School Rumble 2nd Term ep.9

May 29, 2006 | 13 Comments

I don't think this is as funny as last week's episode. However, since School Rumble usually contains more than one type of comedy, there's always something that will catch a viewer's attention. In my case, the Saint Seiya reference was good enough to make me complacent. The character design in this episode is quite horrid though. It's probably simplified so that they can put more budget on animating the characters' movement during the game. Having said that, some of the faces in this episode are shocker, especially Asou, who is inconsistently drawn from one frame to another. Also, it seems to me the character design for Harima and Tougou most of the time look a lot better in comparison to Asou's and Imadori's. I wonder if this has to do with the fact that Harima and Tougou's hair are a lot easier to draw and animated.

Anyway, this episode begins with the Outlaws practicing basketball in the morning. Everyone seems to be in top form with Tenma as the only exception. When Yakumo arrives to offer them breakfast, however, the group immediately stops their practice and decide to settle for food instead. Meanwhile Satsuki seems to have lost her confidence in shooting. Because of this, Tae asks Asou to give her some pointers but this only serves to make Satsuki petrified. After a few failed tries, Satsuki apologises to Asou for not being good. Asou tries to cheer her up by saying that it's him who can't teach her properly. The situation only gets worse when Mikoto shows up in top form. Lala, who feels sorry for Satsuki, decides to approach the junior and offers her a hamburger and in the process gives Satsuki bazoomas to cry on. Later on that day, Satsuki receives a phone call from Asou who asks her to meet him inside the gym because he's unsure about something.

Asou then asks Satsuki what she thinks of him, prompting the girl to tell him that she loves him. Unfortunately for Satsuki, what Asou really meant was what she thinks of his coaching skill. Satsuki immediately becomes embarassed and runs away from Asou. The next day, Satsuki does not appear at the practice. Mikoto who asks Asou if something happened after he rang Satsuki yesterday but Asou denies that anything happened. The practice, however, must go on and Tae orders them to face off with male players. Before they can do this, however, all of a sudden a really fast player makes his way onto the playing field. The player reveals himself as Tougou, one of the members of the Outlaw which also consists of Harima, Imadori, Tenma, and Yakumo. Tougou then challanges the girl to see which one of them is the strongest. The winner will take the regular spot. The girls try to ask Tae to interfere but she transform into Athena from Saint Seiya and accepts the challenge.

The girls at first refuses but after Lala asks them about the purpose of their training, the girls agree to accept the challange. Because of this, the game begins with Mikoto and Harima as the first ballers. Harima manages to pass the ball thrown by the referee to Imadori, who quickly gives the Outlaws their first win. Imadori attributes the winning to his shoes but unfortunately for him Lala overheard this and decides to mug his shoes, leaving Imadori to cry like a little boy. Mikoto then tries to be on the offensive but it seems the combination of Tougou and Harim are too fast for her. Harima becomes especially excited after Tenma praises him. Yakumo, on the other hand, doesn't know what to do so Tenma asks Yakumo to pass the ball to her. At the last minute, however, Yakumo decides to pass it to Harima instead and scores another win for the Outlaws. The girls quickly realise that the combination of Harima, Tougou, and Imadori are too much to handle for them.

Lala becomes upset at the way game progresses and decides to run away. Tae, who's still on Athena crack decides to take over her position. Unknown to the girls, Satsuki is actually outside watching the game in progress and worrying about them. As if on cue, Lala appears next to Satsuki and convinces her that everyone is waiting for her. Because of this, Satsuki joins the game to replace Tae, who now returns to her Athena crack. All of a sudden the situation is reversed. Satsuki manages to score a point and then Ichijou manages to take the ball from Imadori and passes it on to Lala, who then scores another point. In the process of landing to the ground, however, her gorilla-like strength destroys Imadori's favourite shoes. Of course it doesn't help that Tenma is not a good player in the Outlaws team but surprisingly, Tougou doesn't care because they are in the same team. The closeness between the two, however, worries Harima a little bit.

While both team are on a break, Tenma suggests that they use various distractions akin to the one employed in the manga Tenma read. However, because of this very technique, Tenma commits a travelling violation. Since that technique didn't work, Tenma decides to tail Lala and in the process annoys the girl who proceeds to give Tenma some beatings every now and then. This means Lala has committed an offensive attack and is suspended from the field. Tae decides to dish out a new plan: to take Tenma back into the team. Much to Harima's disappointment, Tenma bails out on them right away. Because they lose Tenma, Asou offers to join the Outlaws' team and is accepted right away. When Mikoto and Satsuki make an attack, Asou mistakenly thinks that Satsuki will throw the ball herself. Much to his surprise, Satsuki passess the ball to Mikoto. Because of this Asou asks Harima to intercept Mikoto but it seems he's too busy playing footsie with Tenma.

The final score ends up being 132-131 only 1 point difference but Tougou tells his team that from tomorrow forward, this court will become theirs. Unfortunately for him, Imadori is tired, Harima wants to join Tenma's team, and Yakumo wants to prepare dinner. Lala then returns Imadori's 'shoes' and apologises to the crying boy because the only thing that's left of the 'shoes' are its shoelaces. That night everyone goes to the restaurant where Asou works part-time to celebrate. Everyone including Satsuki tries to encourage Mikoto to continue to be in the team but it seems she has her dojo on her mind. Once everyone goes home, Satsuki makes a decision to leave the team so that Asou can continue training Mikoto. Later on Asou tries to convince Mikoto to stay so Mikoto promises him to think about it a slowly. When she returns to the dojo, however, she finds Hanai wanting to play basketball as well after he heard about Yakumo's involvement in the game.

Impression:

Tae's Athena act was the funniest on-going joke inside this episode for me. It's probably because I've seen Saint Seiya and knows how Athena in that series is often depicted in that ridiculous high priestess pose time and time again. On the other hand, I don't really care about Satsuki and Asou pairing and in the end didn't go anywhere. I also find Lala to be rather irksome in this episode. Okay, the scenes where she beat up Imadori and made him cry like a baby is as funny as always but other than that, I find her temper and the way she carried herself to be rather annoying to see.I am not sure what to make of Tenma's betrayal of her own team. I thought that was highly ungrateful of her after they cheered her up last week. But since she's kind of useless to the team, except when blocking Harima, I guess it didn't matter that much. As a final note, I was kind of happy to see Yakumo passing the ball to Harima instead of to her sister.

© memento 2003