School Rumble Volume 7

Summary: Harima has to deal with the rumors that he and Eri are a couple while Eri also deals with her feelings. When Yakumo gets brought into the mix, Harima flees to work a fishing boat, but the captain, a giant of a man who was a former manga-ka sends Harima back to shore with a gift of a pen made from the spine of a tuna. Enlisting Yakumo’s assistance, the two spend a few days working on his manga, causing everyone to think Harima and Yakumo are a couple. Harima races to get his manga to the publisher before the deadline and Eri ends up helping him in this after he has an accident with her limo.

Thoughts: I read the manga having seen all of the School Rumble anime series to date. So I knew that Yakumo and Harima would work on a manga together. I knew that it was hinted that Yakumo kinda liked Harima. I knew that it was hinted that Eri-chan kinda liked Harima. What didn’t come across in the anime (at least from what I remember) is that Eri-chan actually took time off from school to consider things with Harima. Further, I certainly don’t remember Tenma not only encouraging Harima to date her little sister, but I don’t remember Yakumo’s friends (Sarah specifically) believing the two to be a couple. Then again, maybe it has been too long since I last saw the whole series.

Anyway, I liked the added emphasis that while they don’t have that kind of relationship, people think they do because of their spending time together combined with Harima’s statements which could be taken wrongly. I sorta like the idea of a Harima-Yakumo pairing.

On the Del Rey front, I’m glad they use the Japanese naming conventions (family name followed by given name) for the puns. I was also glad to see them finally use the term “kappa” since many other Del Rey titles have. In earlier volumes, the translator avoided “kappa” and chose to go an English route to provide the pun joke (kappa are a mythical water dwelling creature but the word also means raincoat, and Karasuma-kun wore rain gear that looked like a kappa costume). As always, I’m glad Del Rey uses the main honorifics.

On the downside, William Flanagan isn’t going more “otaku,” and I think he could. For starters, Eri is addressed by her staff as “ojousama” and while Del Rey does use this title in some of their manga (notably, Negima! where Ayaka’s staff address her as “ojousama” and several people refer to Konoka as “ojousama”), William uses “Miss” instead. Is this a proper translation? Yes. However, I much prefer the title “ojousama” in this situation.

There are some other things that William doesn’t do wrong, but I think it would be more fun to go more “otaku.” I wouldn’t mind seeing Harima’s use of “Ojou” when he addresses Eri. “Princess” is a correct translation. Eri addresses Harima mainly as “Hige” which means “beard.” I think “Hige” looks neater and I don’t like translating names, even nicknames, but “Beard” is the correct translation. Ditto Harima addressing Yakumo as “Imouto-san” (Younger Sister-san) which is shown as “Sister-san.” Ditto Harima addressing Hanai as “Megane” (Glasses) which is shown as “Glasses.” All the translations are correct and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, as I said, I just prefer that names and nicknames not be translated and a translator note to explain the term be used. That’s just me.