Introduction
Our group for this project was Joanna Fujiwara Morozumi, Gwyneth Hardy, Jordan Keene, Katelyn Lewis, and Liam Sherry. For this project, we decided to analyze two male characters from the anime “Ouran High School Host Club”. The anime is about a girl named Haruhi, who pays off a debt to the host club by dressing up as a boy and becoming a host herself. Each member of the host club has a personality that is modeled after the various types of guys a girl might develop feelings for. The two characters we analyzed were Takashi “Mori” Morinozuka, the strong silent type, and Mitsukuni “Honey” Haninozuka, who is depicted as childish and cutesy.
By appearance alone, one can tell these two characters are very different, which makes them ideal for analysis. We hypothesized that Mori would use more masculine speech while Honey would use more feminine or neutral language.
Methodology
Honey and Mori are not the main focus of the series, so there were only three episodes where they have more than one or two pieces of dialogue. Those episodes were episode 12, 18, and 22. We watched the episodes and made transcriptions of both of the character’s dialogue in each of the three episodes as well as charts that depict the data we analyzed through our transcriptions. After compiling the data we were able to write summaries of each episode to detail the gendered expressions and actions of Honey and Mori to help draw conclusions about their gender presentations.
Episode Analysis
Episode 12:
Episode 12 is about Honey getting a cavity, and Mori bans him from eating sweets until the cavity is filled. Honey spends most of the episode angry at Mori (among others) for not being allowed to indulge in his favorite types of food. Thus, he is not exactly his normal cute self. The main difference between Honey and Mori is that while Honey always refers to himself as ぼく, Mori exclusively uses おれ. While both of these are masculine, there is a subtle difference in how they tend to be used. ぼく tends to be more often used by boys, while おれ is more commonly used by men, and it carries more masculinity. Furthermore, status can also be derived from the use of these two words. The kanji for ぼくis 僕, which is also used for “servant”. おれ on the other hand can be used to emphasize superiority in age or status. As both Honey and Mori are 3rd-year students, any age gap is minimal, so the use of おれ by Mori could be used to play up how Honey acts about ten years younger than most boys his age.
Episode 18:
Episode 18 is interesting in that it features flashback scenes where Honey actively tries to use more masculine language. The episode revolves around Honey’s relationship with his family of martial artists, mainly his father and younger brother. The main conflict presented in these flashbacks is the pressure Honey’s family puts on him to act a certain way. This manifests in Honey’s use of more masculine expressions. For example, at around 11 minutes into the episode, Honey says 「ぼくー じゃない。おれ」, referring to himself as Boku before realizing and correcting himself with ore, which has a more masculine connotation. This demonstrates Honey’s relationship with his gender expression in a way that highlights the conflict with his family. At this point in the show, the audience is familiar with Honey’s more neutral and feminine gender expression. This is demonstrated in his use of neutral expressions, such as ーよ, and feminine expressions, such as ーの、へえ、ーはね、うわあ、and ごめんね, in previous episodes. Despite this, in these flashback scenes, he diligently attempts to create a more masculine image of himself which is reflected in his language use. This helps drive home the episode’s stance on Honey being able to express himself freely, seen as neutral and feminine language comes to him more naturally than masculine language.
This is then juxtaposed by Mori’s language throughout the episode. Around 20 minutes into the episode Mori speaks for a notably long duration about Honey. While doing so, Mori uses no neutral or feminine expressions. Unlike Honey, he exclusively uses masculine expressions, such as おれ、～な、and ～てくれ. This is in line with Mori’s overall masculine character and gender expression. Mori directly contrasts Honey in his natural and consistent use of masculine language. This is notable because while the two characters express their gender identities differently, they support and understand each other in a way that reflects the show’s overall themes of gender expression.
Episode 22:
Episode 22 builds on the already established gender roles that Honey and Mori have built for themselves over the seasons’ duration. In this episode, the host club takes in the son of a notorious yakuza member, Kasanoda. Kasanoda is perceived by the general public as very aggressive and even scary, so in an attempt to improve his public image he becomes an apprentice to Mori. Tamaki suggests that Kasanoda needs a “lovely item” to accompany him to balance out his intimidating and masculine presence. Tamaki then uses the relationship between Honey and Mori as an illustration of his point, by explaining how Honey’s feminine and cute personality makes Mori look even more masculine in comparison.
This direct comparison between Honey and Mori exemplifies the two opposite ends of the spectrum that Mori and Honey inhabit. Honey’s young boyish charm is still apparent through his speech and use of ぼくin comparison to Mori’s use of おれ. Both characters stick to their preferred pronoun in this episode and very much play into their assumed roles. This episode in many ways feels like a capstone in the gender socialization that the two characters have experienced through the season. They both fully recognize their gender identity and embrace their differences.
Data:
These charts show the gendered expressions that we collected as data from each episode.
Episode 12
Episode 18
Episode 22
This figure shows the data we collected through our transcriptions that support our analytical claims.