Haruhi Fujioka

Haruna Kawaguchi was sixteen years old when she portrayed Haruhi in her first feature-length film.[6]

Caitlin Glass, who voices the character in English, referred to her work in Ouran as a passion project.

At the start of the Ouran High School Host Club manga and anime, Haruhi enters the prestigious Ouran Academy on a scholarship. Looking for a quiet place to study, she stumbles upon the school's male-only host club, where she is initially mistaken for a boy due to her short hair and oversized clothing because she lacks sufficient funds to purchase a female school uniform. After knocking over an expensive vase, the club forces her to work off her debt by becoming a host. Haruhi identifies herself as a biological female, but agrees to portray herself as a boy in order to repay her debt to the club. She carries on, keeping her sex secret from the club's clientele, by wearing a male uniform and using masculine pronouns.[7]

At first, Haruhi dislikes being forced to work for the host club. However, as the plot advances, Haruhi slowly grows less introverted and starts to realize that the boys of the host club have become her best friends who are helping her to learn and grow into a better person.[8] The episodes consist of comedic explorations of shoujo clichés and gender performance. Unlike other shoujo heroines that Ouran High School Host Club parodies, Haruhi is an independent, hard-working, asocial character who "embraces, if not a genderqueer identity, then at least a gender-ambivalent one."[9] Haruhi, herself, does not view gender identity as important.

Caitlin Glass, the English-voice actress of Haruhi, has noted that the character is both among her most challenging and her favorite roles. In an interview with Swerve, she described how difficult it was to "believably [be] a boy [while] still appealing even to a male audience." Taking the dual role of director and lead character, Glass said she felt like she had "something to prove" and, initially, she was under great pressure.[10]

Afro Samurai of IGN listed Haruhi among his 25 "greatest anime characters." Stating that while the reverse harem genre of anime had been "done to death" by the time the Ouran High School Host Club anime was released, Haruhi's character went against the established tropes of the genre. Described as "super tomboyish, demure, and not at all moe," Haruhi is considered a good contrast to the eccentric cast of rich boys.[11] In an anime review, IGN's D.F. Smith praised both Caitlin Glass and Maaya Sakamoto for their performance as Haruhi in their respective languages, reporting that it is a "tricky role".[12] Sakamoto was nominated for a Seiyu Award in 2007 for her portrayal of Haruhi.[13]

Rose Bridges of Anime News Network lauded Haruhi as one of the "freshest elements" of the anime. Comparing Haruhi to Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket and Tsukushi Makino from Boys Over Flowers because of her strong sense of empathy and her "take-no-crap" attitude respectively, Bridges praised the character for her intelligence, ability to speak her mind and her "blasé approach to gender roles."[14]

Haruhi's gender orientation has long been a moot point. In 2014, Aja Romano of The Daily Dot called Haruhi one of the "rare cases" where a character refuses to return to "safely heteronormative territory [15]. Writing for The Mary Sue in 2015, Alenka Figa considered the Ouran series as one of the "Top 5 Queer Voices in Anime," citing Haruhi's attitude regarding gender roles as evidence. In contrast, Reuben Baron (2018)[16] and Jessica Thomas (2020)[17] of CBR.com fail to include Haruhi in their expanded lists of genderqueer characters.

Mangaka Bisco Hatori appeared at Anime Expo 2019 held at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California, USA. When questioned about Haruhi Fujioka, she revealed that Haruhi was originally meant to be a boy, but one of her editors suggested a gender swap. Thus, Hatori invented a female character that "doesn't need to dress up like a boy other than the fact that those are the clothing she wears and likes" without adding subtext regarding gender identity. She expressed that she isn't hung up on genre parameters or gender orientation because every person should be proud of being unique while remaining true to themselves. In summation, Hatori stressed Ouran being a story about family and friendship, without any intention of being a pioneer of "fujoshi comedy," though admits that it happened just the same.[18]

• Official Ouran High School Host Club manga website (in Japanese)
• Official NTV Ouran High School Host Club anime website (in Japanese)
• Official Funimation Ouran website