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Reviewed by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane The last time I reviewed a volume of Ouran High School Host Club, I talked a bit about how well animation suited this series. I love the manga for itself, but I still can't help wishing that I could see this volume in motion. This time around, Hatori-sensei unobtrusively highlights the way half of the boys in the club (Kyoya, Mori, and yes, Hunny--I know, I can't believe I'm writing that) so often take care of the higher-strung twins and Tamaki. Kaoru, nominally the more mature and sensitive of the twins, has taken steps to deal with the fact that he and Hikaru both have feelings for Haruhi, and his strategy isn't sitting well with Hikaru. During the fallout, Kaoru goes to stay with Hunny and Hikaru goes to Mori's, putting the older boys in the position of being their confidantes. Meanwhile, Tamaki hasn't gone on the second-years' trip to France and is trying to keep himself entertained at home to prevent the other members of the host club from realizing that he hasn't left the country. And alone (with his staff) in France, Kyoya takes the opportunity to go looking for Tamaki's mother, following a faint trail of clues to her whereabouts. There's a lot of good stuff packed into this volume. I like how it's about both the friendships between the club members and about the twins trying to figure out their own relationship as they grow up. Being in the host club has gradually been pulling Hikaru and Kaoru out of the world they'd built for just themselves, but as their horizons have expanded and they've started being recognized and treated more as distinct individuals it's becoming clearer to them that they can't necessarily live a single, shared life forever. Kaoru is the first one to recognize that, but it's a nice touch that Hikaru isn't quite as immature or oblivious as Kaoru tends to think he is, and that the other characters know it, too. (I really loved Mori's reassuring comment to Hunny, who's worried about them: "Hikaru will figure something out. Because [he]'s the older brother." It's a nice nod to the fact that Hunny, for all his overwhelmingly bubbly personality, is also an older brother and is also in the position of trying to figure out his relationship with his own brother. And of course Mori is too, although his sibling relationship seems much less...fraught.) Kyoya's search for Tamaki's mother is also pretty awesome, and in addition to showing how much effort the ruthlessly practical Kyoya will put in to looking out for the others' interests (or the club's, as he'd undoubtedly say), it also gives Hatori a chance to delve further into Tamaki's relationships with his family members and into the reasons why he behaves the way he does. Volume 12 of Ouran High School Host Club includes a bonus side story, Hatori's retrospective on working with her first editor, and a page of editor's notes. Review copy provided by VIZ Media. Think you could have written a better review of Ouran High School Host Club v12? Write us and we'll probably let you give it a shot! --EiC PC |
6 October 2009
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