Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 11

...(I ordered this book for my neice as a christmas gift) but I am happy to report that my order arrived well within the time frame allowed for arrival--in fact it arrived before I expected it to much to my delight! You folks make Christmas shopping easy. The book arrived in perfect condition. Thanks!

This is another great installment of my favorite manga series. Ouran has started to get a little more serious and emotional, especially regarding the Tamaki/Haruhi/Hikaru love triangle, but anyone who has been following the series knew this was coming. For me at least, this is a welcome addition to the story. Bisco Hatori has been able to keep the lighthearted romantic humor in the series while allowing the characters to grow and develop. Way to go! I can't wait for volume 12!

Hatori strikes again with this very amusing volume containing the Sports Festival, an encounter with a wild tanuki, and some personal introspection (mostly on Hikaru's part). Nekozawa (red team) at the sports festival was the funniest thing in the book. I really laughed like crazy at Kyoya's (white team) "tactic" to psych out Nekozawa during the hurdles race. There's not much Kasanoda (red team) - just a few scenes with him talking to Haruhi at the festival and giving her some yams from the gardening club later. Too bad, because I love him and Nekozawa more than the host club guys. Tamaki is worse than usual throughout this volume: more full of himself, but less amusing. And it starts to get heavy when Hikaru spends pages thinking about things. But this is relieved by the story of Mori and the wild tanuki as well as the ending bit about Chika and Hunny and Mori's pet baby chick. I would say this is a strong volume, probably on a par with the volume about the twins' youth & how Tamaki recruited them. (Volume 9?) I do wonder if there are new translators working on the series. Kyoya seems to be translated much more "roughly" than previously, although there are a couple scenes where he merits this because of anger, and some of the twins' talk is a bit more stilted than their usual artless chatter. Still, keep up the good work, folks!!!