School Rumble Ni Gakki, Episode 1 (spoilers?)
The Eternal Lost Lurker
So, finally sitting down to watch the first episode of the new season of
School Rumble, one of my favourite comedy anime from last year.
For the purposes of this viewing, I'm going with newcomer fansub group
Your-Mom, who AFAICT sprang into existence entirely to sub School Rumble 2nd
Semester.
I won't be sticking with this particular group, and I encourage others to
select alternate groups (NOT Wannabe, though--just ignore their existence
entirely), because they're...well...okay, to be fair, they're new to this,
and very unpolished, but...
Come on...consistently misspelling Yakumo's name as Yakuno? Translating
'shimatta' as 'oh freaking crap'? 90% of this newsgroup could do a better
translation job in their sleep, to be honest. I'm just lucky enough my
bare-bones Japanese skills are JUST enough to fill in the gaps where
Your-Mom dropped the ball. (Which they did far too often.)
ANYWAY! That bit of grousing aside, let's get onto the content.
SR2G opens with...a samurai drama sequence! Ahh, yes, THIS is the very kind
of thing that makes School Rumble so much fun. And that sequence takes us up
to the opening, which then leads to:
Segment One:
We open with a very brief, very fast recap by Harima of (almost) everything
that happened to him over the course of the first season.
After arriving at school, Harima learns he is to receive an award, and
rushes out of class to find Tenma to confess to her in a rush of
self-congratulation.
Meanwhile, on the roof, Tenma is berating Yakumo for lying to her about
where she was when she really spent the entire night with Harima
(apparently, this picks up RIGHT after the manga deadline incident). Harima
overhears this, and draws back, realising he's gotten Yakumo in trouble.
Especially since Tenma has (of course) completely misinterpreted the
situation...
Tenma goes off on a very long (and barely comprehensible) rant about men and
how Yakumo needs to be firm with Harima, to which Yakumo only offers a meek
'gomen nasai'.
Harima, at this point, bursts onto the roof to try to get Yakumo off the
hook, only to be bitched out by Tenma for intruding--until she sees he has
bananas (yes, bananas), and gets distracted. Through a mouthful of banana
(she even ate the freaking peel @_@), Tenma sternly tells Harima that he's
not welcome on the roof even though he brought bananas. Harima, trying
desperately to get Yakumo off the hook with Tenma, ends up only making
things WORSE. (Naturally.) But then Tenma reveals that everything is
alright--the only reason she was upset was because Yakumo had lied to her,
NOT because of where she had actually been.
But then Tenma goes into a weird comic mode, and the next thing Harima
knows, he's agreeing to "take care" of Yakumo...and then loses it when he
realises what he's just blundered into.
That evening, Harima gives his cousin the camcorder "he" won in the lucky
drawing--since she'd used his name to enter in the first place. It turns out
his "award" had nothing to do with the manga entry.
Segment Two:
This time around, we begin with Tenma stumbling upon GOD OF ROCK, KARASUMA!
once again...didn't we do this once before last season? Ah well, it's as
funny now as it was then, so why not. Anyway, Tenma spaces out on this
fantasy of herself as a rock duo with Karasuma, with thousands of screaming
fans...
While she spaces out, the group practise disbands. Karasuma snaps her out of
her haze, and she's very depressed because she has no musical talent (she
believes this will distance her from Karasuma). He cheers her up with some
motivational words and...a turtle on her head.
Good ol' Karasuma.
That night, Tenma tries desperately to figure out what the hell Karasuma
meant by 'kamekichi', while the turtle roams serenely on her table and
Yakumo does her usual "is onee-san really okay in the head?" routine. Tenma
goes off on a very long, very strange word-association game involving
'kamekichi' and a whole lot of wordplay, before collapsing in the Yukari
Flail and bemoaning her inability to continue on. SOMEHOW, and don't ask me
HOW she got this out of 'kamekichi', Tenma decides Karasuma was telling her
to play Sleeping Beauty in the school festival.
Yes, Tenma is STILL an idiot.
(The next morning, Akira makes the same association with the turtle. This
scares me. o.o)
Third Segment:
Sarah apologises to Yakumo for accidentally getting her in trouble over the
Harima thing. Eri shows up at school in her limo, and Sarah wonders if
perhaps Eri still has a thing for Harima (remember THAT mass
misunderstanding?)
Meanwhile, at lunch, Hanai decides he's going to do Sleeping Beauty with
Yakumo. The girls in class discuss this, wondering if anyone is going to
tell him about Yakumo and Harima (there's nothing going on there, but OF
COURSE everyone THINKS there is...)
And Suou and Akira can't resist a bit of needling about the Eri/Harima
thing, much to Eri's annoyance.
And in the hallway, Hanai randomly overhears two girls gossiping about
Yakumo and Harima. His screams of disbelief and outrage can be heard all
over the school.
"Ah, he found out, ne?" "Hai."
Meanwhile, the situation for Yakumo, Harima, and Hanai worsens as Hanai
further overhears (and misinterprets) the "stayed at Harima's house one
night" thing, and the final nail in the coffin is when Yakumo delivers a
bento to Tenma's class at her sister's behest--a "clever" ploy by Tenma to
get Yakumo to bring Harima a lunch, to further cement their budding
"relationship".
Naturally, once Hanai sees the "love bento" (UGH, sickening), he withers
away into nothing...as does Harima when Tenma enthusiastically supports his
(nonexistent) relationship with Yakumo.
But before all hell can break loose over who is or isn't involved with who
and who is or isn't jealous, the members of the other classes randomly burst
in to issue challenges over the festival, and a whole different kind of hell
breaks loose...
...next time, on School Rumble 2nd Semester!
Post-credits:
The boys of the various classes gather in secret to share intel on the "new"
girls this semester (ie, the girls who weren't major or minor characters
LAST season): Sagano Megumi, who looks a bit like a cross between Mouri Ran
and Higurashi Kagome, and is noted for playing basketball; Tsumugi Yuki, the
meganekko with the twin braided pigtails; Otsuka Mai, a plain-looking girl
with a single braided pigtail, who has a rather prominent chest and a
harisen (derivative much?), Kozue Mihara, the tanned, blonde girl, reputed
to be a flirt;
(Of course, each intel bit about each girl has an accompanying fanservice
shot--buruma, miguzi, etc.--even one outright nude (albeit tasteful) in the
ganguro's case)
Next episode preview...a survival game? @_@;;
Anyway, so it's another season of the insane, oddball, over-the-top wacky
comedy and fanservice that made School Rumble great the first time around.
I'm looking forward to it, and so should you!
...now, to just find a decent fansub group...
--
"Sex offender? That's ridiculous.
I've never offended sex in my life!"
~~*~~
The Eternal Lost Lurker
www.lurkerdrome.com
AstroNerdBoy
The Eternal Lost Lurker wrote:
> So, finally sitting down to watch the first episode of the new season of
> School Rumble, one of my favourite comedy anime from last year.
>
I happened on this late. Mad Ludwick from Aeka Fan Club clued me into
the fact that Del Rey was publishing the series (a major plus) and had
over 20-pages published online for free (another plus). I read the
pages Del Rey had and found myself laughing very shortly after starting
the manga (final plus straw). So I went out and immediately purchased
the manga's 1st volume.
Afterward, I figured I'd look to see if an anime had already been done.
Fortunately there had been one done as well as a 2-episode OAV with
"Ni Gakki" sequel about to start. ^_^ This was one of the best
anime-viewing choices I could have made.
> I won't be sticking with this particular group, and I encourage others to
> select alternate groups (NOT Wannabe, though--just ignore their existence
> entirely)
Just out of curiousity, why not Wannabe?
> Anyway, so it's another season of the insane, oddball, over-the-top wacky
> comedy and fanservice that made School Rumble great the first time around.
> I'm looking forward to it, and so should you!
Not that ELL needs an ANB endorsement, but "School Rumble" is a great
title. If you are an anti-fansub person, then I HIGHLY recommend
purchasing the manga, which Del Rey currently is publishing.
"School Rumble" may be set in Japan, but the theme of unrequited love
is universal and there's a lot of that in "School Rumble." The mangaka
Kobayashi-sensei wisely uses the cliched events we expect from such a
romantic-comedy, and turns them on their head frequently. So we never
know exactly what will happen. Kobayashi-sensei makes some WHACKED
things happen and the combination of whacky and unexpected makes this
one of the funnier manga titles I've ever read.
The anime writers take Kobayashi-sensei's work and use "Azumanga Daioh"
as a template to make seperate little stories flow together into
single, unified tale. As such, some minor stuff is added here and
there for the purposes of smoothing the road. However, it also adds to
the humor of a situation.
So the sequel to "School Rumble" is already a winner in my book. I so
hope that FUNimation scores the license to this series eventually.
-ANB
--
Tenchi Muyo! FAQ
http://www.astronerdboy.com/tenchi/
The Eternal Lost Lurker
"AstroNerdBoy" <sp...@astronerdboy.com> wrote in message
news:1144767235.2...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> > I won't be sticking with this particular group, and I encourage others
to
> > select alternate groups (NOT Wannabe, though--just ignore their
existence
> > entirely)
>
> Just out of curiousity, why not Wannabe?
I've grown weary of and exasperated with their asshattery--ridiculous April
Fool's jokes, flagrant deliberate nuisance, a container change that
inconveniences long-time viewers for no other reason than to be contrary,
and the last straw: a flagellant self-promotion dubbed onto the first
released episode of SR2G.
D-Chance.
"The Eternal Lost Lurker" wrote
>> > I won't be sticking with this particular group, and I encourage others
> to
>> > select alternate groups (NOT Wannabe, though--just ignore their
> existence
>> > entirely)
>> Just out of curiousity, why not Wannabe?
> I've grown weary of and exasperated with their asshattery--ridiculous
> April
> Fool's jokes, flagrant deliberate nuisance, a container change that
> inconveniences long-time viewers for no other reason than to be contrary,
> and the last straw: a flagellant self-promotion dubbed onto the first
> released episode of SR2G.
Is this another group that, like Shinsen, doesn't know how to lay
out script without destroying the video? I seem to remember that
scans on some episodes were impossible due to video deformation
that quickly formed whenever there was any movement in a scene.
AstroNerdBoy
That's because they (and a growing number of others) want you to us
CCCP for the right and proper codecs. Once I installed that, their
stuff works fine. *rolls eyes*
AstroNerdBoy
The Eternal Lost Lurker wrote:
> news:1144767235.2...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> > > I won't be sticking with this particular group, and I encourage others
> to
> > > select alternate groups (NOT Wannabe, though--just ignore their
> existence
> > > entirely)
> >
> > Just out of curiousity, why not Wannabe?
>
> I've grown weary of and exasperated with their asshattery--ridiculous April
> Fool's jokes, flagrant deliberate nuisance, a container change that
> inconveniences long-time viewers for no other reason than to be contrary,
> and the last straw: a flagellant self-promotion dubbed onto the first
> released episode of SR2G.
>
Good points all, but their ad at the end of SR2G ep. 1 has to be a
first.
The Eternal Lost Lurker
A first, and damn well better be a last.
In any case, it's completely nailed the coffin shut as far as I'm concerned.