School Rumble 2nd Term ep.11

June 20, 2006 | 9 Comments

This is another decent episode for the series. The first story is quite funny and features some interesting interaction between the characters. It also has food as a theme so it brings back memory of Yakitate!! Japan, which I have to revisit one of these days. Unfortunately, the second and the third stories are not that good. I am starting to wonder now if supporting characters like Nishimoto is funny enough to be featured seperately from the main characters. They're just not funny enough in my opinion. Having said that, I'm starting to get used to Imadori, Tougou, and Lala now. Well, it's mostly just Imadori and his silliness but since the writers need someone to go against his obnoxious personality, Tougou and Lala are often featured alongside him.

Suga Ryuuhei is Asou's best friend who loves pickled eggplants and Asou's cooking. However, when he ordered Ramen with pickled eggplant (Nasu no Nukazuke ramen), he gets Asou's finger in addition to the dish. After the credit, some students from class 2-C and 2-D are seen gathering at Mikoto's house for an Imonikai (Outdoor potato stew party). Mikoto's father immediately think that Asou is Mikoto's boyfriend but he denies it and simply tells the big guy that he's just her coach. Meanwhile, it's apparently the first time for Yakumo to attend a Imonikaiwa party at Mikoto's place so she wonders if it's okay for her to come here. Unfortunately Yakumo forgets to bring any meat with her but thankfully Harima comes to save the day by offering his lot to the Tsukamoto sisters. It's not hard to guess which Tsukamoto sister he is trying to impress. Meanwhile at another table, Imadori is not happy with Tougou because he invited Lala into to join them at the table.

It appears that he's not happy that she destroyed his Jordan shoe despite Tougou's attempt to explain that was an accident. Ichijou tries to cool the situation by asking them what they want to put in the hotpot and begins to place vegetables into it herself. Unfortunately for her, Lala decides to put a leftover burgers and chips from her workplace into the hotpot. Tougou then adds that a man's food needs some chilli and puts lots of those into the dish. Imadori likes Udon and decides to put it into the hotpot as well. The result, not surprisingly, is one disgusting purple-coloured dish. Tenma then arrives after sniffing the scent and would like to taste the food. Much to everyone's surprise, Tenma likes the dish and so does Lala. However, when Tougou and Imadori taste the food, they realise that Tenma and Lala have really bad taste when it comes to food. Ichijou tries to humour them that they can make another one since there's still some veggies left.

Imadori, who's still angry about his Jordan shoes decide to exact revenge by placing his shoelace into the newly made Nabe while no one is looking. Meanwhile at Tenma's table, Hanai notices that Yakumo is too busy feeding Tenma that she doesn't have the time to eat herself. So he takes the unwanted initiative of feeding Yakumo himself and proceeds to blow his possibly smelly breath into the food in order to cool it down. Back to Imadori, he looks happy thinking that he may have exact his revenge on Lala and Tougou. Unfortunately for him, Tougou spots his shoelace in the hotpot and forces Imadori to eat it himself. While this happens, Harima's little piglet, Napoleon comes over to Harima asking for food. Poor Napoleon, however, becomes horrified when Tenma says outloud that she loves Tonjiru (pork soup). It doesn't help that Harima looks as if he's ready to make a mincemeat out of Napoleon. Because of this, Napoleon runs away from Harima, causing havoc in the process.

In the second part of the episode, a dog is doing his business when all of a sudden there's an earthquake. After the earthquake subsides, however, there is a loud noise coming from one of the house behind it, causing the dog to flee in fear. The next day, Nishimoto comes to the class with his left arm bandaged. Apparently during the Earthquake, Nishimoto was trying to ensure that his doujin/porn video shelf does not fall over. He, however, became distracted when the porn video on his TV shows the girl doing a particular pose. In an attempt to reach the remote control to pause the video, Nishomoto causes the shelf to fall down again. Mai offers to help Nishimoto tidying up the place on Sunday but becomes horrified when she finds out that the things that need to be tidied up is ero videos. Because of this Nishimoto decides to sort the DVD himself into a box. But since he has way too many porn videos, the collection ends up looking like a tower which quickly falls over the minute there's a minor earthquake.

Because of this, Nishimoto decides to give some of his collections to his classmates. The first one is Imadori who at first refuses because he claims he's going on a date. Imadori, however, immediately changes his mind when Nishimoto shows him a special DVD for Imadori. Imadori then takes off with a few of the goods himself. The next one is Yoshidayama and it seems he needs to be persuaded by The Secret of Nurse's Office DVD, featuring a porn actress who looks like Tae-sensei. Then comes Nara, who offers to take everything but it seems each person can only take 3 DVDs. The rest of the students then come and accept Nishimoto's offering. Nishi, however, refuses to give the DVD to those who already have a girlfriend. Eventually Nishi manages to reduce his collection down to one box but Hanai then comes to 'confiscate' the items. In the middle of carrying the goods, however, he almost got into an accident before bumping into Yakumo who, not surprisingly, thinks that Hanai is one big pervert.

In the third story, Hanai goes to Church to tell his story about being caught red-handed with the porn vids by Yakumo. Sarah, who acts as the confessional Sister is weirded out by this since Hanai clearly doesn't feel guilty about it but just worried that Yakumo is terrified of him. In the end she is the one who has to coax him into confession. After Hanai left, Sarah tells herself that she's pretty sure that the guy on the other side is Hanai. Busted. Sarah's next client, Tanaka, is a guy from Yagami High's Soccer club who is in love with a girl but doesn't have the courage to confess his love. He, however, promises himself to muster the courage if he wins the next game. Sarah thinks that it's rather nice to hear a confession that is not about someone's sin. The next day, however, Sarah gets a guy confessing his love to her and therefore she becomes confused about what to do. After talking to Akira, she realises that she still doesn't understand about love.

One day, after finishing her job as Sister, Sarah decides to go to Soccer field to watch Tanaka plays. Tanaka, however, fails to score a goal and in his frustration screams loudly in the field before crying in the middle of a field. Sarah, who feels sorry for the guy, notices a girl crying and runs past by her. The next time Tanaka is in confession, she tells him to tell the girl once again about his feeling despite his failure. He, however, gives up for now although promises to confess to the girl in the next game. Because of this, Sarah runs out of the confession room and wishes him the best. The next time Sarah meets Akira, Akira asks her why she looks happy but Sarah simply tells her it's confidential. Akira then asks Sarah what's her reply to the letter given to her by the other guy. But Sarah also tells Akira that it's confidential. In the epilogue, Ryuuhei becomes happy to see Sarah working in the Chinese restaurant until she serves his favourite ramen in the same manner that Asou did in the prologue of this episode.

Impression:

The first part of the episode is the most interesting of them all. I supposed having all of the interesting main characters in it helps a lot. I was horrified to see the Nabe that Imadori's group produced and was even more so when Tenma and Lala gulp the stew like it's a 5 star course. In a way this explains why Tenma can't cook very well. If she can't tell a good tasting food from a bad one, then obviously she will assume that everything that she cooks will taste good. Imadori trying to put his shoelace to exact his revenge was comedic gold as usual. I'm just hoping that Tougou actually found out about the shoelace before some innocent person like Ichijou starts eating the hotpot dish. I also love the part where Napoleon freaked out when Tenma mentioned that she loves Pork soup. Since Harima tends to do anything to please Tenma, it's understandable that the poor little piglet is afraid that Harima may cut him up and turn him into a dish for hungry Tenma.

I do feel sorry for Yakumo in this episode though since she's essentially got harrassed by Hanai. I wish she'd just tell him that she's not interested in him that way so he'll stop harrasing her but then I guess there wouldn't be any story left with Hanai if that's the case. The second part is not that funny except for the time when Nishimoto rejects one guy because he already has girlfriend. The part where Hanai gets caught by Yakumo for carrying porn DVDs was also hilarious. I hope Yakumo stays away from the creep after this. Other than those two, however, I thought the joke went on too long and it's repeated over and over again only with different characters. The third story is the most boring of them all. I'm all of a story involving Sarah but I didn't expect it to be this boring. I thought it'll be some romance with Asou but that doesn't seem to be the case. All we got is simply Sarah showing that she's a good Sister to those who needs her advice.

© memento 2003