Ouran High School Host Club – 10

Summary:
Tamaki and the rest of the Host Club are visiting Haruhi’s home – a run-down shack. She welcomes them in and serves them tea in a variety of different shoddy cups and bowls. She also serves them discount sushi after having starved herself for three days to be able to pay for it. To Tamaki’s relief, it is all a dream. He gets up and dresses to go to school, but the matron in charge of the mansion stops him because he hasn’t had breakfast and because he forgot to change out of his pajama pants. It’s not until after Tamaki corrects his clothing mistake that she tells him that it’s Sunday and he has no school. In order to get out of having to learn etiquette and manners from her, Tamaki calls up Kyoya to discuss something.
Haruhi meanwhile is returning home with groceries when she sees two limousines parked outside her housing complex. From inside them emerges the entire Host Club, here to see her home. Tamaki tells the others that this is supposed to be an accidental meeting and instructs them that they’re not to call the place shabby or small. Haruhi overhears him and gets pissed off, but the guys make their way to her door anyway. Tamaki breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that it’s not nearly as bad as his dream. Inside, he teaches the guys to sit as if they’re in gym class, with their legs scrunched up to conserve space. He also makes it his job to police over the twins and make sure they don’t do or say anything to make Haruhi feel embarrassed.
After an incident with some special tea that the twins brought, Haruhi serves the milk tea and Honey brings out the cake that he brought. Haruhi gets to choose first, so she takes a strawberry cake. Mori ends up getting the same type and gives Haruhi all of his strawberries because she likes them so much. After cake, the guys start thinking about lunch, so Kyoya offers to order sushi (with the money from auctioning off Haruhi’s stuff). Haruhi decides to go to the sushi store herself, but Honey wants to eat her cooking instead. To do that, Haruhi needs more groceries from the supermarket.
Everyone else runs out to go shopping except for Tamaki, who takes the time to pay respects to Haruhi’s mother through the small shrine in the apartment. Looking at the photograph of her mother, Tamaki can see the resemblance to Haruhi. Haruhi says that her mother was a lawyer and worked really hard. Tamaki gets up so that he can join everyone else in going to the supermarket, but slips on a banana peel and falls on top of Haruhi. It’s at this point that Haruhi’s father returns home from his job at a gay bar, and finds a guy he doesn’t know on top of his daughter.
Haruhi’s father smiles, walks over, throws Tamaki into the wall, and starts talking about his arm hurts from knocking away the biggest beast of the century. He then crushes Tamaki under his foot, saying that he’s found a huge pesky bug. Hikaru and Kaoru return to the apartment wondering where Tamaki is, and they find Haruhi’s father standing on him. But they don’t help their president out; they instead greet Haruhi’s father and call Tamaki a Pheromone Machine who likes to play with pure girls. Tamaki denies it, saying instead to Haruhi’s father that he seriously considers Haruhi to be his own true daughter. And so the first impression that Haruhi’s father decided on for Tamaki is: Idiot.
The rest of the guys return to the apartment and get to meet Haruhi’s father, who goes by Ranka-san – his gay bar name. Actually Ranka-san knows who all of the Host Club members are because he’s been in phone contact with Kyoya this entire time. Haruhi gets angry because her father never told her about that, but her father insists that he did it because Haruhi doesn’t tell him anything. During all this time, Tamaki has been brooding in the closet and cultivating mushrooms. Anyway, Haruhi decides to go to the supermarket by herself, leaving all the guys there.
Ranka-san reveals that Haruhi decided on her own to go to Ouran and tells a story of eight years ago. Back then, Haruhi hadn’t told her father about the open house that her school was having for parents. Once he learned on his own, Haruhi had told him that he couldn’t come without giving a reason, which mortified her father. He had told his boss at work (which was a liquor store back then) that Haruhi was in a rebellious age, but his boss thought that it was because Haruhi was embarrassed about having a gay father. Her father had actually explained to his boss that he was bi-sexual and that he’d never love another woman other than Haruhi’s mother Kotoko. That night, his boss had brought him back home drunk. After the boss told Haruhi that not going to the open house was a shock for her father, Haruhi explained that she didn’t want him to go because she wanted him to get some rest instead. Since he’s so tired, she thinks it’s better for him to sleep on his holidays.
Ranka-san owes his thanks to the guys in the Host Club for letting Haruhi have so much fun in school. Of course he still takes a few more swipes at Tamaki, saying that Tamaki is the worst because he didn’t figure out that Haruhi wasn’t a boy until the end. Ranka-san then invites all the guys to go play with him, but that turns out to involve secretly following Haruhi to the supermarket. When Tamaki wonders why they’re acting so secretly, Ranka-san explains that since Haruhi lost her mother so early on, she did all the housework and the shopping. He had found himself inadvertently following her and describes a scene six years ago when she had caught him in the supermarket with her. At the time, Ranka-san had made up an excuse about how he loved carrying the shopping basket and Haruhi had called him strange.
Ranka-san says that he doesn’t know whether Haruhi is not spoiled or not greedy, but she doesn’t allow you to be worried for her. She unconsciously tries to help others. Tamaki says that he understands, which gets Ranka-san all pissed off at him again. He calls Tamaki the enemy and kicks him out behind Haruhi. When she notices him, Tamaki uses the same excuse that Ranka-san used six years ago. Using the same phrase as back then, Haruhi calls Tamaki strange. She asks him what he wants to eat, and he replies nabe. Watching them from a distance, Ranka-san thinks to himself that the day will eventually come when that unselfish girl will want to be with only one person…but thinking about that now makes him feel sick.

Preview:

This episode covered a whole lot, including chapters 13, 14, and parts of the volume 3 omake. Granted, they made some cuts, but most of the material was kept in, which is still quite a remarkable feat since I didn’t really feel that the episode was rushed anywhere. As usual, there are tons of laughs, but they’re limited to the first 17 minutes or so (if you could call that limited). The rest of the episode takes on a bit more of a serious tone with Haruhi and Ranka-san character development, which isn’t a bad thing.
And so Haruhi’s father isn’t what most people would consider normal, but that’s part of what makes him so much fun. This way Haruhi can have a mother and father in one lol. But Ranka-san’s feelings for his daughter are still protective like any other father. What father would want a Pheromone Machine like Tamaki near their daughter? lol. Actually, the joke that I laughed the hardest on this episode was when Tamaki told Ranka-san that he considered Haruhi to be his own daughter, and Ranka-san decided that Tamaki was an idiot. Anyway, I hope that there’s a lot more Ranka-san in future episodes 🙂
Next week is Tamaki’s little sister and the return of Nekozawa-senpai!