Summary:
In Paris, there lives a girl named Renge who is obsessed with a game called Ukidoki Memorial and one of its characters, a guy named Miyabi who bears a striking resemblance to Kyoya. Her father happens to show her a picture from his trip to Japan, which includes a shot of Kyoya. She realizes that this is the person she’s going to marry and rushes off to Japan. Meanwhile, everyone in the Host Club is dressed up in kimonos designed by Hikaru and Kaoru’s mother. As usual, the girls are squealing over the guys. Haruhi notices that everyone is crying a lot, but then finds a bottle of eye drops that Kaoru drops. In any case, they soon see a girl staring at them from the doorway. Tamaki tries to welcome her in, but to everyone’s surprise, she smacks him away. She has all sorts of bad things to say about Tamaki for being a prince character who scatters his love too easily. But the girl then spots Kyoya and goes gaga over him.
She introduces herself as Houshakuji Renge, Kyoya’s fiancé. But the guys soon realize that Renge has an idealized version of Kyoya in her mind, based off of the Miyabi from her Ukidoki Memorial game. In other words, she’s an otaku and Kyoya’s not really her fiancé. Renge then decides by herself that she’s going to become the manager of the Host Club. Tamaki realizes that if she and Haruhi spend a lot of time together, then Haruhi will become more of a girl. Renge, however, has taken to calling Tamaki a fake prince. She makes cookies for Kyoya, which turn out to be rather bad. Haruhi also made cookies, and the twins take the chance to flirt with her by biting the cookie in her mouth and licking her cheek. Tamaki of course goes berserk over the fact that Haruhi isn’t reacting like a girl should. He’s even more hurt when Haruhi tells him to stop sexually harassing her.
Watching the interactions between the Host Club’s members, Renge decides that she doesn’t like their characters. So, she recasts them: Honey as a boy who has a cute face but is a brute on the inside, Mori as the childhood friend who follows Honey, Kaoru and Hikaru as basketball players, Haruhi as the honor student who’s being violently bullied, and Tamaki as a lonely prince. Kyoya allows this to go on because he thinks that it could turn out to be interesting. Renge actually starts shooting a movie featuring all of the aforementioned characters. Honey, however, can’t play the mean character and screws up his scene by hugging Haruhi (who he’s supposed to be bullying). Tamaki is quite happy playing his role, but Haruhi makes him blush by saying that Tamaki is ok as he is now.
Renge calls Haruhi over and introduces her to a couple of guys she wants to cast as the villains. They’re not too happy to hear this and push her into some equipment. Haruhi protects Renge from smacking into the wall, and then tells her that she shouldn’t see people in such a limited way because then she’d miss the important things. Tamaki sees Haruhi’s tears and gets angry at the two guys, but Haruhi clears them of wrong-doing. It turns out that her tears are the result of her contacts moving. She and Tamaki start laughing over it, and Renge realizes how great a scene this is. It’s all captured on camera, but Kyoya destroys the lens. He can’t let there be any evidence of a club member being violent (as Tamaki almost was with the two guys) – such troubles are very unpleasant. Seeing that Renge is finally starting to understand what the real Kyoya is like, Haruhi suggests that it’s more fun to get to know someone little by little.
Several days later, the girls are all talking about buying and watched a video. The guys realize that Kyoya made and sold the movie with the violent scene cut out. Renge, who apparently didn’t go back to France, has taken the earlier words to heart and seems to have fallen in love with Haruhi. Kyoya is ok with it, but Tamaki runs after the two girls.

Renge’s episode is every bit as good as I had hoped it would be. Hilarious, A++ material.
You really have to see this episode for yourself to take in all of Renge’s delusions and how she treats everyone, especially the way she insults Tamaki. Her character ideas for the Host Club are exaggerations, but they’re not that far of a stretch, particularly for the twins or Tamaki. I think they did a great job of showing off her character at the beginning of the episode with the various shots of the Miyabi figures, dolls, posters, and photos in her room. And by the end of the episode, her new target is Haruhi (who she thinks is a guy). One can only imagine if her room is now decorated with Haruhi stuff.
The good thing is that Renge’s a recurring character, so she’ll be back – maybe as soon as next week’s episode, which is about Kaoru and Hikaru.

30 Comments

  1. makes you wonder what’ll happen if Renge ever finds out Haruhi’s a girl 😀 But I’m surprised they actually fit everything from the manga chapter into one episode. Kudos to the animation studio.

    mangaka-chan
  2. The best part of this episode has got to be when Hikaru and Kaoru are hitting on Haruhi just to anger Tamaki. I Cant wait till they all go over to Haruhi’s house and meet her Father. The shopping scene is gonna be the best.

    as a sidenote. The english translation of the manga sucks a bit, because they keep on referring Haruhi as “She” or “Her” in scenes where they should be using “He” or “Him” by people other than Mori, Kyoya, Hunny, the Twins, and Tamaki. Like Haruhi’s tutor (from vol 4 or 5) referredto Haruhi as “her” but she doesn’t know that Haruhi is a girl.

    Warukyure
  3. For the record, I will always refer to Haruhi as a she unless the scene merits using a male tense. I usually try to take the third person omniscient tone (no pun intended) unless it’s more dramatic/beneficial to do third person limited. Whether or not that actually happens hinges on my state of mind when I write an entry.

  4. Does anyone know where i can download the RAW or SUB version as soon as possible?

    =\ Or does anyone know how long its going to take for the episode to come out for download.

    Lemox
  5. Wow… they really went easy on Tamaki here. ^__^;; Not that I am complaining. I have always thought the manga artist was way too harsh on Tamaki.

    It’s nice to see his caringness gestures not completely ignored/disreguarded/misunderstood because of randomness like in the manga.

    Ori
  6. you can get the first subs up for download at “fansub tv” (just type that into google to get to the site) the sub come in on the weekend (on sat i think) but the time might be different for you cause i live in australia

    Lost-Seeker
  7. @Lemox: Sadly I can’t give you the RAW torrent link… since one of the rules of this blog is to not give links to the raws T.T… sorry…

    Great episode! Renge cracks me up XD she is like those rabid fangirls out there but x10 (now I wanna see Nekozawa in the anime… XP)
    And, I don’t think Renge will be that much surprised when she finds out Haruhi being a girl… she will probably relate her to those girls who dress as males in the mangas and games (like Rei from Tokimeki memorial)

  8. I also found it funny that Girls High had a physical exam angle right next to the Ouran physical examination episode. I guess coincidences happen when there’s so many highschool anime around.

    Shippoyasha
  9. io agree with chewie’ i think its only a matter of time before girls will chase, and man wil THAT be funny!!!! it will probably be funnier than Ranma 1/2. by the way is it just me or does Haruhi look better as a guy? as a girl haruhi kinda looks… weird, the artists should of made her look better cause she’s SUPPOSED to look verrrrry kawaii (cute). what do you think?

    Lost-Seeker
  10. Darn wish BONES would have added the icing to the cake and have Renge do a Host Club Doujinshi and a Haru-chan biography. Still this was one of the best eps thus far, the Uki Doki Memorial sequencees and Renge’s room/shrine was bloody brilliant. Renge the Otaku gorgon.

    Looks like the character intros aren’t over yet so Nekozawa ia next hopefully Haruhi’s dad isn’t far behind. If Haruhi and Renge end up together I’d be supriesed given that this is shojo.

    Crusader
  11. Hehe yeah nice parody of Tokimeki Memorial (Ukidoki Memorial), though more specifically that of Tokimeki Memorial: Girls’ Side (one of the few dating sims with a female player-character and the objective of winning a boy’s heart). And it’s even more amusing that the game console she plays it on bears a rather good resemblance to Sony’s PS2 (which is the only platform Tokimemo Girls Side was ever released in by the way) with a PS3 style controller.

  12. by the way is it just me or does Haruhi look better as a guy? as a girl haruhi kinda looks… weird, the artists should of made her look better cause she’s SUPPOSED to look verrrrry kawaii (cute). what do you think~lost seeker

    lmao i agree man when i say the haruhi girl version i was like WTF IS THAT cause man that looks so wrong….

    silverfish
  13. In Japan there aren’t just a few girls dating sim games…. tokimeki memorial: girls side is only the most famous one… but there is also La corda di Oro, Angelique, Harukanaru toki no naka de, Meine Liebe, Princess Maker 4, Harvest moon for girls, etc, etc etc…

  14. hey, does anyone know why host club #4 isn’t out yet? it was supposed to be out last week, right? sorry if this is a rude question but i’m just curious. thanks for anyone replying.

    Tina
  15. This looks like a nice episode. Thanks for the summary and screen caps! It’s nice to hear there’s a blogger who has something positive to say about this series. ^_^ …And doesn’t mind the bright colors and pinkness. How are you enjoying the manga anyways? (A lot of people say it’s long-winded, but I love it. Despite being crowded with SFXs and labels and speech bubbles and SD picture, I think it’s great. Everything contributes to the big picture–and humor. I just wish there were some more romantic scenes.)

    Fansubbers may take a while to release an episode. And I suppose many of them are college students and finals are coming up soon (or occuring now). Just be patient and a quality version of a subbed episode will be released some time soon. They’re not getting paid so let’s cut them some slack, ne? ^_^

    Emmi
  16. How are you enjoying the manga anyways? (A lot of people say it’s long-winded, but I love it. Despite being crowded with SFXs and labels and speech bubbles and SD picture, I think it’s great. Everything contributes to the big picture–and humor. I just wish there were some more romantic scenes.)
    I just got to Volume 4 of the manga. Just met Haruhi’s father, which was pretty funny.

  17. Great episode. XD Did anyone notice that during Kyoya’s explanation of the director, he mentioned “Sennen no Yuki” or something that translated into The Millenium Snow? I just realized that that was one of Bisco Hatori’s previous works before Ouran. Quite sneaking. XD

    Lala
  18. Bisco is great and if you put her with the great BONES you only get to watch AAA quality episodes, even if the changes are a bit percible (in the manga Tamaki actualy punches A-bad-guy) this Renge episode was hilarious.
    Cheers to Bones 4 Eureka7 (geat end that brought me to tears of happiness) and to Bisco Hatori who is realy a master of drama-commedy.^^

    Btw I can’t wait, I just want a certain shopping-scene to appear (I firstly read it last year in September on Japanese, but I coulnd’t get over the images, altough I didn’t understod a bit)

    RickaZ

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