Wild Moon Swings

Sunday, October 22, 2006

School Rumble

I know this might not be super interesting to some of you, but I have to write a post about School Rumble. It's an anime/manga dedicated to making fun of shoujo anime/manga. So, if you're not familiar with that genre, you probably won't think it's funny. It would be like making someone watch Space Balls who never saw Star Wars.

Basically, everything about this manga is intentionally written to make fun of shoujo, and the characters are so brilliantly crafted that it's almost unbearably funny. So, I'm going to list the characters and explain why they are hilarious.

Harima

He's our main male lead. He's a delinquent who's in love with Tenma. The thing that's the funnest about him is the way he's drawn. Normally, the main male lead from a shoujo manga is unbelievably cool and is drawn slim, beautiful, and completely apathetic. Harima is drawn tall and heavy with a beard and muscles in places that most guys don't have places. The style with which he's drawn is different too. He's seriously drawn like Berzerk (which is serious shounen - lots of lines). He's also extremely passionate about Tenma and draws manga on the side - all of which make him almost the most ridiculous cast as the male lead. The only thing he does that's normal for a male lead is he has regular fights with other delinquents. Also - no one is in love with him (really weird).

Tenma

She's our main girl. Harima is in love with her, but she's in love with Karasuma (I'll explain him next). She's a complete space cadet. The only person who sees her as a woman is Harima. Everyone else thinks that her friends and younger sister are the cool ones. Don't get me wrong, lots of shoujo heriones are flat-chested. The thing about Tenma is that she is a total and complete space cadet. She's forgetful and has completely forgotten the 'alley scenario' (see Ghost Mist Blog for explaination thereof) with which she met Harima.

Karasuma

Karasuma-kun is drawn using as few lines as possible. He is a 100% flat character and he does absolutely none of the things that usually draw a female character into liking him. He's not good at sports (he never even participates) , not good at school, never pays attention to Tenma or anyone else. It's a mystery why she likes him, but it doesn't stop it from being funny. He also sometimes dresses up like a demon turtle (a play off the Japanese word 'kappa' which also means raincoat)

Yakumo

Yakumo is Tenma's younger sister and a 100% perfect candidate for becoming a shoujo herione. The problem is that she can read men's minds when they are thinking about her. Naturally, this is freaky beyond all reason, because who would actually want to know about the sort of filth that exists in a man's mind? Ew! So, she is always disinterested in guys.

Anyway - this is way harder to explain than I thought it was going to be. It's just funny if you can take it as a parody.

1 Comments:

  • "School Rumble" is on my list of animes to watch. But since I'm in school now... I guess it'll have to wait until Christmas or something. I love funny animes! LOL

    By Blogger algelic, at 2:39 p.m.  

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