get to see how different they are, and how they like to be perceived as 2 different individuals, not as a set, without people differentiating between them. basically each one of the host club members has a reason for acting the way he does. I still don’t know if I should watch it… I did really love the anime!!!

  8. I am so happy you’re watching this as well!!! Thanks for the recap! It’s a joy to watch. Very light and out-of-this-world.

  9. I have seen the 1st 2 episodes of this and they were hilarious. Im really looking forward to seeing the rest. I’m just sad that the episodes are really short.

  10. Okay everyone here has watched the anime.I am not a JD fan and definately not watched any anime/manga.
    I watched it because ms Koala seemed amused by it.I tried it and her WTF is going on is absolutely correct.If I suspend disbelief I was having a whale of a time watching it.It’s so ridiculous is becomes funny.

    So thank you for liking it because I don’t know where the time went when I was watching it.I can’t recall the last time I LOLed so much at a drama.Don’t even know if it’s supposed to be funny or whether I didn’t appreciate it.

  11. I love this drama already. I was so nervous when I heard they were making a drama. I mean the manga and the anime are both so amazing I was terrified they would wreck it for me. I forced myself to watch it and immediately fell in love. Haruhi is just brilliant and Mori is just too awesome! I’m glad you enjoyed it too Koala 🙂 I was also wondering if you had been watching any of the remake of Hana Kimi and Ikemen Desu Ne? Do you think they are worth watching? Just curious if I should check them out?

  12. Waahhh! So funny your recap …and I haven’t even seen the episode yet.

    It kinda reminds me of the antics of Hana Kimi but without the secret gender.

    I’ll probably watch the JDorama as well and try not to compare it to the

    anime or the manga.

  13. I think I just got another dose of craziness..watched the raw…then watched again with subtitles…then read ockoala’s recaps…hahahah..and to think, I read the manga and watched the anime!CRAZY!

    It’s so CRAZY that I want to watch the entire drama already(entire 8 episodes or 11 eps..or whatever number of episodes it has)…grrr..and now I’m worried when the drama ends…Nooooooooooooo!

    Thanx OCkoaLA!!

  14. I LOVED the first episode…with Haruhi actually ASKING what the cgi is about and why things happened it made it even more awesome. When Tamaki got slammed with that usui and everyone is all, “good attack method” I just started laughing. Great use of CGI here. I’m personally a Yusuke fan from some of his other work so to be he’s pretty. Maybe that show with Maki where he was a model got me geared to think that way but I can’t wait to see him in ParaKiss.

  15. she’s really damned CUTE that I want to try a j-dorama again. And because her character in the manga was not only cute, but also mentally SANE. *g*
    But dear ockala, I need to ask… DO YOU EVEN SLEEP? You’re recapping FOUR dramas at the same time? Wait, is it more? B&W, MQ, DTLY, SMW and now OHSHC?!!!!!
    I’m only recaping 2 and I ALREADY have to take half of the night to do that…
    I really sometimes wonder if there’s a human doing your blog. ^^;;

  16. Ahhhh what to do?? I love the manga, anime, but can’t watch the J drama… and it’s all because of the main guy. Tamaki is my fav character of Ouran and the guy kind ruins everything to me T_T I expected other actor… what to do??

  17. OHSHC was always my second favorite manga after Hana Kimi. After being severely disappointed by all the versions of Hana Kimi (they cut out my favorite parts!) I was very reserved about watching this show. I was pleasantly surprised. It maintains the feeling of the characters and follows the story line well even though the episodes are short. I find all the actors to be the best real-life versions of the characters. I know that Tamaki may not be the best looking but I will sacrifice that for the faces he makes. I’m really excited to see if they end the show like the manga or like the anime also. I think either would satisfy me.

  18. Recap too, you are just awesome 🙂 Didn’t read the manga but enjoyed watching the anime tremendously. Glad that the live-action doesn’t stir away from the crazyness of the anime.

  19. I’m still not into this yet but I will see more episodes. Prob is that I’ve seen the anime and read some parts of the manga and I just can’t see it with real actors in it.

    I wish Tamaki is more handsome… in the anime & manga, I see him more as a dumb, funny but very good looking prince.

  20. I watched the anime and loved it so much. Had a low expectation on the live action but I’m totally hooked with it.

    BTW, the cast is perfect. I was a bit skeptical on Tamaki but Yamamoto Yosuke play the character to perfection. Sure he isn’t what we expect of Tamaki in the look department but I rather have him than a good looking actor but cannot act.

    My fave character is the twin..but Hunny is too cute especially when he hug haruhi <3

  21. I really love Tono, I never get tired watching the anime.
    I think I watched it more than 3o times now, maybe so much more than that.

    It would also be nice if Ikuta Toma is Tamaki-kun ’cause he’s also freakin’ hilarious. But I don’t have any problem with Yamamoto Yusuke. I loved them both in the ORIGINAL Hanakimi. 😀

    I love Yusuke and his variety of roles in the past: can see different auras and spirits to female-phobic model. Now to a innocent-moron tono.

    But sometimes I can’t take the Hitachiin brothers doing their routineXD
    Maybe in the anime I’m used to it but in the live, damn, I can’t even look at them because these are real people, real twins! Ahahahaha.
    I’m not even used to them acting like that! I’ve seen these twins from “Mei-chan no Shitsuji” (Another heck of an awesome live action), as the serious butlers Sakon and Ukon (literally meaning “Left and Right”).
    Maybe I’ll get used to it in the future. I really hope. 😀

    For Honey-senpei, I really hoped it will be Chinen Yuri of Hey! Say! JUMP but anyways, the casting did a great job of it.

    For Haruhi, I thought before that it will be Horikita Maki again ’cause I can’t imagine others doing the cross-dressing so effectively. Two thumbs up for the actress. 😀

    All of them have great chemistry and I’ll love Tono forever. XD

  22. haha, I didn’t plan to follow this dorama for this season but with your awesome introduction I searched for episode 1 to watch and I was LOLing throughout the time. Esp. the scene where Tamaki takes of his shirt out of the blue LMAO

    This dorama further confirms my belief that manga adaptation is probably the strongest genre of dorama nowadays in Japan. They have this specialty in making the wackiest dorama that fills the audience with laughter and fun. They are just so good at and used to the rhythm of making such adaptation. While it’s a bit sad that the other genres in dorama deteriorate throughout the years I’m glad to see they come up with this “niche”.

    Ms Koala, if you haven’t checked out Nodame no Cantabile yet, I strongly and highly recommend it!! So far the best manga adaptation IMO.

    I think I may also have a go for Arakawa Under the Bridge – must be another wacky and fun dorama 🙂

    PS. your recap is at least as awesome as the episode itself!! daebak!

  23. hey there koala! its my first time leaving a comment on your blog annyeong ^_^

    when i first heard about ouran high school host club being made into a drama i was very excited because its one of my favorite manga but then i saw the poster for it and i was like there goes my excitement down the drain! tamaki was nothing like i imagined him to be…i had this image of a beautiful guy like JYJ’s kim jaejoong in my mind…i kind of gave up on OHSHC…but then i read your review and decided to give it a try…and the verdict is that i actually thought the first episode was quite fun and zany! i dont even mind the guy who plays tamaki now…better to have an average looking guy who can act well then a pretty boy who can be defeated in acting by my wooden board (hello kim hyun joong!)

    that said i was still very uncomfortable during the twincest scenes…i was weirded out in the manga too and the drama doesnt make me anymore comfortable…the whole time i was thinking how can these 2 brothers act like that 0_0 oh well many of the viewers find it to be cute…i can never get that :s

    overall i am gonna watch the second episode today…i hope they cover quite a bit of the manga…the drama has such a anime like feel to it which is quite good considering the characters and the story line are quite wacky!

  24. I saw the first two episodes, and I run to dramawiki to learn more about the actors. What make me laugh out hard was the height stated in each profile.
    The ”prince” actor is 1.80? Lol, if he is, then I am more than 2 meters.

  25. Okay, I’m sure someone had the same idea before, but as soon as I saw the Ouran high school host club anime before (and watching the live version now), I’ve always had the idea of Jiro Wang (Da Dong) as Tamaki, honestly, as soon as I saw the boy in ITWAK and HanaKimi, I knew he would make the perfect Tamaki, anyone else feeling it?

  26. So, Koala dear, are you gonna recap the whole series? I already saw the episode 1 and 2 but I enjoy your recaps. Anyhoo, I am glad you are enjoying the drama because I loved the manga and anime.

  27. have to say love the review. Also i love helping sub this drama. Just finished with ep 2 … episode 3 looks amazing ..and i’m having a terrible time waiting for the next episode…
    one thing : i wished they made the episodes longer because i know Japanese dramas are never very long. so either i hope they have a lot of episodes (doubtful) or that they have a second season…. which might not be likely …. can’t you believe they show this at 12:20 am on Sunday …..

  28. <3

    Dearest Koala, you killed me several times with this recap. I love the ridiculousness of this show. Each of the boys are amazing and charming in their own way. *le sigh* I love them all way more than any of the F4.

  29. Thanks for recapping. I love the cast. I’ve seen the anime and I collect the manga. This series has been a long time coming. I wonder why it’s just 30 minutes long. The anime reminds me a lot of Nodame Cantabile mainly coz it resembles the anime version a lot.

    I lot of the fans hate Yusuke as Tamaki but I agree with you Koala that Yusuke was born to be Tamaki looks not witstanding. He is very entertaining to watch.

    This season a lot of gender bender shows are out… Hana Kimi Remake 2011,
    Ikemen Desu Ne (You are Beautiful) and now Ouran. Out of all this Ouran is a original adaptation.

    I would like to add that I am happy the manga is finished and the series would have a manga ending.

    Thanks for the recap Koala-chan.

  30. I always meant to watch this because the feedback online (from those who watched) seemed good actually. This recap pretty much solidified this. I am one of the few who are willing to give the live action (and Yamamoto) a chance.

    I mean, NO ONE could possibly match the manga/anime Tamaki (or anyone else, for that matter) in real life. The only way they’re gonna make it real for me is if they act out their characters to the hilt. And I dare say, from what I’ve seen, that the actors are bringing these lovable characters into life the best they can. They have captured a little bit of the magic and aura of the manga/anime and I am happy with the quirky fun.

    Anyway, looking forward to more recaps! Your recaps bring another layer of fun on the drama, and I find myself laughing at the scenes all over again. HAHA! Cheers to more!

  31. Yusuke as Tamaki is ADORABLE, im fast in becoming his fan after watching this dorama, guy is as HOT as HELL, yes yes im INLOVE 😛

    Anyway i hope they make this the same length as the anime, coz 10-11 usual case is DEF not enough

  32. When I first heard that there was a live action series, I thought it was going to be good; however its not what I expected. I guess its because of the actors. I wish that they would have made a korean version. Gosh, I love Korean actors!!

  33. i loved the live version of ouran host club. I loved the actors too. I loved yamato yosuke as tamaki. I also watched yamato yosuke and the actress who played haruhi in gto 2012. they had no contact in that drama because yamato yosuke played an adult role in it. the storyline was good and I would like to see more because you know eventually hikaru and tamaki will clash over haruhi.

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