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I loved the first season. So much so that it sort of pains me to say that I had a lot of problems with season 2. It's strange too since the core of what makes the series memorable is still present. The comedy? Still great, made me laugh out loud a few times. The action scenes are still far better than they have any right to be. Fanservice is top notch as always. But you know? What really separated the first season of School Rumble for me is that it had all of these elements while also having characters that evolve and grow. All of ... that comes to a screeching halt here in the 2nd season, and it is by far my biggest issue with these 26 episodes.

Starting off; Tenma. Tenma behaved as a nuisance for quite a few episodes there in the middle. Tenma generally falls into that airhead archetype of character. Here in season 2 her airheadedness showcases itself in a most bothersome fashion. Compared to season 1 where she was largely just a klutz one would be pressed to find a reason to dislike, her treatment of Harima here is exceedingly harebrained. When Harima, a total stranger who isn't very familiar with her home, is caught by her after "snooping" in her sister's room she concludes that the most rational course of action is to toss him. While knowing that he has nowhere else to go. Without even letting him speak for himself nor considering the possibility that he could've.. simply been lost? This is a recurring theme throughout School Rumble S2. Tenma thinks up something and just refuses to budge. It's pretty much how retards in the real world act. I find this troublesome as I don't want to think about real life morons in my anime world. But when this really reaches it's apex is later on. Tenma, whom was evidently not satisfied with kicking her "friend" to the curb like he was little more than garbage, decides to rat on him to Eri claiming that he goes creeping on girls. Eri sticks up for him, saying that he wouldn't do such a thing and asks if she asked him about it. Tenma thinks and replies with a "Oh yeah, he was insisting on something" sort of response. Now, what do you think the next scene we see Harima and Tenma in is like?

If you guessed "Harima risking his entire future as a manga artist just to show his beloved a manuscript featuring her where she then proceeds to turn him away and say he isn't allowed at the house despite Eri's word", you'd be correct! It takes Tenma's sister standing up for him and then revealing why they were actually friends for her to believe Harima. Following this, the show tries to make their "reunion" as friends this grand emotional specter. Suffice to say it falls flat when one considers not only how poorly Tenma treated Harima in this season, but also how all of their interactions go. With Harima putting on a disingenuous facade in attempt to impress her while Tenma is too stupid to notice. It was funny the first few times. But now that we're on repeat #20, it has grown rather stale to be kind.

On the topic of Harima, I found myself frustrated with his character this season as well. I loved Harima in season 1, definitely my 2nd favorite character. But here I feel he becomes rather one note. Despite her poor treatment of him seemingly the only thing on his mind is his beloved Tenma. Why? I have no idea. They are so hilariously incompatible with one another that it almost feels as if the show is insulting the viewer's intelligence during the makeup scene where she reads his manuscript. All of his focus on Tenma manifests itself in him ignoring Eri at any opportunity. Rather, it's as if the events between Harima and Eri from the first season didn't happen at all!

The sunset dance? What's that? Never heard of it. Nope. We're back to square one where Harima refuses to talk to her and if he has no option but to talk to her, he berates her. This despite her saving him from probable prison time had she not be kind enough to pay the tab at that restaurant for him earlier in the season. The tab that he accumulated as a result of his beloved Tenma, I might add. It seems this showing of generosity wasn't enough considering Harima will do anything in his power to blow her off. It's made more frustrating by how him and Eri hold great understanding with one another. When they have extended scenes together, it usually results in a very down to earth Harima talking freely while Eri opens up in a manner which she does with nobody else. Not only that, but it is extremely obvious to everyone except Harima that Eri acts much differently around him. Takano and Suou are aware of this in-universe despite barely knowing the details between them.

Yet despite this, Harima's hardheadedness always prevails. I frankly find his stupidity similar to Tenma's; it crosses a certain line where it almost begins to feel meanspirited. It's as if Harima is incapable of thinking about Eri without first considering that she's rich. As if she's somehow incapable of feeling emotion because she has money. Reverse classism is just as foolish as classism is, Harima. Even when Eri is being forced into marriage at the age of 16, a frankly barbaric practice for a show set in the modern world, he seemingly feels little pity for her and only rushes off because Tenma is there. A man who danced with this girl after she injured her leg to make up to him feels next to no remorse for Eri's situation.

I know what a skeptical reader may be thinking. "Oh, well, Harima and Tenma were stupid in season 1 too right? So what's the problem? You liked the first season didn't you?". This is an easy question to answer. Put simply, the situation has changed.

For one, Harima has become clearly aware that Tenma is in love with Karasuma and even goes out of his way a few times to help Karasuma out knowing that it'd make Tenma happy. Like when he lets him escape the manga place to visit her birthday party, or when he rushes to see Karasuma after hearing of his "accident". He knows that he isn't the one Tenma wants, and yet this doesn't change his futile attempts to appeal to her. Why? It's pointless, on some level he acknowledges it yet he continues anyways. The whole Tenma-Harima dynamic is stale especially considering how little Tenma does in return.

For two, Eri's feelings for Harima didn't start to blossom until "The Scene" in episode 12, and this isn't clearly telegraphed to the viewer until she recalls "The Scene" in episode 15. That's an entire cour's worth of time to get all of those Harima floundering pathetically at Tenma scenes out of the system. Yet we just keep getting them. Over and over, taking up all kinds of screentime that could instead be spent on fleshing out other characters.

Lo and behold, we finally get a Harima and Eri scene. This moment makes all of the previous crap from Harima even more obnoxious than it already was. For one, all of the pretexts are dropped on Eri's side due to her not knowing Harima's identity. Together in the temple they have a very heartfelt conversation with one another. Attempts to derail any conversation are made by Harima and his prejudices that refuse to go away. Yet even in spite of his efforts, the conversation continues on as naturally as can be. Harima's attempts at sabotage are no match for their natural bond with each other. It's frustrating because it's a night and day when you superimpose these scenes beside the ones with his beloved Tenma.

We sink even lower when Eri falls asleep beside him and, while dreaming, she mutters under her breath that "Whiskers is an idiot". She was dreaming about him despite the fact that they hadn't had a real moment to speak with each other in-universe in what was probably weeks? It was quite a few episodes. Harima of course manages to miss the implication of this and decides to take vengeance by drawing a stupid mustache on her face with a marker while she's sleeping. He's hardheaded, sure, but to be hardheaded enough not to realize the implications of that? Especially when considering Eri's personality? She obviously didn't mean that. It's getting into "convenient excuse" territory. There's no way around it.

Even if you want to argue until you're blue in the face that this is in character, you can only have a character miss the point so many times before it becomes clear that you're just trying to avoid advancing the plot. Especially when we have plenty of humor throughout the rest of the season. Similar to Tenma's idiocy, Harima stupidity loses it's endearing qualities and starts to feel like something an idiot in the real world would do. That's territory that you never want to enter as a show. But the issues with Harima go deeper than just him; no, in my opinion this porous character writing also has a secondary effect. It prevents Eri's character from growing whatsoever as well! Shit rolls downhill as they say.

To establish some things about Eri; she's a wealthy girl who deeply loves her family that she rarely gets to see. She practically lives alone in a mansion with a personal butler, almost every scene where the viewer is shown her at her place involves her being alone looking out the balcony. Eri is a very sheltered girl that has no experience with... I was going to say romance, but honestly? It goes deeper than that. While she certainly has some snark and a cruel streak to her, it's quite clear that she isn't the person she presents herself as outwardly. Eri simply has little to no experience expressing her true self to people in any fashion. She also has little life experience in general and this is subtly telegraphed to the viewer at some points. For example, the fact that the previous summer she was the only one who didn't work part time. In order for Eri to grow as a person and escape her shell, she needs to be able to express herself to someone. She has no other way to do so; her butler just does her family's bidding, and she almost never sees her family. You can see how important Harima would be to her even if they were just good friends and not love interests.

While it's never explicitly stated, I always thought that the reason Eri fell for Harima in the first place is because of how honest and open he is with her. She never gets that. Ever. From anyone else. For someone who has also experienced loneliness and isolation in a similar vein I find her character very relatable. It's apart of why I like her so much. To see this nature of her's trampled on and cast aside triggers me in a particular manner. You could make an incredibly compelling character arc out of this and instead all of that potential is wasted. Delegated to the sidelines and little more.

While Harima's honesty can make Eri pissy at times, I think it's clear that she appreciates it. Nearly everyone else in the show sees her as one of three things: A girl who's out of their league, a girl to try to pick up, or a mere acquaintance. This is why seeing Harima treat her like shit gets old quick for me. It's irresponsible. Okay sure, whatever, I understand if Harima isn't smart enough to notice that Eri acts this way around him or connect the dots with her life circumstances. That's plausible. It's the blowing her off at any opportunity that just makes it seem like the author is trying to kick the can down the road to prevent either of them from changing in the slightest. It's also what makes Harima just come off as a douche at times. Especially so since it's likely that Eri suffers from some form of depression. This is evidenced by her "Nobody will care if I'm gone" quote as she's packing up to leave for the marriage an episode earlier.

You know what happens because of Harima's antics? It nearly results in her being taken away for good. We know this because Eri said herself that she had given up and didn't have the willpower to resist the arrangement. She would've been if not for Suou; it was her who took initiative and nixed the arrangement. It was her precious father's desire after all, Eri wouldn't go against it unless she was shown a reason not to. Eri has nobody else; who is she to resist his wish? Her father is her world. If she did so, it'd make one of the only things she has disappointed in her or perhaps even dislike her. If Harima's inaction had won out, nobody in the show would've ever seen her again.

My main issue just comes down this; Harima's fixation on Tenma when it is abundantly clear that ship has already sailed. Even Harima himself seemingly knows if you analyze him according to his actions. All the while there's another character who has taken an interest to him that he simply ignores. One who very desperately needs someone in their life even if just as good friends. But these potentially touching and heartfelt scenes are forgone in favor of repetitive jokes that had worn most of the tread off of their tires 20 episodes ago. What was the point of the first season if the second feels as if it's a filler arc that rehashes the same general concepts from the first one? While also taking little of the first season's developments into account in it's story?

With my long list of complaints having now ceased, the season is not without it's good points. Suou is shown to be an endearing, responsible, and emotionally mature character that cares about her friend despite their falling out in season 1. She understands that if Eri is taken away by Nakamura, she will never come back. As such she quickly forces Harima to get on a motorcycle and run with her to somewhere, anywhere. Suou's quick thinking here was probably the coolest moment of the season to me. Her generosity in allowing Harima a place to stay is also notable. While I wouldn't call her a deep character, it's a big upgrade from season 1. Her thing with Aso is also enjoyable.

Despite all of the problems it has, I wouldn't say that I disliked this season. If anything it was rather enjoyable; it's just hard to overlook the glaring flaws. It indeed is a real shame that we never got more adapted of this series other than that train wreck of an OVA. As such, I would say that if you were a big fan of the first season it's worth watching. If you were mixed or only softly positive on the first season? Stay away. You're getting more of the same but with vastly inferior writing and some episodes that just feel like straight up filler (looking at you episode 20 and 21). If you were high on the first season but happen to be an Eri fan? Well, you'll probably end up feeling somewhat burned! But it is still more School Rumble, and it still contains all of it's trademarks. The show is a comedy first and foremost. At that, School Rumble still excels.

In my final opinion, the 2nd season was an okay but rather disappointing follow up to the fantastic first season. I'm a bit scared of reading the manga because I worry that this sort of floundering with character development will continue to rear it's head prominently. I'd hate to see the characters wasted any more than they were this season.

Dragon Ball Minus is an abortion. But it's only one chapter out of 12. Toriyama is very lax about what is canon and what isn't. The guy flat out doesn't care at all and just writes things that he thinks are fun. I mean it's one 15 page chapter in a gag manga ffs. I think a lot of the hate it gets is just because people are taking way more seriously than it was ever intended to be; Dragon Ball is a franchise with tons of different continuities. All that really matters is the original manga that ran from 1984-1995 which sort of serves ... as the stump to a tree while the other shows, mangas and whatever else are branching paths. Toriyama himself doesn't really care about what's canon and what isn't, the only thing that has truly offended him enough to ever get explicitly excluded was Evolution (understandably).

Onto Jaco itself, the actual meat of this is solid and harkens back to the days of the original Dragon Ball. Frankly I think this is the best modern Dragon Ball(ish, it's a spinoff with only minor ties to the story) material that's been put out by far because it goes back to its roots as a fun gag manga that'll make you chuckle here and there as three unlikely characters stumble across a strange situation that none of them could've been prepared for. The dynamic with Omori, Tights and Jaco is endearing and the paneling is as good as usual in one of Toriyama's works. It's a very inoffensive read following the misfits of a super elite galactic patrolman who finds himself stranded on a backwater planet with two earthlings. It doesn't overstay it's welcome and I don't really see any reason why someone who enjoys his other works wouldn't enjoy this outside of overblown Minus-related handwringing.

I genuinely don't think that I've outright hated an anime quite as much as I hate Dragon Ball Super. This show takes nearly every single negative from the original series and cranks it up to 11, fills the "plot" with nonsensical fan service, and not only that but it's considered "canon" by the general fan base. This is a complete affront to the Dragon Ball name with the sole exception of the Broly movie, which itself is mostly just carried by the production quality/$$$ poured into it.


Even things that seem as if they'd be positives in Super end up being so laughably half-assed that ... I can't even give it credit for those. For example, on the surface you'd think that giving side characters a chance to prove themselves and contribute would be a good thing. The problem? It's all completely halfhearted. At one point in the show, each character gets a dedicated episode for them to "shine" by beating up on some random throwaway enemy. Why the fuck is Roshi, a character who gave up on fighting and who shouldn't be stronger than Raditz, competing against enemies equivalent to Z frieza? I am totally okay with throwing power levels out the window and focusing more on the actual techniques (which is what makes DB better than Z) but Roshi quit training ages ago and really the fact that he's even still alive is somewhat unbelievable. At the end of the day, this is all completely shallow tripe and the show is really just Goku and Vegeta Ball Super.


Oh but you aren't supposed to take a "CANON" (supposedly, toriyamas involvement in very limited and all that he does is occasional script writing) seriously!!!!!! Just turn your brain off and enjoy it! Fuck no. This piece of shit reinforces every single negative stereotype about one of my all time favorite media franchises. The entire first chunk of this show is just horrifically animated, uninspired retellings of the BoG and Resurrection F movies. Speaking of, how lazy is recycling a villain from Z entirely to please fans and then making his big power up just making him GOLDEN??? Christ. After this you get the U6 tournament, which is actually an interesting idea. Hit is a definite highlight of this show as well and him killing Goku was one of the coolest moments in the series even though it wasn't nearly enough to pierce Goku's plot armor and the part in the U6 tournament where he overcomes Hit's time skip by.. powering up is incredibly lame. The tournament itself is whatever and some of the fights are just flat out uninteresting such as Goku beating up on the jello-bear or the big steam robot that has two attacks.


Outside of Hit, this show has one more major highlight for me. Zamasu. He is a marvelously interesting idea for a villain and touches on concepts of human morality. You can genuinely understand his motivations, almost every action he takes is calculated and hell he even nearly wins. So how'd they fuck it up? By using this phenomenal concept on a fanfic tier ZOMG EVIL GOKU!!!!!!!! plotline. No seriously, he's literally a deviantart OC from 2009. https://www.deviantart.com/negatiivegokux20/art/Evil-goku-137564254.


This alone isn't enough to ruin the Zamasu arc for me and overall I'd still call it a solid arc, but asspulling Zamasu into being le evil goku imitator just comes off as yet another instance of this show attempting to be a soulless cash grab. They even made his hair pink! MERCHANDISING! By the way, all of the new forms in this show are just deviantart OC esque color pallet swaps. Unbelievably lazy but boy do those toys fly off the shelves.


It ends with the ludicrously stretched out Tournament of Power arc. Buu gets shelved at the last hour because of Frieza deciding to fight with Goku which is lolworthy. About half of this arc is completely useless filler (hi Ribrianne) The main antagonist's backstory is a boldfaced Batman ripoff. Jiren himself has absolutely no character whatsoever and really he is basically just a giant plot device who serves no other purpose than to be REALLY STRONG so that Goku can obtain Ultra Instinct. UI is a neat idea for a transformation and it's a shame that it's wasted on a complete nothing foe. I don't even really know what else to say about this, it's a bland tournament arc that has some flashy fight scenes but ultimately it isn't very memorable whatsoever outside of those flashy fight scenes.


There isn't ANY emotional weight in this show whatsoever like there were in the originals, which is part of what makes it so much worse. Dragon Ball's story has never been a literary masterpiece, but it was good enough to make you feel connected to the characters and WANT to see them overcome their struggles. When Gohan broke you FELT it. The awesome beatdown was a mere accessory to that payoff that had been gradually building up for hundreds of episodes. There is no character development to speak of here, Goku is transformed into a 60 IQ retard and Vegeta just disowns the completion of his arc in the Buu saga. Is the plot of the original shows perfect? Nope. But there isn't ANYTHING of substance here in Super. It's just mindless fighting.


For an overall score? I'd probably give this one around a 3 or a 4.

Animation - VERY inconsistent, it's highs are among the best i've seen and it's lows are among the lowest. The animation improves a good deal later in the show. I'll split the difference. Except... the "modern" dragon Ball look makes everything look as if it's been smeared in vasoline. For that, I can't really go any higher than a 4/10 or so.

Plot - 2/10 at best. The only way to tolerate the plot is to turn your brain off and not think about it too much.

Characters - The original dragon ball characters are all obviously who they are but the new characters are mostly really lame and lack any sort of depth so I'm giving this a 3/10. Seriously, besides Hit and Zamasu pretty much every other character introduced are sterile and lifeless and that is saying something considering they had 6 ENTIRE UNIVERSES OF POTENTIAL CHARACTERS TO WORK WITH. what an unbelievable waste.

Sound - It has some good tracks but overall it's pretty whatever. Probably the highlight of the show despite that and the UI theme kicks ass. 5/10.

That concludes my first review. Apologies if this comes off as ranty, and as always you are entitled to like what you like. But this show just isn't it for me, and I can't recommend it.