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Review: School Rumble, Vol. 1

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


In today’s episode of Elz Reviews: School Rumble... Did an oopsie.

Previously, in This Book Review:
Holy shit. The first chapter ended my life. I was laughing so hard I was crying and I couldn't even try to keep reading because looking at the page just kept knocking me out. This first gag is so funny oh my god.

Oh… oh no… What happened? Three stars? Oof.

The first two chapters: Great. Good stuff. Super funny, loved it. The rest of the volume? Ehh. Not… Great... Kind of disappointing, not going to lie. This is the manga of the greatest anime of my youth, something filled with memories of laughs and gaffs and which created a rare opportunity to bond with my brother. So, what went wrong? To answer that, we must first examine what went right.

The first two chapters in this series are great because they are humorous introductions to two of the main characters in this series, quickly establishing their personalities and quirks in an entertaining fashion by incorporating hilarious gags. This makes readers care about and maybe even like said characters.

The problem is that this series has a lot more than two characters, and that from chapter three onwards it just runs with them without introducing them or giving readers any reason to care about them whatsoever. Suddenly, there are side characters interacting with our two main characters, and we can see that they know each other but since WE (the readers) don’t know who they are, their exchanges are rendered utterly unremarkable and unimpactful.

The above combined with the fact that this wasn't even funny past the second chapter is what led to this being a very mediocre volume. What I will give this volume is that it was at least able to salvage some degree of entertainment value, so it gets 3 stars instead of 2.

Characters we don’t care about. Not funny. Kind of entertaining. Sad!

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Original Note/Mini Review (No spoilers) : (view spoiler)


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Click to read my other School Rumble reviews:
Volumes: 1* | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

*Current review
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