Ouran High School Host Club – 06

Summary:
A young boy who tells his teacher that he doesn’t want to play the piano anymore pays a visit to the Host Club. Today, the members of the club are dressed up in an Arabian style. The astonished boy quickly gets back on his feet and asks if Tamaki is the king. He then introduces himself as a fifth-grader named Takouji Shirou and announces that he wants to become the king’s apprentice. Tamaki is so flattered that he allows Shirou to watch as he woos a girl during business hours. Ever the blunt one, Shirou compares the girl to a crucian carp. Despite Tamaki’s attempts to patch up the situation, the girl runs away crying.
The twins laugh at Tamaki and then have another one of their brotherly love moments, causing Shirou to realize that not only are they gay, they’re incestuous to boot. He then meets Honey, who’s roughly the same size as him and acts like a little kid, but is actually much older, and Mori, who’s just huge in comparison. Shirou also bumps into Haruhi, and, after scrutinizing her, he asks if she’s a transvestite. Tamaki, Kaoru, and Hikaru insist that Haruhi is a boy and try to gloss over what Shirou just said by having Haruhi give him the tea set that’s she’s holding. Shirou takes the platter, drops it, and then blames Haruhi. Kyoya tacks on another 100,000 yen onto her debt as a result. Tamaki gets so pissed off that he has Shirou isolated in a cage.
Shirou declares that he’s serious about becoming a host – there’s no time left and he needs to learn how to make women happy. He appeals to Tamaki by calling him a genius. Tamaki decides to help, but needs to find a way to use Shirou’s “material.” Kyoya explains that each member of the club has special characteristics that appeal to different customers: Tamaki is the prince type, Mori is the wild type, Honey is the loli-shota type, the twins are the little devil type, Kyoya is the cool type, and Haruhi is the natural type. They want to create a new type for him, but can’t decide on one since Honey is already the young boy type. This cues the entrance of Renge, who decides that Shirou should be the mischievous type. She tries to train him into fitting that role, but Shirou soon has had enough. He runs away, saying that he won’t be able to make that person happy like this.
Haruhi catches that reference to a certain person and also remembers that Shirou had said that there was no time. The Host Club decides to investigate his school by having Honey and Haruhi dress up in elementary and middle school uniforms. The clothes, of course, don’t really serve a purpose (other than allow for Tamaki and the twins to fawn over how cute they look) because everyone else can tell that the two don’t belong. They find Shirou’s classroom empty, and Kyoya notices a photo on the wall – one with Shirou playing the piano together with a girl. The group head to the music room and watches as that same girl asks Shirou if he wants to practice a piano piece with her. He turns her down and asks her to play by herself. Tamaki and Haruhi notice how much Shirou enjoys listening to the girl’s music, and Tamaki uses his charms to convince another young girl to identify the piano-playing girl. Her name turns out to be Kamishiro Hina, and she’s moving away soon.
When Shirou comes out of the room and wants to know what the Host Club is doing here, Tamaki lifts him up and carries him away. They return to the club room, where Tamaki confronts Shirou about his intentions. Tamaki knows that Shirou doesn’t really want to make all girls happy, he just wants to make Kamishiro Hina happy. And the method to do that is something that only he can search for. Shirou is to the point of giving up because there’s no time left, but then Tamaki unveils a piano in the room and starts playing. Shirou realizes that it wasn’t the piano he liked, it was being with Hina. Tamaki had noticed how Hina had wanted to play the piano together with Shirou, so he decides to help out, since Shirou is his apprentice after all.
Kamishiro Hina arrives at the Host Club room and finds two pianos, with Shirou sitting at one of them. She’s quite happy to be able to play the piano together with him. Haruhi comments that Shirou resembles Tamaki and Tamaki agrees. Ten days later, Hina has moved away, but Shirou is still hanging around with the Host Club. Now he’s a girl magnet, outdoing even Tamaki.

Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to this episode because I didn’t really enjoy this chapter of the manga all that much. Fortunately, this episode ends up being as hilarious as all the others. Kudos to BONES and to Tamaki’s character (and his seiyuu Miyano Mamoru), whose antics made most of those moments funny. They also did a good job of working in Renge again. Compared to the manga, she took over Tamaki’s lines about Shirou becoming the mischievous type. I think those lines suit her much better and her inclusion made that scene so much more fun to watch. That was probably my favorite part of the episode, though there were a lot of other great funny moments too (like when Shirou calls Tamaki a “genius” or Shirou’s reaction to HikaruxKaoru).
And from the preview, it appears that Renge will be returning for next episode too – the pool episode. Don’t get your hopes up for Haruhi in a bathing suit though…