Overall 8 Story 7 Animation 9 Sound 8 Character 8 Enjoyment 8

I fisrt tried watching Host Club two years ago when a friend of mine recommended it to me. When I found out it was a shoujo and a reverse harem, I was very skeptical about it. Furthermore, the last show I had watched was Death Note, and I was not ready for the tone shift between one show and the other. Also, I'm not a big fan of episodic shows. All these reasons led me to drop Host Club at the time. But now, having watched a lot of shows since then and, consequentially, having changed taste and perspective quite a bit, I decided to give Host Club another shot, and I am very glad I did. It takes a very overused and worn out formula and polishes it up, gives it a fancy dress, teaches it to have some goddamn attitude and sends it to the highschool prom. In fact, none of these comparisons were chosen at random: Host Club does not limit itself to all the clichés and tropes found in similar anime, but rather embraces them and completely messes them up afterwards to make something refreshing and interesting to pretty much anyone.This handling is first and best seen in its characters. Every single member of the host club starts out as typical as typical gets, each one having one specific characteristic that makes them more or less appealing to the girls than the others. Where Host Club stands out in its genre is how it develops the cast throughout the show. The way each character is presented at the beginning serves only as an archetype to give them a base on which they can build upon. Each member is given some exposition, normally in the form of a flashback, showing who they were before joining the host club. Without giving any spoilers, I can safely say that all characters had backdrop that excused their way of being. Here, Host Club shows its social commentary facet. We see that the characters are heavily influenced by their economic status. The contrast between the rich boys from the host club and the poor protagonist works in favor of the show, and ultimately serves to show how everyone is a product of their social status and is forced to deal with the conditions they were born in to the best of their capabilities.This not only serves the purpose of explaining the characters' personalities, but it is also shown in the present time as well. Many times we see the club members' families' influences. In one of the earlier episodes, Haruhi has to take a physical exam which would expose her true gender to the whole school. The conflict is resolved because the school's medical team took orders from one of the host club member's family, and so they found a way around the problem. Note that this was not simply a half assed excuse pulled out of nowhere to save the protagonist: it had been previously established that the boy's family had control of the biggest hospitals in all of Japan. It's little things like these that make Host Club stand out.Another particular thing that I don't usually see mentioned is Haruhi's father's travesti behaviour. It's not often that I feel like a character benefited a diferent sexual preference or identity, and it's usually just for fan service. But here, not only did it went well with Haruhi's tendencies to prefer male's clothes, but it was also taken advantage of for one of the episodes, even if at a small degree. I felt the need to dedicate a paragraph only to his character just to be able to rub it on Mirai Nikki's writer and say "THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE QUEER CHARACTERS, MOTHERFUCKER!"And speaking of fanservice, don't be fooled into thinking Host Club doesn't have any. Like I said, the show is simply a well executed and refreshing take on an established formula: it is still a slice of life reverse harem with lots of romance and fanservice at heart. In fact, from colorful and apealling visuals to a cheesy soundtrack ranging from classical to pop (that goddamn opening...) to quirky characters, it's as typical as typical gets. A highschool attended only by rich kids, the nerdy girl surrounded by a bunch of good looking guys, the fact that each host club member is defined by a "type", and the whole concept of a Host Club in general for that matter. Everything is so overblown that it just becomes downright fun to watch. It's sort of like the "so bad it's good" effect, but in this case it's something like "it's so typical that it stands out", in a good way.And so, to conclude, although it is not the pinnacle of character development and it doesn't really have anything new to present, Ouran Highschool Host Club is a very enjoyable show, that can appeal even to people who dislike its genre. Now I finally have something good to recommend to my friends who like cheesy romances and hunky boys to write fanfics about.