School Rumble

This was actually one of the two animes I have bothered to watch during - say, the last two years (not counting my eternal love, Rose of Versailles [should write about that too, someday]).

School Rumble is a school comedy, in the heart of which there is cute girl named Tenma, who acts and appears like she would be several years younger than her age would presume; she is pretty bad with school and not the sharpest pen in the box anyway.
The other main character is the school's toughest tough guy, Hajima. The series starts at the beginning of the school year; Hajima returns to school only to be near Tenma, who he loves from his heart. He, like Tenma, is not very bright; for a thought guy, he has a big heart, but people cant see it because he is also quite violent by nature, and fears for his imago (and enemies, who would surely attack him if they would see him going soft). Hajima is also exellent artist, and now and then during the series we see peeks to his manga, which revolves around him getting Tenma as his girlfriend (naturally, the manga has happy ending).
Tenma, too, is in love, but to a guy who can only see... food. Therefore, the two main plots is Hajima trying to propose to Tenma, and Tenma trying to propose to her heart's desire, Karasuma. Karasuma, too, is a character of suprising qualities. All in all, of all the characters, he seems to be most out of this world. Excelling in everything he bothers doing, he dosen't seem to have much social contacts - maybe he is simply unable to creating them.

Along with Hajima, Tenma and Karasuma, the casts consists of most of the class they are going to, 2C. Each of them seems to have qualities not really expected from normal people, or even of anime thats basicly a love story. Tenma's little sister can read minds; class president (in love with Tenma's sister) is also karateka, one of Tenma's classmates is (apparently) half-Swedish, and has problems with her family she seldom sees... and so on.

But the thing that really makes School Rumble orginal is how drastically the genre of the story changes; Dragonball, Initial D, sports, horror... all such and more the story sifts to, and often, only afterwards the viewer gets to know, was it all a dream, or did it really happen? The characters, particulary Hajima, go to the very extreme to get what they want or forget it -- such as becoming a holy man who talks to animals, channeling their wisdom to those who want to know the future. Other particular thing that suprised me was how jokes of the moment, that don't really have any part in the plot carry on and on, while other stories would simply disregard them. Like the holy man sketch; it only lasts five minutes, and the animals are only part of the background, making the joke to work. But few episodes later half the episode is used to tell what happens to the giraffe that Hajima had earlier.

The anime was very refreshing experience. Usually Im bothered by the ammount of cliches these series use, seemingly without noticing. School Rumble avoids most of them, and when it dosent, it gives such twist that you cant help but enjoy. This is, surely, one of the best series I have ever seen. It would, thought, be even better if the show would have definite ending. Now Hajima only finishes his manga, which gives him some small comfort before going after Tenma again; Tenma, though, dosent seem to understand its over now. After the texts, she starts telling about what happens in episode 27 - without realising this was the very last one.

We can only hope that someday there will be OVA or second season. One would really wish to know how the story finally ends. Apparently there is a manga too, but what hope do we have of ever reading it in english (or in any other language I understand?). Chances also are, that the manga hasnt found it conclusion yet either.