School Rumble Vol. 4 Review

            It’s time for summer break on this volume and that means misunderstandings, summer vacations and large jungle animals. When everyone goes on a summer camping trip, Tenma gets the wrong idea about Harima after she sees him talking to Yakumo. Naturally Harima gets the wrong idea about Tenma when she challenges him to be her partner during the scavenger hunt. After they get caught in a rain storm though, Harima finally sees his opportunity.

            When everyone gets back into town, it becomes a pressing issue to deal with the animals that Harima has been keeping at school. Meanwhile, Tenma and Yakumo welcome a young runaway into their home for the night named Shuuji… who happens to be Harima’s younger brother and has a crush on Yakumo. 

            Finally, it’s time for the second term and for Imadori to pay up on the date he accidently got from Karen while they were working together over the summer. After she reveals that she’s never been on a date before though, Tenma volunteers to help make it a success.

Good and the Bad

The camping episode works really well for all of the things that are done right with it. The comedy in this episode layers so well on each other. Every joke in this episode serves as a great setup for the next scene until we finally get to the abandoned school house at which point the episode had me in a constant state of giggling fits.

            Moving into the second half of the series, School Rumble uses a lot of running gags to keep things fresh for the audience. Now that Harima and Tenma are in a weird sort of misunderstanding bubble, the opportunities for Harima to confess his love to Tenma are endless. The staff is well aware of this too which is why the audience gets treated to a number of insane reasons why Harima is never able to tell Tenma how he feels.  

            For the most part the animation in this volume retains the same high quality that audiences have been expecting but there are a few scenes that really stick out on this volume. Episode eighteen for instance has an early scene with Imadore and Karen walking in the hallway. The layering in this scene looks absolutely terrible. The background has a very odd blur to it but the sharpness and brightness of the characters in the foreground just make the two elements feel completely wrong for each other.

            On the other hand, episode seventeen ends with a completely random and yet oddly exciting CG short. The animation in this feature looks like it comes straight out of a PC action game while featuring Akira on her summer vacation. Everything about this short had me confused until the very end. If the staff plans to do something with this in the future I would certainly like to know what it is. 

Music

            The music remains a very low key feature to this series. The background music remains very simple and few of the songs featured are particularly deep instrumentals. Ending episode eighteen with the theme song from the date movie is a really fun way to close things out though. The ending animation that goes with it is classic and I’m certain more than a few audience members out there are going to have vivid flashbacks to their childhoods.

Dub vs. Sub

            In the dub cast, Luci Christian continues to be a great leading actress as Tenma. As with other series that like to make cultural jokes though, the Japanese cast will sound more natural. The subtlety of the jokes in their original Japanese is really lost within the English dialogue. And while the dub cast manage to put on a really enjoyable show, the jokes aren’t nearly as funny when they’re made so obvious.

Extras

            Continuing the series of interviews with cast members are two more on this volume. In the first interview, Yuuka Nanri (Karen) gets her time in front of the camera. In the almost eight minute interview Nanri will speak about her character and the series plus more. In the second interview, Yuu Asakawa (Itoko) will talk for five minutes about her character and the series. Asakawa has quite a few interesting observations about the series and its comedy. The interview isn’t particularly deep but it is fun and worth watching once.

Overall

            The characters and story in School Rumble continue to be charming and hilarious to watch. The characters are a perfect fit for their roles and with more hints being dropped in this volume, the final two volumes just got that much more appealing. If you enjoy light hearted romantic comedy, this is the one for you.