I have another anime to add to my list of watched anime. It may just be the first season but that is enough for me at the moment.
School Rumble sounded to me like some giant ass brawl at school. In a way it is. It starts off with a girl who is in love with a "stoneface eccentric." While stoneface doesn't mean "stoned" I thought it was funny anyways. It then forms into some love triangle (I don't really know what that means. I'll find out later.) with another male character who is in love with the girl, previously mentioned. Over the course of the series new characters are introduced, almost continuously, but the main focus is still the love between the three. The characters start off as friends, then siblings, classmates, and finally the assholic foreigners. There are some that I may be missing, like cousins and some teachers, but they didn't leave much of an impact apparently. The best way to sum up the show is to sum the characters. By my count, there are ten that are even worth mentioning.
Tsukamoto Tenma- The main character. She is pretty dense when it comes to most things and doesn't have any note worthy skills. A typical girl when it comes to these things.
Tsumakoto Yakumo- the little sister of the above. She is supposed to have the psychic ability to read minds. In Japan, it would appear, that their thoughts are just writings floating around (above, near, in the vicinity... what have you) the person she is reading or in some cases feel and then see. Depending on how strongly the person is thinking about it, the writing will appear bigger or smaller. I believe even without this ability she would be more level headed than her sister. *Note* In Japan, unless you are given permission from the person, you are to call them by their last name. Thanks to this it caused a lot of confusion between several of the less noteworthy characters and lead me wishing for them to either clarify who they were talking about or move on.Harima Kenji- This is the main male character. Out of all of the characters he showed the most character development in the entire series. A delinquent (I like punk better) starts off going to school on time, losses all hope for the girl he loves, becomes a manga artist and then hermit (he was more of sage animal keeper dude) and then goes back to manga only to try to leave the country to escape it all, and then in the end he returns for one last shot. He held more potential than any of the rest of the characters and yet he fell in love with the densest girl in the school. He never did give up fighting, both literally and metaphorically. Aside manga, animals, and fighting he wasn't too good with anything else. He wasn't the best with schoolwork and while he could write poems that may have appeased to Tenma, he could never grow the balls to say that he loved her.
Karasuma Ooji- He's the stonefaced out cast. No one really cares about him except for Tenma. There isn't much I can say about him... He looks like a geek, wears freaky rain clothes, and, as expected, is some sort of good with the electric guitar. Something that drove Tenma away from him was the simple fact that he has an undying and irreplaceable love for curry. Freak of nature...
Sawachika Eri (maybe short for Erika?)- there are two words that describe her: halfa and princess. A halfa is someone who is half Japanese and half something else. Her mother was from Switzerland. As for the princess part... That can be interpreted in two ways. 1. She is rich. 2. She is rich and a bitch. I have to lean towards two a bit more, since there were a few times she was bitchy. While the main focus of the anime was the relationships between Tenma, Harima, and Curry Boy, there was a small relationship forming between Harima and Eri. She had also proved to be a bit more interesting than the rest of Tenma's friends because of this. Final note, I liked that out of nowhere she tried to get a freshmen, Yakuno, to serve her, a Junior in our schools, a Bloody Mary while her older sister and two Eri's friends were sitting right there. It may have been the way she had said it as well, its almost worth trying to make a sound byte out of it.
Ichijou Karen- green hair, nice, and strong enough to pick up a piano by herself. What else could you want? I liked Karen because she seemed like a nice girl that was often misunderstood... and perhaps was. She has a cheerful personality but due to manly activities (such as the heavy manual labor and the amateur wrestling) she never gets a date. I would have liked to see her more but she wasn't the main female character. No matter what I still want to call her Anna.
Harry McKenzy- The asshole from The Great U.S.A., he is almost a complete opposite to Harima Kenji. Harry rode a sports bike, had blond hair, and, undoubtedly, made better grades than Harima. Harima had black hair and rode a chopper. Harry only appear in about two to four episodes but the writers made it that he was a villain, and an assholic one at that.
Lala- First off, I don't think any Mexican truly has this name. Second, I truly believe that she is a bitch. Third, She looked like she was African than Mexican. The main thing about her was that she was a luchador, or some stupid Mexican wrestler... She didn't appear to have much in the ways of brains, short tempered, and bitchy brute. It wasn't until her third appearance that I had decided that I didn't like her. The first two were more or less cameos. I did find it funny how they commented on her height.
While the anime shot off in to random directions at time, the main story was Harima loves Tenma who loves Ooji who is in love with curry. There were several references to American movies and shows that made me laugh a little. The first one I remember is Star Wars, which they called Comet Wars. The second was a reference to The Matrix, and their bullet time... I think that's what it's called. The third (and final), was the Power Rangers. It wasn't until after I watched the episode that I realize this. As far as I can tell, it had the same basic concept. Teenagers fight with giant animal robots, run around in dorky costumes, and good prevails. One major difference between the two was all of the "Rangers" were famale and during some weird dance thing to start the robot they grab their breast or fix their bra or something. You know what... It's Japan, enough said...
All in all, a dorky and confusing anime that may be only worth watching once. I may just watch it again for some comical relief, or boredom which is why I watched it in the first place. On a scale of one to five (five is the highest) I would have to give is a two. Don't get this confused with School Days. I would have to give School Days a five despite the outcome of the anime.
While there is more to the anime then what I've said (I had left out about two thirds of the characters) you'll just have to watch it. For now, I may just dive right back into School Days.