School Rumble Ni Gakki – 05

Summary:
The day of the culture festival has finally arrived! It also happens to be Karasuma’s birthday, and so Tenma and the class are going to throw him a surprise party. She’s even made him a birthday cake. 2-C starts off the festival by putting on their cafe, which ends up being more like a hostess club. Tenma ends up being the only girl who’s not getting any business. Akira, who is playing the part of the club’s “mama,” gives her the motivation to continue on.
Hanai is pumped up about their class doing the most business until Suga informs him that the Tea Club’s cafe is drawing away all the customers. Nara goes to investigate, but gets lured in by Itoko in a maid outfit. Hanai then goes to see what’s going on, but gets caught by Yakumo in a police costume. Hanai of course goes along with the act by playing the detective role. Harima, on the other hand, is forced by Itoko to wash dishes for the tea club. Itoko eventually comes to tell him that “sensei” is waiting in another room for him.
That sensei turns out to be Yakumo dressed up like an artist. She refers to him as her assistant, causing him to realize that he must be in some sort of sacred manga place. While they’re working, Harima admits that he hasn’t been drawing recently. Yakumo tells him that she works hard because she can see the happiness in the children and in the people around her. She tells Harima not to give up and to do his best. Yakumo gets called out by Hanai (her outfit was using his glasses), and by the time she returns, Harima is gone. He did, however, leave a note signifying that he took her advice. Harima later gets a call telling him that he’s missing the newcomer’s manga award ceremony. Harima is ecstatic that he’s recognized now as both an artist and a man.
Back at 2-C’s classroom, the girls are gone and there are no more customers. Hanai rallies the guys, but even a host club doesn’t work. The girls eventually return from shopping for food for a party. Meanwhile, Tenma picks up two cakes from Yakumo – the one for Karasuma, and one that Yakumo made for Harima. She sets Karasuma’s cake on a cart outside their classroom and walks off. Harima, trying to catch up to her, accidentally trips over the cart and spills the cake. All that’s left of the “KARASUMA” that was written on it are the last two letters. Harima assumes that the “MA” stands for the last letters in his own name and decides to fix the cake up by writing in the rest.
Harima doesn’t realize his folly until the class starts celebrating Karasuma’s birthday. In an effort to right his wrong, Harima jumps at the cake and ruins it. However, it turns out to be Yoshidayama’s swimsuit sumo championship cake. Tenma then presents Harima with the cake Yakumo made for him. He thinks it’s from Tenma and eats it happily. She goes outside to get Karasuma’s cake, but finds Harima’s name on it. Tenma has to use some fancy cutting so that Karasuma only gets a crescent shaped cake with the “MA” part written on it. She eats the rest herself and apologizes to Karasuma, saying that she has a weakness for cakes. He later finds her crying to herself on the stairs and thanks her for making the cake. The two go back to the classroom together.
During that day, Tennouji Mio and Harima Shuuji also came to see the festival. The two of them get separated after Mio mentions Shuuji’s crush on Tsukamoto. She mistakenly thinks that Tenma, who happens to be dressed up as Dojibiron Pink, is the one that Shuuji likes. Mio then falls down a set of stairs and tears her shirt. Yakumo saves her from Hanai and stitches her shirt back up. Mio really admires the beautiful girl in front of her and confides in Yakumo about her feelings for Shuuji. Yakumo tells her not to cry because that would trouble the guy she likes. She admits that she doesn’t have anyone she likes right now, but if that person came along, she’d want to smile at him. After parting ways with Yakumo, Mio gets reunited with Shuuji, who was worried and looking for her.

Not quite as funny as last week’s episode, but still lots of fun. The best part was probably the whole cake debacle. That’s what you get when so many people in the class share the same last two romanized letters. Tenma shoulda just written out their names in kanji lol. But I guess it all worked out in the end since she kind of got closer to Karasuma.
I enjoyed watching after-episode extra, based on chapter b27 of the manga. It’s hard to believe that those two are the younger siblings of Harima and Tennouji. Yakumo, of course, stole the show (for me anyway). It’s interesting to hear that she doesn’t consider herself to like Harima. For the sake of the onigiri faction, we can hope that that’ll change (and bring about some funny results in the process).
Thankfully, they decided not to cram the entire cultural festival into one day. That means that next week is 2-C’s version of Sleeping Beauty!