SCHOOL RUMBLE-2004-1 1/2 STARS

There’s only one word to describe this anime series, disappointing! Now I was going to do an episode by episode review on this romantic comedy, but after seeing the first DVD, I decided to pass on that. Look, I understand that high school kids develop crushes on each other, but this is a bit ridiculous!

Let’s meet Tenma Tsukamoto, a high school retard who has a crush on a guy named Oji, some weirdo that looks like Pinocchio. I’m serious, he does, just take a good look at the picture below, what girl with good eyesight would fall for a dude that looks like that?

Now this is the thing, in the first five episodes, there is no character development with either one of them. Maybe this changes in further episodes, but guess what, I’m not stickin’ around long enough to find out. So in the first DVD, all we really know about Oji, is that he’s a loner, possibly an emo, but I can’t verify that.

The plot revolves around Tenma chasing this guy all over school, and their neighborhood, which gets to be annoying after a while. Hey wait, I just remembered, we really don’t find out anything about Tenma either. All we know is that she’s a stupid girl with a one track mind who’s probably failing all of her classes, just so she can run after some dude who I’m sure is not worth the time of day.

In comes Kenji Harima, a self proclaimed bad-ass, who has the hots for Tenma, but my question is, why? Now he brings a bit of a personality to the table, which makes him fun to watch, but unfortunately he’s not the main character in the series, and we’re left to suffer with stupid Tenma, and her stale bread friends.

Now in many ways, Kenji can be a bit rediculous too, since he seems to lean towards the macho side, but doesn’t have the guts to approach Tenma, to tell her how he feels (as if she would care anyway). Why this fears exists comes out in episode 4, but trust me, it’s a dumb reason, and its’ kind of hard to believe that someone as hardcore as Kenji is stuck on a bimbo.

In order for you to see just how bad this anime is, let’s compare a good  series, like Fruits Basket, with this one. In Fruits Basket, we find out a lot about Tohru Honda in the first episode. She lost her mother in a car accident, and because of housing rennovations, she is now living in a tent on the Sohma’s property. 

We also know that she’s works hard in school, and she also has a part time job cleaning homes in order to pay her schooling. There! Now we have know a lot about this girl, and we can sit back, and watch her character evolve as she affects those around her in later episodes.  Now in the first five episodes of School Rumble, we don’t know crap about this Tenma chick, so the evolution of her character remains stagnant along with the rest of her friends. 

In episode 4, anime writers to try to shift the plot from Tenma to her sister, Yakumo, but it’s too late, I’ve already lost interest, and she’s about as lame as her sister, so I’ll just put this anime series to rest. Funeral starts at 10pm on Sunday, so make sure you’re there.

This entry was posted on 7. June 2008 at 03:59 and is filed under Anime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

| Print