Ouran High School Host Club – 11

Summary:
While searching for her brother, a little girl finds the Third Music Room. Inside, she encounters the Ouran High School Host Club members dressed up as policemen. Pointing her finger, she calls them a reverse (male) harem. What’s more, she refers to everyone by their character type – Kyoya as the glasses type, Honey as the loli-shouta type, and so on. But when she gets to Tamaki, she calls him her brother. Tamaki doesn’t actually have a sister, though Honey does notice a similarity in how they look. He tries to explain to the little girl, whose name is Kirimi, that he’s not her brother, but seeing her face nearly in tears breaks his will. Kyoya reasons that her real brother might actually be in the school, and as if on cue, a blonde man shows up at the club’s door.
None of the club members recognize who this guy is until his servants come and dress him in a familiar dark robe and wig – it’s Nekozawa. As the two servants explain, the problem is that Nekozawa doesn’t like light and Kirimi doesn’t like dark. Haruhi thus realizes that Kirimi must be Nekozawa’s little sister. Kirimi is scared of how Nekozawa looks and calls him a monster. They can’t take off his robe and wig to show the blonde underneath because Nekozawa can’t stand the light, and they can’t close the curtains because Kirimi is afraid of the dark. The Nekozawa family maid compares the sibling’s opposite natures to Romeo and Juliet, even though it’s not really good comparison. She goes on to explain that the Nekozawa family is related to the Russian Tokarev dynasty and that every few hundred years, there is one born who is charmed by darkness, a.k.a. Nekozawa.
Nekozawa could thus only approach his little sister in his costume, yet the brother that his little sister looked up to was the princely one from the portrait in their house. It didn’t really help that their maid had been reading to Kirimi about princes in shoujo manga, which is where Kirimi got her vocabulary. The maid and butler try to take Kirimi back home with them, but she wants to stay with who she thinks is her brother: Tamaki. Seeing his little sister cling to someone else, Nekozawa asks Tamaki to cherish Kirimi and runs away. Haruhi says that she’s envious of him because she herself has always been an only child. But seeing siblings who can’t get along is also sad for her.
Hearing this, Tamaki puts Kirimi down and once again tells her he’s not her brother. However, he promises that there’s a better prince for her than him. Because the Ouran High School Host Club exists for the happiness of girls, they’re going to make Nekozawa the prince character his little sister looks up to. And to do this, he calls upon Renge for her character expertise. Sometime later, they bring Nekozawa back and close the curtains. Renge begins training him to be a prince, but he can’t help but break into his voodoo-speak vocabulary. But since this is Renge, she smacks him, tries to show him what the prince character is supposed to be like, and also shines a bright flashlight at him.
Actually, the Kirimi that Nekozawa is practicing with is only a teddy bear. The twins get the idea to present Tamaki with a mannequin dressed up as Haruhi in a swimsuit. Tamaki’s imagination does the rest of the work, that is until Haruhi herself comes back. Haruhi has been taking care of Kirimi during this time by reading her shoujo manga and she’s gone through fifty books already. Kirimi follows Haruhi into the room and starts crying because of the darkness. Tamaki is easily able to cheer her back up and get her laughing happily again. Seeing this, Nekozawa takes the flashlight and starts repeatedly saying to himself that he’s a wonderful prince and brother. Declaring that he’s not scared of the light, he turns the flashlight on towards his own face.
Everyone is amazed that Nekozawa can finally shine himself with the flashlight. However, when he turns around towards Kirimi, she becomes scared beyond words after seeing his face in the flashlight. After Kirimi runs out crying, Nekozawa doesn’t want to continue anymore. He feels that even if they do, it doesn’t guarantee that Kirimi will accept him. He thinks that Tamaki is better for the role of her brother, but Tamaki disagrees. The one Kirimi really wants to meet is Nekozawa and if he really cared about her, even death should not stop him. Hikaru and Kaoru then notice that Kirimi has run outside, but is now facing a large cat. Nekozawa becomes very worried because the thing that Kirimi is most scared of is living cats.
Without thinking of his own safety, Nekozawa leaps out through the window and down to his sister. Kirimi is almost in tears when she sees and hears the man from the portrait coming towards her – it’s her brother. Holding up Bereznoff, he talks about using it against the bad cats, but collapses in the sunlight before he can finish his sentence. Several days later, the Host Club finds out that Nekozawa has returned to his old self. But something has changed: at home: Nekozawa finds his little sister drawing on his painting. When he slinks away, she follows him and holds onto his robe. She smiles at him and he smiles back. Kirimi thinks to herself that even if a monster appears, it’s ok because her prince and brother will rush out and protect her. It seems that the addition she made to Nekozawa’s portrait was a drawing of Bereznoff.

Preview:

So the little girl from last week’s preview wasn’t Tamaki’s little sister, it was actually Nekozawa-senpai’s. And as you can see, she’s absolutely adorable. As for Nekozawa, they finally get to show how him as he’s really supposed to look, which the manga technically hinted at back during the ocean chapter, but that part wasn’t animated. Actually, I had been a bit confused at why they didn’t show his entire portrait whenever the episode flashed back to it. It’s because, unlike the manga, the portrait didn’t originally have Bereznoff in it. Instead, Kirimi draws it in at the end of the episode, which I felt was a very nice touch.
The medusa-hair is back! lol Renge is perfect for the role of making Nekozawa-senpai the prince type character. Much better, in my opinion, than Tamaki was in the manga. Having her do the part just made it all that much funnier. Overall, the episode had good amount of laughs, but it actually ended up being quite touching at the end when Nekozawa-senpai saves his little sister and when she later clings onto his robe.
Next week is Honey and his sweets! I look forward to seeing the dark side of Honey again. 🙂