Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Guruguru mawaru
At the rate I was going, I was afraid I'd finish H&C before writing about School Rumble. END PROCRASTINATION.

School Rumble is your basic story of guy who loves a girl who loves a guy who loves curry. Huh? Let me start over.

School Rumble is a romantic comedy with emphasis on the comedy. There's two people who can be considered main characters. Tsukamoto Tenma is a ditzy, clumsy, childish 2nd year high schooler who is in love with a guy named Karasuma, a very strange guy who apparently likes curry more than he likes Tenma. The other is Harima Kenji, a delinquent who is in love with Tenma.

There is also a plethora of side characters who play a large role in the anime. There's Tenma's three best friends Suou Mikoto (the large chested girl who has a secret crush on a former sempai), Sawachika Eri (the blonde half-British half-Japanese snobby rich girl who turns down every guy who confesses to her), and Takano Akira (the mysterious one of the group who really doesn't do much). There's Tenma's sister Tsukamoto Yakumo who, despite looking and acting older, is actually a year younger than Tenma. For guys there's Haruki Hanai(the straight-forward class representative who works hard at everything he does and is in love with Yakumo) and Kyousuke Imadori (the mindless flirt who has an obsession with breasts and thus is often seen chasing after Suou). There's also many other characters that I didn't feel like mentioning.

School Rumble seems to blend a bunch few different genres into one. If you look at just Harima's part of the story it'd seem like a harem anime (sort of like Love Hina). A guy who likes a girl and somehow gets a bunch of other girls to fall in love with him inadvertantly. There's at least 3 girls I can think of that start liking him in the series (though two wouldn't admit it and never actually say it). Tenma's story looks like a regular shojo series where a girl stares dreamily at a guy and continually tries to draw the courage to ask him out (though Harima does the same exact thing to Tenma).

The opening song ("Sukuranburu" or "Scramble") is definately one of my favorite anime openings. The song is very upbeat and peppy... it fits the anime very well. The chorus is so damn catchy that I've had it in my head for the past three days. If the song wasn't made specifically for the anime then they did a great job of choosing it.

The best thing I can say about this anime is that it made me laugh out loud on several occasions. There's something to be said about that. Some of the stuff that happens is just so outrageous that you can't help it.

School Rumble rivals Azumanga Daioh as the funniest anime I have seen. It falls slightly short and will have to be considered just second best. There's good news though, School Rumble 2 starts April 2nd. Yes, that's this sunday. I can't wait until I find a subbed version.
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