If you’ve been following Important Importables for a while, you might have noticed that I like to touch on not only games but game-related imports as well (or at least things from Japan that might interest gamers). Today’s column is one of those days.
Due to coverage of titles like Tokimeki Memorial: Girl’s Side 2nd Season, Otometeki Koi Kakumei Love Revo DS!! and Duel Love, Important Importables has acquired a few otome fan readers (fans of dating/life sims for women). I figured today’s column would be a good chance to highlight an anime episode that they’d enjoy - Ouran High School Host Club episode 4, “The Invasion of the Female Manager.” It has a hilarious storyline involving a devoted female otome fan, a club filled with otome stereotype guys and a series that is going to appear on DVD in the US in the coming months.
Ouran High School Host Club
Ouran High School Host Club is a comedic and dramatic manga/anime by Hatori Bisco that takes place in Ouran High School, an elite, school filled with rich kids. A girl named Haruhi Fujioka, who’s there on scholarship, stumbles into an extracurricular host club run by six high school guys while looking for a place to study and accidentally breaks an expensive vase.
Since, at the time of the incident, she looked scruffy and like a boy, the club’s “king,” Tamaki Suou, decreed that she/he would work as a host in their club until her/his debt was paid off. Of course, within the first day or so of her working there, all five of the other hosts (Hunny, Mori, Kyoya, Hikaru and Kaoru) discovered she was a girl. After Tamaki realizes, Haruhi says she doesn’t pay attention to stuff like that much, and she still stays on as a full host to pay off her debt.
“The Invasion of the Female Manager”
The episode “Invasion of the Female Manager” brings in the recurring character Renge, who happens to be a huge videogame fan. When her father comes home to France after visiting Japan and a business associate, he brings back a picture of his associate’s three sons and shows it to Renge. Upon seeing it, Renge packs her bags, immediately flies home to Japan and enrolls in Ouran.
The next day at the Host Club, Renge shows up, throwing herself at Kyoya and claiming that he’s her fiance. She then goes on to regale the club with stories of Kyoya raising flowers and nursing an injured kitten. (The other club members are in shock, as the Kyoya they know is nothing like that.) It turns out that she is in love with Miyabi Ichijo, a character from a fiction otome game called Ukidoki Memorial, and Kyoya is the splitting image of that character.
The rest of the episode involves Renge appointing herself the manageress of the host club (since Kyoya’s the manager/shadow king and she’s appointed herself his wife), the rest of the members freaking out over the obsessed otaku and her grand video project of creating a live action Ukidoki Memorial using the Ouran High School Host Club guys.
Finding this segment.
There are two ways to find out what happens when an obsessed otome fan meets what she thinks is the living incarnation of her favorite character. The first is to pick up the volume of the manga in which this story occurs. This chapter can be found in the first volume of Ouran High School Host Club, which has been translated by Viz Media and can be found online or in any local bookstore.
Or, if you don’t mind waiting, the first part of the Ouran High School Host Club anime is going to be released in the US by Funimation. Since it covers episodes 1-13, you’d be able to see “The Invasion of the Female Manager” and some of Renge return to lecture Nekozawa (another minor character) on how to be a prince in episode 11, “Big Brother is a Prince.”
It’s also worth noting that, in Japan, there was also an otome game released based on Ouran High School Host Club, called Ouran Koukou Host Bu. In it, players step into Haruhi’s shoes and try to wind up with one of the host club guys. Remember, the PS2 isn’t region free, so if you’d want to play that game, you’d need a Japanese (or modded) PS2.
COMING NEXT WEEK: Important Portables review Princess Crown, the spiritual prequel to Odin Sphere.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Last week Important Importables discussed reasons to import video games.
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