Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

This will not be a neutral and objective post. Basically, School Rumble is my all-time favourite school comedy and I really like many of the characters. So now what’s my take on the 1st episode of Ni Gakki? It can be summed up in one paragraph.

SR brings out the latent monster fanboy in me. And this is the only series I will be blogging on a episode by episode basis.

The first episode starts with all the SR characters in a Bunka Bunsei era. Harima is the Mangoku wandering samurai with l33t skillz who beats the shit out of Tennouji and his goons, Yoshidayama and gang, saving Yakumo and Tenma in the process. Then the OP begins.

I have seen the OP a few times before this and I felt it didn’t capture the random and fun atmosphere of the show as well as Scramble!. The singer, Tokito Ami, seems to be some kind of talentless idol, her voice isn’t good at all. The song itself, Sentimental Generation is so-so.. it’s fast, upbeat and chirpy but somehow we are used to shows having really cool OPs that set us in the right mood to watch it and this OP just does not fit. Sentimental Generation’s the other way round.. I only listen to this song because it is SR’s song, SR sets me in the mood to listen to this song. That just isn’t right. When a bit of Guru Guru Mawaru was played at the end of the show, the impact was really strong and really shows how Sentimental Generation has failed as an OP. That said, it’s still much better than some other OPs out there. Like the new Bleach one by Beat Crusaders, whose songs are all bad except for Hit in the USA. But Tokito Ami is hot.

After the OP, Harima does a quick recap of the last season. The farcical final episode of S1 was conveniently forgotten and the story continues from where Harima and Yakumo left off.

There are some slight changes from the manga, for the better. I’ve always felt the SR anime was better than the manga. Reasons being the nicer character designs, awesome seiyuu cast, dynamic, randomly funny animation and most of all, the bishoujo are much better drawn than in the manga. But there were some changes in the plot and story flow, I can’t remember since I read this particular volume of SR a while back. I’ll prefer not remembering, so I can appreciate every moment of the anime rather than having to keep comparing with the manga.

Harima wins the Manga contest. Harima runs off to inform Tenma and confess at the same time. He finds her on the roof, giving Yakumo a big scolding for her lying and staying over at Harima’s place. Harima quickly defends Yakumo and tries to explain the situation but only makes it worse. Luckily Tenma is trusting and forgiving. Yakumo looks soooo cute when she’s feeling upset and guilty. She also looks soooooo cute when she’s misunderstood and trying to explain things. She looks even cuter when Tenma does random things and she doesn’t understand. So she’s very cute.

Tenma walks in and discovers that Karasuma, Ichijou, Megumi and the camera guy and the megane girl Yuuki that likes Hanai have formed a band for the school festival. She starts having wild fantasies about making it big with the band but soon realises she cannot play any musical instrument nor sing. Karasuma consoles her by giving her a turtle. Lol. This is where it gets really hilariously weird, as Tenam tries to decipher what secret coded message Karasuma had for her. I don’t know if the conclusion she came to was right or wrong, but the process was certainly mind-bendingly, stomach-crampingly funny. And Akira, whom I like too, gets quite a few funny scenes in this episode where she shows off her logical prowess.

Eri gets precious little screen time but she’s the star of the show when she does appear. She is resigned to losing Harima and puts up a brave front, denying that she likes him. Eri’s huge variety of facial expressions still make her my most favourite female since Shaman King’s Anna 6 years ago.

Tenma tricks Yakumo into preparing a bento for Harima. The three beauties of 2-C, Eri, Mikoto and Akira are involved in a discussion on how to break the news of Yakumo’s "attachment" to Hanai. They are saved the trouble when he finds out through the rampaging gossip mongers. Hanai goes up to challenge Harima to a fight but doesn’t even have the will to do it properly. Yakumo gives the Bento of Love to Harima in front of the entire class and the misunderstanding deepens…..

Suddenly, the 3 stars of class 2-D bursts in and issues a challenge to 2-C for the upcoming school cultural festival. The ED rolls on.

The ED, Kono Namaida ga Aru Kara Tsugi no Ippo to Naru, by Tokito Ami, as well is a slow typical ending song that I skip after hearing once. I didn’t like the S1’s ED as well but the animation then was good. This new one is just so generic, featuring sunsets and the various characters.

The show felt short so I checked the time. 19 minutes and the ED had finished rolling. There’s more to come of course.

Nishi the Ero-expert/ Buddha lookalike has organised a club meeting of masked men, to discuss the girls in their class. This is a fanservicey part where they show us the profile of some of the upcoming characters, as well as Itoko. I like Itoko, just like how I like Rider. They are hot and have the same seiyuu, Asakawa Yuu, who is my seiyuu of choice for sexy mature ladies. Itoko hacks into and destroys all their latops and sends them a gift. They really should have forwarded the files to me, I’ll back it up for them.

Verdict:
SR Ni Gakki Ep 1? It scores 9 out of 10…..argh fanboy mode kicking in… actually, I lie. The true score is 85856496346098 out of 10. If I had 3 wishes from a genie, I’ll use 1 wish to make SR last forever!!!!! lol.

And finally, the Wannabe fansubs I watched had this pretty coolly done video inserted into their sub. It was a promo of their site. The character info there, especially of Eri is very detailed and well-written. I am ashamed to say that my own Girl Power series compares to it like a candle next to Flame of Recca. Hey but they actually put a link to this site!