Anime Review: School Rumble

School Rumble is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Jin Kobayashi. It was serialized in the Weekly Shonen Magazine and ran from October the 22nd 2002 and ended July the 23rd 2008, with 22 volumes in total. However a short sequel to the manga was created called "School Rumble Z" which ran from August the 20th 2008 and ended May 20th 2009 with only 1 volume in total. The the Animation studio "Studio Comet" decided to adapt School Rumble into a 26 Episode long TV Anime Series which ran from October the 10th 2004 and ended April the 5th 2005. However that is not all! a second season was made called "School Rumble: The Second Semester" also animated by Studio Comet and it ran from April the 2nd 2006 and ended September the 24th 2006.

School Rumble is a romantic school comedy which depicts the daily lives of the students from Class 2-C of the fictional Yagami High School. The main female protaginist is Tenma Tsukamoto, who is trying to express her undying love to her classmate Oji Karasuma. However because he is so weird and spaces out all of the time she struggles and decides to start as friends indulging in his hobby of eating curry. However on the horizen there is a man who also wants to fight for his love for Tenma-chan and that is the badass highschooler Kenji Harima. He is the schools delinquent who always gets into trouble however this time for sure he wont let he escape his grasp! However he didnt count on that class 2-C would be the craziest one yet!

When it comes to a school anime I believe school rumble has hit all the right points, it has to have some comedy, a huge character list, some tragedy, some romance and a whole lot of randomness! However the anime was only able to accomplish half of that where as the manga was the whole package! However I am reviewing the anime because it is more epic and the manga had a terrible ending. But none the less watching the characters live out their daily routines in a crazy school like this is so hilarious to watch and the characters interactions will never leave you bored or unintrested!

Tenma Tsukamoto: She is the main female protagnist of School Rumble, she is a bit ditsy and can be quite spaced out sometimes, however she has not even a trace of malice or ill-content within her heart. She struggles to do even the simpliest of school activies, and it can be argued even her appearance is last place compared to her other friends. However she constantly smiles and is not afraid to express the feelings locked up in her heart!

Kenji Harima: He is easily the most badass highschooler I know of in the whole manga universe! He might come off as a brash annoying delinquent whose only goal in life is to cause trouble. But all it is, is he is a man with feelings locked up inside his body that he cannot release! He is deeply in love with Tenma-chan as he calls her but has troubles expressing it. However you can always count on him, because he cannot be defeated by anyone!

Yakumo Tsukamoto: She is the younger sister of Tenma and the envy of all students within the school. Not only is she tall and beautifull, but she is very smart and very soft spoken, she is truly created in the perfect image of a japanese house wife. Yet she devotes her life to taken care of tenma from the side lines as she always wishes her safety and comfort like a loving sister. And it seems nothing phases her however it should not be taken for granted.

Oji Karasuma: He is the main love intrest that Tenma is striving for. However he is, how do you put it, blank? yet it is like a generic character with not an ounce of personality within his mind. Yet even though this is true it does not stop Tenma from trying to express his love to him. However it is almost like he is an alien because he does not understand these emotions and feelings that Tenma is trying to get across, he likes curry though.

Eri Sawachika: To sum her up in one word would be the rich princess type, she is long blond hair seperated into pigtails and is of course of mixed heritage. She is smart and strong however she has a fiesty personality that always seems to get mixed up with Kenji's. Thus is leads to a long and difficult love intrest for her and kenji, however of course kenji is unaware of it as well! However she just cannot bare to fight against tenma for this problem.

Haruki Hanai: Last but not least we have the class representative Hanai! He might look like your average highschool geek with those large sqaure frames of his, but he takes karate, and is very well capable of kicking your ass. He is the rival of kenji, and this time not for a love intrest but its just there fighting for male superiority within the class of 2-C. He is the school rules and will not allow problems, however he always seems to fail alot.

What is good about the animation of School Rumble is that they did the correct thing to make this anime more exciting, and that was to make the colours nice an exciting. With brighter colours we are more easily open to laughing out loud at the hilarious jokes and situations school rumbles throws at us! Of course since the anime was made a little over 5 years ago we can see the animation style was only starting to come to grips with improved technology. However even without this the animation coupled with the intense music made this anime worthwhile to watch.

School rumble for me I claim it as the funniest anime I have ever seen! Thats right it is funnier then Full metal panic and ouran high school host club! This is easily the most random and crazy school enviroment I have seen! and it isn't like this anime was only trying to throw hilarity and randomeness at us, no but they tried to show as romance and tragedy and that was executed well. But for me, school rumble will always be remembered as the anime that made me laugh to no ends with characters such as Kenji and Tenma running about trying to show their affections to the person they like so dearly!

However in the end, even with all that said, the anime is still only rated as "good" I can understand why people might not like School Rumble all that much, they migh compare it to such animes like Azumanga Daioh because they think as a classic it is better. And in all fairness that might be true, however this anime was truly the personification of a highschool anime for me, there was no evil villians or world apocolyptic events on the horizen it was just the daily activies of all these highschool students. As their struggle to become adults and be more mature they all discover somthing new about themselves, just like we did in highschool.