School Rumble Ni Gakki – 21, 22

School Rumble Episode 21

… It’s School Rumble…

It’s Really School Rumble…

I said it’s School Rumble…

Galactic Bomber!

School Rumble Episode 21

…It’s School Rumble…

• Initially begins with the introduction of a flower that when placed behind the ear would make the person fall in love with the other, and the romantic interest of Mai, Masked Kamen, being caught by the villain, who is played by Harima.

• We are introduced to Mai’s parents, who are played by Tougou and Lala, with Iori being the little furry sidekick that we always see in the Mahou Shoujo series.
• Mai leaves for school, and comes across Imadori and Yoshidayama are picking on Nara. She decides to intervene, only to have the brats making fun of her and calling her too old. With this, she decides to punish all of them, utilizing a flash and hitting them, only to have Imadori telling her not to wear white panties.
• Mai receives a note from Tenma, who has been… enhanced artificially for this episode. The note tells her that her beloved Masked Kamen has been captured, and for her to go to the villains lair.

It’s Really School Rumble…

• Mai is standing outside of the castle, where she meets Akira, who has Tennouji take them to table 3.
• They are moving along some sort of moving platform, on a table that is aptly titled table 3, where she meets Karasuma, who is surveying the castle, which he had constructed.
• Kamen is talking to Harima, asking him why he is doing this, to which Harima replies that Mai is too caught up and too old to be a Mahou Shoujo, and he wants only Tenma to be one.
• A sequence is then played with Karasuma and Mai blasting through the castle, where she now confronts Harima. She then comments on Harima’s dress, which consists of a Loincloth and a cloth mask. Tenma then appears and Mai, Harima, and Kamen go to the roof, with Tenma accompanying Karasuma.

I Said It’s School Rumble…

• They are now on the roof, with Harima giving Mai the chance to save Kamen if she stops being a mahou shoujo, and when she is considering it, Kamen says for her not to give up.
• They begin fighting, and he quickly subdues her, but stops when he notices she is in love with Kamen. She then goes and tries to give him the rose, but accidentally tries putting it in his ear.
• He then says that is not necessary, and goes and says even without it, he would love her, and kisses her on the forehead. She asks to see his face.
• He obliges, and as his mask comes off, he says dasu, and begins getting very large and breaks the castle, with Harima cursing him.
• It turns out all of this was a manga turned in by a mangaka, and the editor rejects it.

Galactic Bomber!

• This was a sequence that occurred after the ED, and was a throwback to the basketball arc earlier in the season.
• Begins with main character badly beaten, with his allies even more beaten, barely able to stand, with a woman who is suspended, and turns out that she had betrayed them.
• He then takes everyone’s will and attacks them, performing a slam dunk against the platform the woman is on.
• The enemies then turn out to be enemies, and they learn she had betrayed them.
• The enemies then combine and become a gigantic robot, with each enemies being different parts.
• His allies then stand and defend him against the robot, but it is no use. The woman then takes down the field protecting it and they attack it, destroying it.
• Another story by the same manga artist, with the same result.

Overall Summary and Thoughts…

• The second parody episode that was aired after on the same day as episode 20. This episode is a parody of the Mahou Shoujo Genre, complete with a wholly different OP and ED, with fitting music for each. This episode has the romantic interest, and manages to poke fun at many aspects and stereotypes of Mahou Shoujo series. This was a very fun episode to view, partially because I have seen my share of Mahou Shoujo series, such as the classic Card Captor Sakura. One interesting thing to note that I found amusing is that the staff that Mai uses is the exact same one that Sakura used in I believe the second season on, they even included the flying of that series, so I found that to be quite enjoyable. Also interesting how most of the main characters that you see every episode were in there in some form or another, including Mai, Tenma, Karasuma, Harima, Nishimoto, Iori, Yakumo, and even Tougou and Lala. Was a quite enjoyable episode, and the final revelation that Kamen was Nishimoto was a nice touch. What with him suddenly gaining massive amounts of weight and crashing down through the castle. Another funny element was with Harima in a loincloth, since the animators took it upon themselves in multiple occasions to make it to have one of the worst views possible. The fact that the loincloth could stretch too was a nice touch as well. The OP and ED songs were also quite interesting, as they were different than the normal theme, following the theme of a Mahou Shoujo type series. In actuality, there were 2 OP’s and 2 ED’s, which was sort of interesting. It is interesting that the template that they seemed to have chosen for the episode was Card Captor Sakura, what with the blatant ripoffs of the staff designs, and even the romantic interest who isn’t what he seems to be. Overall, I enjoyed this episode a lot, and sorry for the long delay, took a while to finally sit down and decide to do this summary. Well, hope you all enjoyed this.

School Rumble Episode 22

Year’s First Dream…

Lions Dance…

New Year’s…

School Rumble Episode 22

Pre-OP

• A street race is occurring, with a hapless racer completely overtaken by G Phantom.
• Attempting to pass the next racer, who are Itoko and Youko in a red sports car, he cannot get through, commenting on how good they are.
• Going through a particularly curvy part, they speed up, causing him to do the same.
• Blinded by the sunrise, he spins out of the race.
• Turns out it was someone else who was driving, with him commenting, as he does not have a drivers license.

Year’s First Dream…

• It is finally new years in School Rumble, with Harima having his first dream of the new year, with Tenma floating over to him. Saying from then on they will be together forever.
• Tenma also is trying on her new Yukata, as she is going to pray at the shrine for the new year. She imagines being with him and him complimenting her and eventually kissing her.
• Tenma goes to a festival trying to find Mikoto, and gets bumped around, directly into Karasuma, and goes with him around.
• Akira asks Mikoto to help her with something, who has to do something with her family, but then finds Harima and has him do her family thing instead. This turns out being in a lion costume where Eri is waiting in the hind end, and both are surprised when he enters it.
• Since the boys want to see it, she decides to do it with him, and he is a bit surprised by this.

Lions Dance…

• Eri and Harima are prancing around the festival grounds, having their pictures taken and biting people who wish it, as this brings good luck.
• Imadori is with Karen, Kousuke, and Lala at the same place. When Karen asks Kousuke if he would like to be bitten by the lion, he doesn’t want to, and Lala becomes interested and then proceeds to attack the lion, misunderstanding what it means to be bitten by it. She thinks it is a fearsome beast and wants to try her luck attacking it.
• Harima then sees Tenma with Karasuma and decides to try to bite her so that he could confess to her, but Imadori gets in the way, and he sees Harima, and proceeds to get eaten.
• He then decides to follow them around, brings much attention to them. They visit a cafe, a movie, shopping, and the Arcade. This could almost be construed as a indirect date with Eri.
• At sunrise overlooking the city, Karasuma asks Tenma to close her eyes, and she misunderstands thinking he wants to kiss her. After she closes her eyes, Harima decides to interfere, but is launched away with 2 fingers by Karasuma and is thrown off the cliff.
• Karasuma then asks her to open them, and shows her a pin that he had bought her, for her Kimono, which he says looks good on her.
• Mikoto is with Akira constructing giant kites, and asks what they are used for, to which Akira just says stuff.
• Harima is climbing up the cliff, with Eri clinging onto his back. He apologizes to her, and she says it doesn’t matter anymore. She then says lets have a good year together, and he agrees.

New Year’s…

• Another day, the gang is playing with Kites, and Akira asks Hanai to help with something. Itoko also asks the same thing, and they get put on the kites, and they have a battle so to speak, with Akira instigating the first hit.
• After multiple attacks are exchanged, Hanai tells Akira to do ‘that’ and goes up high in the air for a finishing blow, but as he is descending upon Harima, the string breaks, and he gets blown away with the kite by the wind.
• The band gang along with Imadori and Lala are playing a game which would appear to be the recital of a poem, and they pick cards with continuations of them. Imadori puts his hand on a card, but Lala attacks his hand, causing him to roll away in pain.
• Eri and Tenma are playing a game which would appear to consist of hitting a birdie back and forth with paddles, with whoever lets it drop has ink drawn on their face. Eri wins multiple rounds, causing Tenma to have a face completely covered with ink.
• Tenma has Yakumo have revenge for her, and she wins. As she is descending upon Eri with the brush, Eri panics and thinks fast, putting Harima in as her replacement for the punishment.
• As he objects to this, she asks who was it that had her thrown off of a cliff, and he digresses, saying for Yakumo to do it.
• Yakumo is surprised by this, and after some thinking, paints Harima’s old beard on, saying Hige. Everyone is surprised by this, and says well done to Yakumo.

Post ED…

• Nara, Nishimoto, and Yoshidayama are all in Sumo Swimsuits, preparing to have a competition, but Tougou appears with Tennouji and that giant creature that appears occasionally, and he joins in, which causes them to be blasted off into the air.
• Tougou remarks that there is nothing quite like Sumo on New Years, to which the other two agree.
• Hanai is still spinning around in the air, and sees the three approaching toward him. They ram into him, causing him to be blown away.

Overall Summary and Thoughts…

• Well, this episode is one of the last SR’s whose contents completely follow the manga, as this is the end of a season, with no time for the beginning of another arc. The first two parts followed the manga, the last part was a patchwork of various other lone chapters that were near the new years in the manga, but belonged to no specific arc. Was a fairly amusing episode, and had some character development and relationship progression between Tenma and Karasuma. To a lesser extant, it also provided some progression between Harima and Eri. It should be plainly obvious which camp I lie, but it is good to see relationship advancement for any character. It was also pretty true to the manga, and it was nice to see some of those events animated. Hanai on the kite is revisited in episode 24, with him getting blown to another land with look-alikes of the classmates. I found it to be pretty amusing the sequence of the game between Eri and Yakumo, what with Eri putting Harima in her stead to have his face written on. It was also amusing when Yakumo decided to put his beard back on his face, as in the manga this was the point to which he had his beard drawn back in. It doesn’t appear that the animators decided to take this course of action in the rest of the episodes though, so expect the same character design. It may be changed in the next season, if there is one. I personally hope that there will be a next season, as they would begin with the Kyoto ark, which is one of my favorites, as I am a bit of a flag fan. That arc was one of the longest arcs where was almost purely flag. Only time can tell what will occur. The tailing of Tenma and Karasuma by Harima and Eri could be viewed by some as a date, as they all went to the places you would normally go to on a date. Though Eri didn’t know the reason for this, as she doesn’t know that Harima has a crush on Tenma. Though all in all, an entertaining episode, and a good watch for any SR fan.

Judge