Still sick. Here we go:

No. 2- Ouran High School Host Club

Working our way to number one, we have finally reached number two: the awesomely funny romcom that is Ouran High School Host Club. I watched this simultaneously along with Lucky Star about two summers ago. Again, it was pretty popular over at Lunaescence so I said, "Why not?" I loved it so much, in fact, that I've watched it five times over: twice in Japanese and three times in English, and I still cannot get enough of this show! The jokes are hysterical, the animation is beautiful and colorful, and the characters are flawless. Let's move on to the breakdown.

The Story: Fifteen-year-old Haruhi Fujioka is a scholarship student attending Ouran Academy, a school for the rich and famous. Because of her tomboyish looks, she is mistaken for a guy right off the bat. While trying to find a place to study one afternoon, she stumbles upon the empty third music room and upon the Host Club, a club run by the school's six best looking guys in order to entertain (and seduce... sometimes) their female classmates. After accidentally breaking a vase in the room, Haruhi has to work for the club to pay off the debt she has to owe them by doing various chores, that is, until they discover her potential as a host (still completely unaware that she is female). Then it is decided that she will have work off her debt by acting as a host, even when they do find out her real identity.

The Animation: No laziness here! BONES out did themselves in this series. It's bright and colorful, character designs are beautiful and almost nearly match the original character designs from the manga. Some of the scenes and actions are simply brilliant (mostly stuff from Tamaki acting crazy), so there are really no complaints in the animation department this time. Bravo, BONES!

The Music: The music in this show is simply amazing! The totally catchy opening, "Sakura Kiss," is sung by the talented Cheico Kawabe and the ending, "Shissou," is performed by Last Alliance. I became really attached to the Japanese versions of the opening and ending, so much in fact, that when the English dubbed version came out and they redid them, I was thuroughly dissapointed. However, Vic Mignogna (Tamaki's English VA) did  his own version of the ending, which was flawlessly done. I'm still wondering why FUNi didn't use his version. Anyway, the background music is very light and upbeat for most of the show and becomes slow and sad when needed. They're beautiful orchestrations really.

Pairings: The anime left pairings pretty open-ended, but it was obvious they were leaning more towards the Tamaki/Haruhi pairing. For now, it's just fanpairings really.  Het fans will pair up Haruhi with just about any of the guys depending on their tastes. Yaoi incest fangirls will definitely squeal over the bishies and pairing them up. *facepalms*

The Characters: What a cast of characters! It's important to remember that each of the characters' personalities is supposed to fall under certain categories, considering that's how a host club works. Haruhi is indifferent and slighty-apathetic, and appointed the role of "The Natural Type" in the club. Tamaki is a spaz and a womanizer, but he means every single cheesy word he says, making him "The Prince Type" as well as the club's "king" since it was his idea in the first place. Kyoya is the totally cool and sly brains behind the club, earning him the title of "The Shadow King" as well as "The Cool Type." He's always looking for ways to make money for the club. Hikaru and Kaoru are the "The Devil Type" twins who like to pull pranks while maintaining a "brotherly-love" relationship (for the yaoi-incest fangirls). Honey is the cute, happy-go-lucky, cake-eating monster, martial arts master that falls under the "Boy Shota" category. And of course, if the were real, Mori would be my host (^_^). As Honey's cousin, he spends most of his time with him and falls under the "WIld Type" due to his sort-of mean look and his skill in martial arts. However, he is quiet and rarely speaks other than "yeah," "uh-huh" and "bad idea," and is pretty stoic. <--Wow, this was long.

Ouran High School Host Club is a fangirl's dream: it has hot characters, romance, comedy, beautiful animation, and stellar music all wrapped into one series. I could watch this series over and over again and never get bored with it. The jokes don't get old, you fall in love with the characters, and you find yourself wanting more and more ever single time. I'm glad I watched Ouran; it's an amazing series I think anyone, anime fan or not, should watch.

Ouran High School Host Club is property of FUNimation. There are currently 26 episodes.

Ouran Episode 4 Icons, after a really long hiatus, are now finished and up. There's a lot of them this time, plus I was too lazy to put them in chronological order. Meh.I'm also including some other fandoms as well, manly some Haruhi stuff, with a little The World Ends With You.

Icons

[x43] Ouran High School Host Club
[x25] The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (some are from doujinshi, some are from the light novels)
[x3] The World Ends With You (Rhyme-cenrtric)

Signatures

[x12] The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (some from doujinshi)
[x1] The World Ends With You

( All of this... All of this could be yours... behind the cut.  )

The page will be streched due to the size of most of the signatures, just letting you know. And if you do decide to take, please credit me at the very least, thank you.

EEEP! The Ouran dub comes out on October 28th, as you may know. That's six days after my birthday, so Andrew said he's gonna pay for half of it as a b-day present. :D

I want to do a little commentary about the cast.

Caitlin Glass as Haruhi

My bets for Haruhi were on Laura Bailey, so I was a little surprised when I found out Caitlin was playing her. However, after seeing the trailer for the first DVD, I'm more than thrilled that she's playing Haruhi.

Vic Mignogna as Tamaki

From the moment it was announced that FUNimation was going to dub Ouran, I knew Vic would be playing Tamaki. He's perfect for the role, and he even stated several times at conventions that Tamaki was the one role he really wanted to play. So for him, it's like a dream role. I love his enthusiam in the trailer.

J. Michael Tatum as Kyoya

To be honest, I've never heard of him until the cast was announced, nor do I believe I've heard him in anything. We'll just have to wait and see.

Todd Haberkorn as Hikaru

Same as Tatum, we'll just have to wait.

Greg Ayres as Kaoru

I've really only heard Greg in DNAngel as Satoshi, and in like the one episode of Full Metal Panic! and Kanon Andrew made me watch. I'm a little skeptical as of now. EDIT: After starting BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad, I'm loving Greg Ayres voice. Definitely, he should use his a slightly deeper version of Koiyuki's voice for Kaoru. 

Luci Christian as Honey

I love her as Tenma in School Rumble! Her voice definitley has the cuteness required for Honey.

Travis Willingham as Mori

I'm not worried at all about Mori. Travis's voice is perfect for the role. Nice and deep. Just like it should be! :D

I take back what I said earlier about no news on Ouran. FUNimation's News Section has proved me wrong otherwise. Apparently, they won't be giving us news until Friday. Good thing it's Tuesday.

And yes, I'm home sick. I know I just had a four-day weekend, but I wasn't feeling so hot yesterday, either. And that's about it.

 EDIT: FUNIMATION HAS ALSO GRABBED D.GRAY-MAN WHILE THEY WERE AT IT. HOLY SHIT!!!! :D SEE HERE!