So I finished the anime two days ago and as my laziness stopped me from writing a retrospective about it until now, I've had time aplenty to turn it around in my head. And I can say that my final impressions haven't changed, unlike with a lot of other anime I've experienced that benefit from being viewed as a whole.
I attribute this lack of change to the episodic nature of the show (which forces it into - seemingly - not having an overarching or on-going plot). This, in my opinion, is not a negative as long as each episode is interesting in its own way or poses some interesting character fleshing out. However, I found that many of them featured one-off characters that were either not shown again or else not all that important by the end.
But what is Ouran about? Well, unlike what its name could fool you into thinking, it actually isn't Muslim propaganda for teenagers, but rather a self-aware reverse harem that focuses on a girl as she joins a club filled with handsome men (because of course) due to owing them money. She is supposed to aid in serving (talking to) females as a means of repaying the club and she cannot reveal her true gender and must act as a male as she does so.
The last part actually offered a somewhat unique dynamic since it added tension to each scene by making the audience wonder if her secret would be compromised, though, along with many plot-lines, it led nowhere by the end, which is pretty convenient considering how many situations she got into where her identity was nearly revealed.
And that's one of my complaints with the show: the convenience. Granted, it made quite minuscule by the comedic mundanity of the setting, but it is nonetheless something that bothered me. I acknowledge this to be a pedantic complaint, but it is still something that bothered me. In fact, I've listed below all the examples where such convenience occurs:
In episode three, there is an instance where the MC's gender will be revealed because of annual check-ups, but the issue is resolved through an unforshadowed means by having one of the characters arrange (out of screen) a separate room for her.
In episode 7, the whole issue of private policemen attacking the characters (admittedly, a tension-filled situation) was solved through the unforshadowed hax superpowers of a shota.
In episode 8, the MC and main guy fell off a hill and onto the sea, but magically didn't bump their heads onto rocks and were completely unscathed. Not only that, but the potential rapists that were victimizing some girls were defeated out of screen.
In episode 11, there was a girl who couldn't get with her brother because the latter always crept in the dark (which she was afraid of). In the end, it was solved by her magically losing said fear for some reason...
And, lastly, in episode 22, a guy learns that Haruhi (the MC) is busy undressing and goes after her with the intent to thank her, but finds her undressing instead. Now, how in the world could Haruhi have not already gotten dressed when the situation implicated that there was quite some distance between where they were and the dressing room and when it was shown that Haruhi arrived much earlier. In the end, the show expects you to believe that Haruhi wasn't dressing in all the time that the guy and the other talked while she was away (before the guy went after her) and that the guy must have run at the speed of light or something...
At any rate, I personally confessed to these complaints being pedantic, so please do not take them seriously. They're really just warm-up of sorts for the criticisms to come.
Okay, so first off, I was only able watch 24 of the 26 episodes this series had, since the two I refrained from featured the most despicable characters one could imagine: them lesbians from the other school. Admittedly, I am not a fan of yuri, but even if I had been, the personalities of these aberrations would have proved unpleasant enough to alienate. And indeed, they're mean-spirited, physically abusive, and inclined towards molesting random females. You can't get worse than that. Their presence was far too cringy to stomach and I ended up reading the wiki on those episodes instead.
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't present cringe as a point of criticism, but as these episodes are supposed to serve a comedic purpose, I think that said criticism is apt here.
Other than those, episode 13 was especially pointless since it was merely a dream and contributed absolutely nothing, be it in terms of fleshing out the student body or furthering the characters already present.
Most other episodes, as I said beforehand, were self-contained and didn't do much apart from some comedy and some fleshing out. They were, in overall, underwhelming. Episode 20 served as an obvious exception though, as it was deeply psychological, made use of amazing foreshadowing (available in episodes prior), had very dark content compared to the other episodes, was centered on perhaps the most interesting characters in the show, had depth, and was exhilarating in every sense of the word. It was like peeking into the minds of serial criminals, but with extra flavor. It was so singularly amazing and disconnected from the rest of the series, in fact, that it were as if Alan Moore flew all the way from England to Japan, stabbed the mangaka unconscious and took over for an issue or two. I would give it a 10/10 really.
Episode 24 was more or less the same but with a different character and far more comedic relief (which, if I may say so myself, impacted the thematic exploration in a negative way). I enjoyed that character far more and the catharsis as well as the visual metaphor of the painting were titillating in their presentation, yet the issue, I believe, was resolved somewhat prematurely and would have benefited from being a two-episode plot-line instead. I'd give that episode, in seclusion, an 8/10.
The last two episodes, which kind of tie everything together, were too slow in my opinion and therefore failed to convey as much as they wanted or to resolve as much as would have been desirable. Many questions were still left unanswered and plot-lines hanging despite the 50 min. runtime. These questions/plot-lines are the following:
What happened to Hikaru falling in love with Haruhi and slowly moving away from Kaoru?
What happened to Honey's and Takashi's relationship?
Will the blond guy never see his mother again...?
What happened to the red-head who was in love with Haruhi? (And I understand that he was being courted by other girls. I'm referring to his affection towards Haruhi. Did it just subside??)
Did Honey's brother accept him and, in general, what happened to Honey's brother?
Whom did Haruhi choose at the end? By the looks of the dance during the last episode, she plans on marrying all them boys...
If this is supposed to be a romance, THEN WHY WAS THERE NO KISSING BETWEEN THE MAIN COUPLE???
I understand the subjectivity of the last point, but, as someone in the Youtube comment section pointed out so well, it's Kiss Kiss Fall in Love, not Hug Hug Fall in Love.
Other than that, I appreciated that there were redeeming qualities to both the daughter of the big company and the evil grandmother of that blonde's while the parallel between one of the earlier episodes and the last one in how the blonde went into save Haruhi while falling into the sea was brilliant (their being unscathed by the end notwithstanding).
The way they tied up most other plot lines was satisfactory.
Fanservice was minimal and mostly manifested in the form of dialogue, which is another obvious positive.
Most of the characters had some sort of backstory or personality by which to define them and the main cast in specific was quite well done.
I did not like the commentary on fujoshis, since it wasn't as absurd as the commentary in Humanity Has Declined or as cringy as with JelloApocalypse's video on fanfiction.
I also would have liked the show a lot more if there had been a lot more psychological introspection into the characters a la episodes 20 and 24.
One thing that bothered me about the show in most episodes was the empowerment aspect where the MC is both non-superficial and beautiful, both intelligent and apathetic, desired by both men and women, and even referred to by Kyouya's and the blonde's fathers at the end of their conversation as being desired for their sons to the extent that those fathers would be willing to have their companies go to war against one another.
And that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my complaints about the main heroine. She is very apathetic and uninteresting, especially compared to her peers and therefore makes for the least appealing character in the show as well as the one most lacking in personality, with her fear of thunder seeming detached from her and not having a logical basis in her backstory.
Simply put, I did not like her.
FINAL VERDICT
I would recommend the whole of this show only to fans of parodies of reverse harems or of reverse harems themselves. To most others, I would merely recommend episodes 20 and maybe 24. I did not particularly hate any part (though many instances were cringy) but nothing stood out too much (other than those episodes) to call the show masterful.
6/10
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