Ouran High School Host Club Pt. 1 (with Rose Bridges and Aisha Soleil)

Covers volumes 1-9 of OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB by Bisco Hatori

Bisco Hatori’s breakout hit has made everyone laugh at pretty rich boys and their host club hijinks for over a decade. At the same time, it’s got a fair amount of problematic takes in it. So should OURAN be considered a must-read classic? OURAN superfan Rose Bridges and manga reviewer Aisha Soleil chat with Shojo & Tell host Ashley about who their favorite boy is (lots of unpopular opinions abound, but we can all agree that Haruhi Fujioka is the best part of this manga) and dissect the ups and downs of Ranka’s portrayal as a drag queen. Of course, there's also plenty of talk about gender being a performance, social class being a different kind of performance, and how the facade of the Host Club lets characters be their authentic selves. Welcome to Music Room #3.

REFERENCES

Ouran High School Host Club is available from Viz Media
Lots of talk about similarities with Fruits Basket
Tamaki is voiced by Vic Mignogna in the English dub, and he has been accused of sexual misconduct
Read The Power by Naomi Alderman
Follow the Manga Mavericks podcast
What's a fujoshi?
Ouran definitely inspired Maid-sama!
Author Bisco Hatori will be attending Anime Expo this year
Please tell me! Galko-chan
Cranbrook Kingswood, aka, "IRL Ouran"
Super cool to eat at The Ratty
Crazy Rich Asians, aka, more mainstream Ouran
Yōji Enokido was a screenwriter on both the Utena and Ouran anime
Still waiting on that Udon release of Rose of Versailles
Reminder that you can legally watch all of the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime subbed on YouTube for free
If you're really into Lobeila in Ouran, get into Strawberry Panic
Modern Ouran: Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun
Outro song: A cover of "Sakura Kiss" by AmaLee, which you can buy on iTunes

CONTACT

Follow Rose on Twitter @composerose
Follow Aisha on Instagram @MommaLuvsManga
Watch Aisha's manga reviews on her YouTube channel
Follow the podcast on Twitter, Instagram, or Tumblr
Follow Ashley on Twitter @AshMcD00

If you have any comments or questions, you can email [email protected]

Please leave a rating in iTunes or Stitcher!

The next podcast episode will be about Ouran High School Host Club volumes 10-18 (which is the second half).