This is a list of characters from the manga series Ouran High School Host Club, created by Bisco Hatori. Ouran Academy is an elite upper school catering to the ultra-rich. Haruhi Fujioka is a middle-class scholarship student, a rarity at the school. While searching for a quiet place to study, she stumbles upon an unused music room which turns out to be the club room for the school's Host Club — a group of idle rich boys, possessing exceptional good-looks, who entertain female clients. After accidentally knocking over a priceless Renaissance vase that's worth far more than Haruhi can possibly repay (¥8 million), she is forced to join the Host Club as an "errand boy" to work off her debt. Soon after, however, Haruhi proves to be a natural host (no training needed) and is promoted to full status as a Host of the Ouran Host Club. It then becomes clear that something isn't quite as it seems.
Name romanizations differ among the several different English-language products released for this franchise: English-language editions of the manga published by VIZ Media and Chuang Yi, the anime from Funimation and the Nippon Television's Japanese-language website on the series.
Host Club members
Haruhi Fujioka
Upon discovering gender, Tamaki insists that they keep it their secret, which becomes the basis of the gender-bender humor throughout the series. Haruhi is portrayed as a female who firmly believes outward trappings, such as wealth or beauty, are secondary in importance to a person's inner qualities. She is not particularly invested in protecting her gender secret. Her cross-dressing as a boy is largely pragmatic due to her inability to afford the $3,000 school uniform herself and her need to act as a Host to pay off her debt. It is mainly the male Hosts who panic that Haruhi's gender will be exposed, leading them to engage in ridiculous schemes to avoid this, which would result in Haruhi having to leave the club and attracting the attention of other males. She is fairly oblivious to physical or sexual attention in general. For example, she is entirely unfazed when the twins lick cookie crumbs off her face to rile Tamaki.
Haruhi is dedicated to her studies and aspires to enter law school to emulate her deceased mother. Her father has a temperament similar to Tamaki's. He works as a host/bartender in a cross-dressing club to support their middle-class lifestyle, contributing to her lax attitude towards gender. She is practical and honest to a fault but also caring and insightful. Haruhi dislikes needless extravagance, often finding the Host Club's antics annoying, and dislikes the artificial. While not above manipulating them for her reasons, she appreciates the boys' protectiveness and their genuine desire to "make every girl happy." The series shows how Haruhi interacts with each of them in different ways and how her relationships evolve. Haruhi tends to be apathetic towards events, preferring to remain at a distance, and observing until she needs to act. She is astute in gauging other people's motives, and her ability to see people's true intentions through their deception is the main reason others are drawn to her. Haruhi dislikes sweets but has a fondness for seafood. Her desire to try otoro, a costly, high grade of sushi tuna, is a recurring gag.
The manga storyline goes far beyond the 26 episodes of the anime and shows the deepening relationship between Haruhi and Tamaki. There, Haruhi's determination to pursue her education is paramount, and she initially denies her budding feelings for Tamaki. Through ongoing shared life events, which include dissolution of the club due to the Suoh matriarch's orders, Tamaki's reunion with his mother, and Haruhi going to the U.S. to study, the two become a couple. In the omake that follows the manga's conclusion, Haruhi still cannot commit fully to the relationship because of their ages. Still, eventually, they marry, as seen in an omake set two years after the manga's close. They are the first of the Host Club members to have children.
Portrayed by: Haruna Kawaguchi, Yuka Yamauchi (musical)
Tamaki Suoh , whose full name is , is a 16 year old second-year student at Ouran Academy, a co-founder and the president of the Host Club. Flamboyant and arrogant, he is the princely type, entertaining customers with upper-class etiquette and shameless flattery but is also the main comic relief character of the series. He views the club as a family, specifically the family he never had growing up. He is a hāfu (half-blooded Japanese), living under the custody of his father, the wealthy chairman of Ouran Academy, and is separated from his ailing French mother because of a deal with Shizue, his cold-hearted paternal grandmother. As the series progresses, he finds himself falling in love with Haruhi but is afraid of confessing for fear it will break up the club, but because of their reassurances, he confesses and they eventually become a couple, moving to Boston but the rest of the club surprises them by moving in next door, showing that the club will stay together even after high school.
At the end of the anime, the club is threatened to be shut down by Kyoya's father and Tamaki is blackmailed into marrying a snobby French girl, Éclair Tonnerre, in exchange for seeing his mother again. Haruhi comes after him to convince him the rest of the club needs him and Éclair lets him go, saving the club. Who Haruhi ends up with is left open, but Tamaki, Kyoya, and Hikaru are all hinted.
His family name is romanized by VIZ Media as Suoh."Ouran High School Host Club Vol. 6." Viz Media. Retrieved on January 16, 2009.
Portrayed by: Yusuke Yamamoto, Junya Komatsu (musical)
Kyoya Ootori is an attractive, calculating second-year student at Ouran Academy and vice-president of the Host Club. He is 17 years old at the beginning of the series.
Kyoya is best friends with Tamaki, despite their completely different demeanors. Kyoya is secretive and highly intelligent, as his ability to calculate the financial and social benefits that result from the Host Club's adventures demonstrates. He is a realistic and pragmatic person, and officially acts as the club's accountant and manager. Unofficially, he is considered the "Shadow King," running the club behind the scenes by influencing Tamaki and their guests. He is generally irritable and slow to wake up in the morning, attributed to his low blood pressure. He always carries various memo-keeping devices (e.g., a black notebook, a clipboard, a pocket-folio with tablet, or an era-appropriate book when in period costume). He keeps extensive dossiers on every student at the school. Kyoya is immediately aware that Haruhi is a girl upon her entrance to the third music room through such research. He carefully calculates his actions in order to receive benefit from everything he does. Yet, despite his occasionally antagonistic traits, such as his subtle threats, withholding information, and elegant revenge schemes for petty slights, the Host Club would not have been successful without Kyoya's resourcefulness and marketing. Although he is rarely seen entertaining guests of the Host Club, preferring to taking notes on meeting events, he has his admirers and is considered the cool "glasses" type.
Kyoya lives with his father, a wealthy and mighty zaibatsu owner specializing in hospital management. Originally, Kyoya is raised to remain in the defined role as the youngest child of four, meant to support his older brothers and family name and not be ambitious or aim to become the family head. Under Tamaki's influence, Kyoya breaks from this role and shows his genuine potential. Despite his detached exterior, Kyoya (like all the hosts) is concerned about others, though it is often demonstrated in ways contrary and atypical. For example, when the Club goes to the beach, and Haruhi confronts two thugs and is tossed into the sea, Kyoya later threatens Haruhi in an attempt to make her wary of facing those larger and stronger than herself so the incident won't be repeated and she will be safe. Another example is when he and Haruhi are shopping together at a mall, and he points out the false nature of an antique to an older woman who is about to buy it. Like Tamaki, Haruhi can see through his mask and, after that, better understands his nature.
Kyoya, unlike the rest of the Host Club, stays in the United States after their joint year in Boston. He is only mentioned in the July 2011 omake because of his university studies there and only makes a cameo appearance in the August 2011 omake. In Volume 18, Hatori declines to confirm whether he is named heir to the Ootori zaibatsu or not. As for his romantic future, she writes that he will marry someone that brings merit to the Ootori family, although she doesn't discount the possibility that love would be involved in said choice. It is also mentioned that he owns a cat named Noir, which is very attached to him. It is said that Tamaki periodically receives emails with only photos of Noir and that he makes an effort to meet up with Kyoya when he is visiting the United States. Tamaki and the twins miss Kyoya to the point of convincing themselves that the lookalike ghost of an Ootori ancestor is Kyoya's "living ghost."
According to the author, if she had allotted forty pages for the first chapter of the manga instead of fifty, she would have cut Kyoya from the cast, but is glad this did not happen as "since the rest of the members are the way they are, he is invaluable for maintaining order and offering explanations." Bisco named him after the fact he wears glasses by taking the last syllable of gankyō, meaning a pair of glasses.
Viz Media romanized his name as Kyoya Otori,"Ouran High School Host Club Shojo Beat Online Preview." Shojo Beat. Retrieved on January 16, 2009. Chuang Yi as Kyoya Otori, FUNimation as Kyoya Otori,"Kyoya Otori." Funimation. Retrieved on January 16, 2009. and Nippon Television's Japanese-language website as Kyoya Ootori."Cast.swf". Nippon Television. Retrieved on January 9, 2009.
Portrayed by: Shunsuke Daito, Masamichi Satonaka (musical)
Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin The twins, and , are depicted as mischievous, devious, and otherwise childish young men who toy with people, including their schoolmates. They are 15 years old at the beginning of the series.
When Hikaru and Kaoru are young, they are fond of a particular maid. One night, they discover her trying to steal from their mansion and offer her a deal. She must guess who is who in exchange for the combination to the family safe. When she can't win the game, they hide the slip of paper with the combination in their piggy bank. However, the maid breaks their trust along with the bank, taking the combination, and the family jewels while they're asleep. They awaken to find her escaping down a rope ladder along the side of the house, and when they ask her why she broke her promise to them, she says it's because no one will ever be able to tell them apart. From that point on, they deceive others in varied ways and expect to be deceived in return.
Before joining the Host club, Kaoru and Hikaru trust only one another, seeking no other friends. In the "Which one is Hikaru Game?" they admit that sometimes they want to be told apart and sometimes don't. Their personalities are quite different, Kaoru being the more sensible twin.