School Rumble “ends” with this last volume in the series, but why does it feel more like a “See You Soon” than a “Sayonara“?

plot summary

Class 2C and 2D are locked in a battle of brawn as the two compete for school supremacy at the athletic meet. Harima steps up to the plate in order to save the class from a smack down, but is really only doing so to thank Eri for saving him from humiliation.

Harima is still struggling with Eri’s weird feelings towards him, his misunderstood relationship with Yakumo and his unrequited love for Tenma. In a bid to forget it all, the delinquent takes to the high seas.

Tenma has decided she will tell Karasuma her feelings, and sets out to do so, only to find herself caught in a dream, or is she?

The soap bubble which is the class’ adolescence seems ready to pop, but not before it floats some more along the Milky Way of teen love.

review

Gah, School Rumble really is a soap opera! It has just as many convoluted twists, turns and “gotcha!” moments as All My Children. There were two, count ‘em two, cop out scenes which turned out to be dream sequences or something similar. Why would the studio pull this on the last volume in the last two episodes?!

It was a given the series wouldn’t have anything resembling a tidy ending due to the path Volume Five was going down. I wasn’t as miffed as I normally would have been at the thought School Rumble wasn’t going to “end”, because the story still kept moving forward and was still building character and story development. But c’mon, why would they choose to dodge the chance to get more story lines resolved by substituting dream sequences for concrete storytelling?

The minute the story started getting really weird, I knew what I was seeing was a dream sequence, then again, weird stuff is always cropping up in this series so I wasn’t 100% sure until the sequence became even weirder. The minute I figured I was seeing a dream, I resigned myself to watch about ten minutes of fluff. Afterwards, I thought that would be the end of made-up sequences, but then BAM! Is this a dream too? Gimme break! It’s not to say the sequences sucked completely or weren’t entertaining, but the series appeared to be offering closure and then pulls it away. That was a mean prank, especially so close to the end.

Music

The last episode had a new ED song, “School Rumble 4 Ever“, by Go Takahashi. It was a very cheery, hip hop flavored tune, and wrapped up the series on a happy note. It’s always good to go out with a positive impression!

Conclusion

If this volume was supposed to be the absolute end of School Rumble, it was disappointing. However, the anime never built itself up enough to start focusing on a stopping point anyway. The series kept gathering steam, even adding more characters, but neglected to mention, “Yeah, we’re planning on ending.” So this series didn’t actually end. It didn’t even trail off. It simply shut down and will reopen shop in Season Two. Which isn’t bad, especially seeing as it never promised to end to begin with.

Volume Six was just like previous volumes: funny, entertaining and sweet. Unlike previous volumes, it had those two irritating, time-consuming dream sequences.

Rating

School Rumble, Volume Six gets 3 outta 4 Hammies!

Series Conclusion

Stepping back and looking at the anime as a whole, School Rumble is a great series. It’s funny, touching, human, weird, dramatic and all together entertaining. The anime has a touch of randomness which keeps each episode fresh. Yet it also has the feeling of a romantic comedy, so it resolves issues and story lines which come up in previous episodes.

I recommend the series for all who wish to remember (or commiserate with) the pangs and joys of teen puppy love. Except this time, you can laugh at the pain!

Series Rating

School Rumble, Season One gets 3.5 outta 4 Hammies!

Retail Info

• Publisher: Funimation
• Release Date:March 18, 2008
• Retail Price: $29.98
• Number of discs:1
• Episodes:23-26
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Rating: TV-PG
• Language: English, Japanese
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: Animated, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen