School Rumble
School Rumble
School Rumbles popularity has resulted in its adaptation into multiple forms of media. TV Tokyo broadcast a 26-episode anime program between October 2004 and April 2005. In December 2005, a two-part original video animation entitled School Rumble: Extra Class was released. A second season, School Rumble: 2nd Semester, aired between April and September 2006. Finally, two more episodes, collectively entitled School Rumble: Third Semester, were released in 2008. Three video games have been produced, two light novels, and four official guidebooks.
In North America, Del Rey Manga published the English translation of the first 16 volumes of School Rumble in physical format. In the translation, Del Rey Manga maintained the traditional Japanese name order to preserve puns based on the characters' names. Kodansha USA published the English translation in digital format. Funimation published the first and second anime seasons and the Extra Class OVAs in English.
The manga was well received by Japanese-language readers; several volumes have appeared in the top manga sales charts. The North American English translations were less popular, but still ranked several times in the top 100 as well as ranking 145th for overall manga series sales in 2008. Critics of the English-language translation have been positive overall, praising Kobayashi for his art style and overall use of humor. However, the manga has received some criticism, mostly centered on some of the jokes and repetitive plot. The anime adaptation also sold well in Japan and was praised by Kobayashi and—for the English-language translation—critics. The decision by Media Factory to aggressively pursue its intellectual property rights for School Rumble is believed by proponents of fansubs to have had a negative impact on the franchise's release and sales in the North American market.
Plot
School Rumble revolves around the daily lives of the students of Class 2-C at the fictional Yagami High School, along with their friends and families. Tenma Tsukamoto, a cheerful yet unremarkable second-year high school student, has an obsessive crush on her eccentric, enigmatic classmate, Oji Karasuma. Tenma struggles to confess her feelings to Karasuma, not only because he is listless and borderline-antisocial, but also because his only fulfillment comes in eating curry. Unbeknownst to her, Tenma herself has an admirer, Kenji Harima. A recovering truant and delinquent, Harima attends school solely to get close to her, and even begins creatively expressing himself as a manga artist, but he has similar difficulty declaring his love due to Tenma's dimwittedness and single-minded ambition, and whenever he summons the courage to do so, circumstances and his own bumbling conspire against him. Many of these instances, also result in Harima finding himself in mutually embarrassing situations with one of Tenma's best friends, Eri Sawachika, causing the two to form a tense relationship. Eri, the richest and most coveted girl in her grade who lives a duplicitous lifestyle and yearns for companionship that her father is unable to provide, finds Harima initially to be a creep as a result of these situations; however, they end up becoming unlikely friends, and Eri finds herself falling in love with him, although she frivolously denies this. The series predominantly revolves around Tenma and Harima's ill-fated attempts to confess their feelings, and how they each grow as people in spite of their failures.In addition to the four main characters, numerous other characters also have their own side adventures and romances. This includes Tenma and Eri's other best friends, Mikoto Suou and Akira Takano. While Akira - an extremely perceptive yet mischievous girl - largely stays out of all potential romantic drama, Mikoto, an athletic and friendly girl who attends a kenpo dojo, yearns for an upperclassman until he goes off to college and develops a relationship with a girl there. However, this belies the mutual affection she holds for her childhood friend and classmate, the uptight class representative Haruki Hanai, whose father runs the dojo. Similarly, Hanai is romantically obsessed with Tenma's younger sister, Yakumo Tsukamoto, a first-year at Yagami. In contrast to Tenma, Yakumo is mild-mannered, tall in stature, and highly talented, which soon causes her to supplant Eri as the school idol. However, Yakumo's timidness and androphobia cause her to avoid most men until she meets Harima, who she does not get any romantic vibes from due to his sole desire for Tenma, and ironically ends up falling for him as a result, which ends up causing Hanai and an oblivious Harima to develop a rivalry as well as Eri and Yakumo.
Although Harima manages to engineer romantic encounters with Tenma, her relationship with Karasuma nevertheless progresses, and Harima's bonds with Eri and Yakumo grow stronger. Eventually Tenma musters the courage to confess her love, but while he reciprocates, shortly after Karasuma loses his memory. His amnesia gives a purpose to Tenma's life; she concentrates on her studies to become a doctor and help Karasuma, half-heartedly turning down Harima at their graduation ceremony as a result. Epilogue chapters following the manga's conclusion, predominantly in the "parallel comedy" School Rumble Z, reveal events that happen in the adult lives of the characters. Karasuma still suffers from memory loss but is in a relationship with Tenma; additionally, Mikoto marries Hanai and Harima marries Eri, with the former couple expecting a child and the latter couple presenting their own child to Tenma and Yakumo.
Development and production
began writing School Rumble, his debut work, in 2002. He stated to an audience at Honolulu's 2006 Kawaii Kon convention that he started writing the series because he found the idea of a manga involving a delinquent falling in love interesting. Kobayashi's favorite character, Kenji Harima, is based largely on an amalgam of various friends, although he estimates "about 30%" of Harima is a reflection of himself. However, despite putting most of his personal feelings into the female characters, he stated that Ryuuhei Suga, a minor supporting character, is the most autobiographical. Most of the other characters are based on memories of former high-school classmates; Kobayashi recalled that he had no real idea of their voices when drawing them, and it was not until much later, when he heard the voice actors' interpretations during the production of the anime series, that he knew how they should sound. He acknowledged that some characters are more developed than others; in reply to a fan question about the mysterious Akira Takano, he admitted that, despite the closeness he feels for her, he did not put much emphasis on Takano and planned to develop her love-life slowly. Kobayashi intentionally centered his story arcs around misunderstandings which he then resolves, since he believes "if there's no misunderstanding then there's no funny story." He claims that none of his stories are based on real-life events, although when pressed admits the possibility of some resemblances but without divulging specific details.Kobayashi and his editors collaborated on the plotlines. Kobayashi would then draw the basic illustrations for each chapter before passing his material to assistants to finish. As the series' manga artist, Kobayashi also designed the cover art. Originally, the fifth volume's front cover was to feature Akira Takano, but after re-reading the volume Kobayashi concluded that since much of its plot in that volume revolves around Karen Ichijo, she should be on the cover instead. Desiring to feature a male character, he placed Harima on the cover of volume six. Kobayashi designed a poster to commemorate the ending of the series with the final chapter of School Rumble Z.
An anime adaptation of the series was never envisaged by Kobayashi, and he was skeptical of the project when first approached. Negotiations and preparation took some time, but he claims to be happy with the result. On viewing the first anime footage, Kobayashi was astonished; he recalls in an interview his emotions at the time, stating "I was incredibly touched by it. Completely overcome." Impressed with the adaptation of his work, he praises the anime staff for their achievement, although conceding that School Rumble probably lent itself to the anime format. He cites the fishing episode, for which he supplied the voice acting for several minor parts, as his favorite.
Kobayashi allowed the voice actors who voiced his characters significant freedom to interpret them as they chose. There were a number of cast changes throughout the production; Ami Koshimizu, the voice actress for Tenma, had initially auditioned for the role of Yakumo, and between School Rumbles first and second seasons the voice actors for both Karen Ichijo and Yoko Sasakura were replaced. Mako Sakurai took over Karen's role from Yuuka Nanri, and Aya Hirano replaced Akiko Kurumado as Yoko.
The artbox design for Funimation's North American release of the School Rumble anime resembles a miniature metal locker, and each of the individually released DVDs comes with heavy duty magnets. The discs include subtitled interviews with the Japanese voice actors, which were compiled onto a third DVD for the full first season release. In 2007, Funimation ran a drawing contest prior to releasing the anime in North America. The grand prize included a new computer with software for developing anime and manga. The United Kingdom anime release by Revelation Films saw the same limited edition box as Funimation, along with two standard editions.
In 2009, Kobayashi said "School Rumble is an important piece that I want to draw more, but I wanted to do more other things so I ended it. When I have some time, I would like to draw their adult days in a magazine."