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Review: School Rumble, Vol. 2

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This volume was very fun and quite entertaining—more so than the first volume for a couple reasons: My expectations in terms of how much it was going to make me laugh was lowered greatly, and because there was more of a large story going on as opposed to being a volume full of one-off gags.

Because the first two chapters of the first volume were god-tier in terms of comedy, it raised the standard for the whole rest of the volume to a level which it was unable to meet again which is why it ended up being disappointing. This meant that going into this second volume, my standards were a lot lower, so I didn’t mind if it wasn’t making me laugh as long as it was entertaining. Happily, it was that, at least.

I think my prior experience and familiarity with the characters probably contributed to my entertainment (I had watched the anime back when I was a wee little girl), but there was a specific thing that the mangaka (author) did differently that also made this volume more successful: he dropped the gag formula for a more story driven approach. Don’t get me wrong, one of my favourite manga is a gag manga (Kaguya-sama: Love is War), but the essential ingredient for a successful gag manga is to be filled with funny gags, something which “School Rumble” is not. Every chapter in this volume built from the last, which is what made it work much better.

I enjoyed this a lot, and look forward to continuing with this series!


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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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