Summer is still in full swing in Volume Four of School Rumble, and girls are in the middle of a friendship crisis!

plot summary

Eri has subtly insulted her friend, Mikoto, over a misunderstanding involving Harima. Mikoto tries to confront Eri to settle their dispute, but Eri runs away faster than Mikoto can say “It’s not a date!”

Eri has a strange love/hate relationship with Harima, while Harima despises Eri but is polite to her for the sake of Tenma.

Tenma thinks Harumi is the world’s biggest player and is afraid he might try to woo her little sister, Yakumo while on a co-ed camping trip with their friends.

Misunderstandings seem to follow Harima, Tenma, and Eri around like depressing storm clouds, and the camping trip is no exception. Once again Harima tries to confess his love to Tenma, and once again, Eri gets in the way and becomes entangled in her own emotions concerning Harima.

Harima has issues other than Tenma to contend with, however, as his beloved animal friends have no safe place to stay. Yakumo sees the softer side of Harima and she and her friends lend Harima a hand in helping his furry pals.

Tenma’s classmate, Karen, has fallen for the obnoxious and boob-crazy Imadori. Tenma tries to help Karen out when Karen goes on an obligatory date with Imadori, but it’d be better if Karen forgot about Imadori since he’s already forgotten about her. It looks as if the heartaches surrounding Tenma and company have finally spread to their classmates!

review

Character Development

Volume Four of School Rumble was as funny as previous volumes and gave some good insight into a few of Tenma’s friends; namely Eri, Mikoto and the two’s relationship. But what I kept hoping to see never cropped up in this Volume, which was the reason for Tenma’s attraction to Karasuma. I also kept wanting to see Harima succeed once, just once, in his declaration of love to Tenma.

I understand there’s so much going on in School Rumble, that it’s hard to get info crammed into an episode and still have the episode make sense and be funny. School Rumble resembles a comedic, animated soap opera, in that it’s epic, never ending, and becomes more and more convoluted as time goes on.

The series is continuing on in an organic fashion; one set of circumstances has a profound domino effect on the series and grows into a completely new side story. This organic domino effect is thankfully humorous and is what keeps the long drawn out misunderstandings and “he said, she said”s from becoming tiresome and obnoxious. I will say that it’s hard to keep up with the love stories popping up and crumbling just as fast they appear.

School Rumble, Volume Four went by quickly and had the effect of leaving me wanting more- now. School Rumble is an anime worth investing the time in since it delivers what it promises and then some- laughs, laughs, more laughs, and tears.

Rating

School Rumble, Volume Four gets 3 out of a possible 4 Hammies!