School Rumble, Volume 11

Summary/Synopsis: The girl’s basketball club story draws to a conclusion with “The Outlaws” (Harima, Tougou, Imadori, Tenma, and Yakumo) challenging Satsuki’s team (Lala, Megumi, Mikoto, Tsumugi, and Karen) to a game, the winner being the representative of the school. Despite Satsuki’s departure, Anegasaki-sensei accepts. The Outlaws begin giving the girls a beating but Lala eventually gets Satsuki to return to the team where the girls ultimately win.

After an after party and a study session where Tenma battles her cravings for sweets, Harima and Hanai end up losing their entire class to 2D after losing multiple card games to Tougou and Harry. After doing some penance for Eri and Akira, Harima and Hanai join the girls for an outing to the Curry Stadium, where there are multiple curry stands. They end up in a contest for eating hot curry where Harima just loses to Satsuki.

After Tenma has a dream where she’s a responsible person everyone looks up to, Harima decides to take Tenma out for her birthday and then treat her to a birthday dinner at an expensive restaurant, getting Akira and Shuuji-kun to come as cover (Eri and Mikoto not being able to come due to other engagements). Harima fails at everything and is in for a shock when he discovers the restaurant is more than he can afford. However, Eri is there for her meeting and covers the tab since it is Tenma’s birthday.

Harima is plagued by a ghost teacher, which forces him to study so he can stay with Tenma. Meanwhile, Tenma is having her own studying problems but manages to succeed. Lala cuts off too much hair, leading herself and Karen on a little adventure to make it right. That’s followed by a sleepover at Mikoto’s house where Tenma, Eri, and Akira grill Mikoto about her date with Aso.

Finally, Nishimoto’s massive porn collection causes and accident which forces him to get rid of much of it to his followers.

Thoughts/Review: Del Rey makes a big mistake in this volume. On page eight, they mis-ID Yakumo, Megumi, and Karen. This is a pretty big and obvious mistake. I don’t know how this could have happened since the text for each person should be pretty simple to keep straight. Very, very bad, Del Rey.

That aside, I rather enjoyed this volume of the manga. I laughed when Lala took Imadori’s Air Jordans for her own use and literally wore them down to the shoestrings. However, the funnier bit was when Imadori tried to get his revenge at the Nabe Party at Mikoto’s house by dropping the shoe strings into the nabe, after which Lala has the ultimate payback thanks to Tougou.

I loved the continued tension between Eri and Harima, even if only in brief moments. Yakumo had such a small role in this volume that there was nothing between her and Harima.

Basically, I enjoyed all the stories but it seemed to me that Kobayashi-sensei got a bit lazy on his art. Normally, people’s hair will have a shine in it to indicate a light source. Sometimes Kobayashi-sensei has this and sometimes he doesn’t, and it was the lack of this that stood out to me. Still, the stories are able to cover for this art laps.

Bottom line: Good stories, but a huge mistake by Del Rey on character identification for the basketball teams and some laziness in the artwork at times from Kobayashi-sensei. Still, it is worth a buy if you like School Rumble.