About
Renge Houshakuji
Renge
Renge Houshakuji (宝積寺 れんげ, Hōshakuji Renge?) is the Host Club's (self-proclaimed) manager who tends to be very loud and outspoken. She had lived in France for a short time before she came to attend Ouran. Renge first came across the Host Club by maintaining the belief she was Kyoya's fiancée despite never having met him in person. This is due to her love of visual novel-type video games to a point that she sometimes confuses them with real life. Her fascination with Kyoya originated from her obsession with one such dating game (Kyoya greatly resembled the lead character). Still, her experience with dating sims causes her to be more aware of character development and a thickening plot. Tamaki initially allowed Renge to become the host club's manager in hopes that she would be a female friend to Haruhi and inspire her to act and dress more feminine. He was harshly disappointed when Renge wound up developing a crush on Haruhi, believing she was a boy. In the anime, she almost always enters using a rising platform powered by a high powered motor, even when the host club is off campus, and with a high pitched giggle- "oh hohohohohoho". At first she often complains how they are "not good enough" in various ways, but as she grows more satisfied with the hosts, she begins bringing in more customers with her fangirlish ways. She also changes favourites every once in a while. Amusingly enough, Renge has proven an asset to the Host Club as a manager on several occasions. She can accurately predict what will win the greatest approval of customers due to her wide range of knowledge on various subjects, most of them connected to the concept of "moe". Kyoya has complimented her on several occasions already. Renge also has activities which allow her talents to flourish that do not directly concern the Host Club; in the anime, she is shown hosting a sentai show for school children and she apparently is involved in producing the Moe Moe Ouran Journal (萌え萌え桜蘭日記, Moe Moe Ōran Nikki?), a school magazine containing all things related to moe at Ouran High School.
In the manga, Renge largely disappears from view after her initial appearance in chapter 3 (although she makes cameo appearances in subsequent chapters). Hatori mentioned that Renge was going to be more of a recurring character, but it never happened. Her comment probably led to Renge's numerous appearances in the anime. Some of her parts were originally performed by Tamaki in the manga, e.g. the coaching of Shiro and Nekozawa. Interestingly, in volume 9, her appearances were significantly increased.
A trait that Renge displays in both the anime and the manga is that, when she becomes extremely angry, she assumes a Medusa-like aspect, with her hair transforming into snakes. At such times, she can drive most of the other characters before her in blind panic. Voiced by: Kozue Yoshizumi (Japanese), Monica Rial (English)
Comments
Viewing 10 of 20 comments.