A review by misosoupcup
Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 9 by Bisco Hatori

3.0

not one of the strongest volumes in my opinion but i think this a critical volume in terms of crafting the characters. i noticed a distinct change in tone in this one (though it could be made up in my head). not only do we get more backstory into the twins and how they were recruited, we also get backstory into tamaki's character and his tragic story about him and his forced estrangement from his mother which really tugs at the heartstrings. in addition, we get maybe two pages of a deeper motivation for haruhi and why she's here. 

In the future I want to be a lawyer. The reason I chose Ouran is because if I keep up my grades, I can receive a scholarship to enter the university's department. I'm also chasing memories of my mother. So I won't laugh at you. I can't laugh at you. There's nothing funny about it at all.

Not to go on a tangent about the anime, but tamaki is so fucking ridiculous in the anime, and he definetly is in the manga too, but a lot of his more emotional beats are truncated in the show (which to be fair only has one season), and he reads more as comic relief (to me) than a viable love interest for haruhi who is frankly a down-to-earth and realistic person. I just personally feel like tamaki's more serious moments are introduced too late, and his persona is not equal to haruhi in the anime.

That being said I am so curious to see how their characters and their relationship develops in future volumes because I now find tamaki so compelling.