Summary: >

Take School Rumble: 1st Semester and do more of that.

Thoughts: >

While I had high hopes for the second season of School Rumble, I was left with a sense of disappointment. The character designs are a step up, although the animation is about the same. The soundtrack was borrowed from the first, although the beginning theme was a changed from lively to something very... loud. It's the story where this series has problems. After the first season we know most of the characters, and the setup has not only been explored, but played out fairly well. Then there was School Rumble: Extra Class which we'll just pretend didn't happen. At this point we have many characters at the cusp of what seems like a bigger story, but by the end... everyone is in the same freaking position!

I still love Harima but this dude is doomed to school romance hell for the rest of eternity. Tenma still likes Karasima, but he's mostly absent this time around. Harima still hasn't professed to Tenma, and even worse she gets to the point where she pissed enough to kick him out of her house. That might have been interesting until they make up a few episodes later and I'm like... noooo! not a reset button! The story was going somewhere! There are some interesting happenings between Eri and Harima, but despite having shared some intimate moments he's still cold towards her, and Eri is still only maybe interested in him. In a juicy development, Yakumo knows that Harima likes Tenma, and even tries to get them together. However she's grown to have feelings for him as well. Is putting Tenma and Harima together helping anyone? Why doesn't she just admit to Harima that she's fallen for him? This unfolds in the second to the last episode... and they don't bring it up in the last episode at all.. and that's that. Many of the other characters I can't say I even like much, and season two expands on them a LOT.

I grew to like some of the characters and was looking forward to seeing things develop, but that didn't happen. They collect experiences but are frozen in time. I've come to the conclusion that author Jin Kobayashi is good at having fun with his creation, which is well suited to a weekly manga publication; but is not working well long term as an anime. There is one universal truth in any romance: while you can string out a story for a very long time, you MUST advance the relationship sooner or later, and that's a transgression this one passed and then some. Whether you should watch School Rumble or not depends a lot on what kind of person you are. Do you like conclusions, or are are you fine with simply enjoying the journey? There is no finish to School Rumble, and the entire second season progresses NOTHING. It does manage to be fun, if not rehashing pretty much everything we've already seen, so in order to keep us from getting completely bored the stories go off into odd parody tangents, which are somewhat effective. For what it is, School Rumble isn't terrible, but manages to get precariously close to stale by the end, and is inconclusive to boot. If you're here just to enjoy the ride, you'll enjoy yourself well enough.