School Rumble “Give It Away”

The third of the four School Rumble extra chapters is “Give It Away”, which was published March 15, 2017. This was published alongside the extra Negima! chapter.

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Harima, Hanai, and Imadori meet up in a restaurant. Imadori is setting up a mixer. Hanai and Harima immediately decline. Harima says they have no time for romance. Hanai says Suou is too important to him. Plus, Hanai feels Suou wouldn’t go to a mixer if asked. This annoys Harima as it contradicts him.

Suou, Eri, and Akira take the booth behind the guys. However, they are unaware of the guys in the next booth. The girls are just returning from a mixer, so Harima and Hanai listen to their conversation. Suou doesn’t think Hanai will be upset with her for doing this since she told the guys at the mixer that she had a boyfriend. Harima quietly consoles Hanai. As the girls continue to talk about Hanai, he decides to attend Imadori’s mixer.

Suou asks Eri if it was okay for her to attend the mixer. Eri goes off, saying she won’t wait for “him” as life is short. His excuse that he needs 5-10 years to master his job isn’t going to cut it. At this, Hanai quietly consoles Harima. After hearing Akira insult him, Harima decides to attend the mixer.

One of the girls asks Suou what she would do if she met someone “better” than Hanai. She concedes that attention from a hot guy is cool, but she loves Hanai. Eri then concedes that she’s waited for him (Harima) so long, she’d be devastated if he dated someone else. In frustration, she one-rings his phone.

That night, Eri has missed the last train and the others are gone. She gets a text from Harima and meets him in a bar.

Sometime later, Harima and Hanai are in the doghouse for going to a mixer.

Thoughts/Review

School Rumble “Give It Away” has the worst scan/translation of the extra chapters. It is a shame that official, English places can’t be bothered to publish the chapter. And at this time, we won’t get a better scan/translation since the chapter is not in a book.

Double Standard

One thing Kobayashi-sensei nails in “Give It Away” is the double standard girls have when it comes to seeing members of the opposite sex. In this chapter, Suou, Eri, and Akira have just returned from a mixer. Suou is dating Hanai and Eri is dating Harima at this point. Suou had no interest in cheating on Hanai, but she still went. She had her ego stroked by hot guys hitting on her. He treated her kindly despite knowing she went to a mixer. However, when she found out he went to a mixer, she stopped talking to him (for a time).

Likewise with Eri. She had a more legitimate reason to go to a mixer since Harima is stringing her along with excuses. However, she’s so invested in Harima at this point, she’s intent on landing him and moving on. And when he texts her to meet at the bar, she’s very happy. And she even speaks of going to the mixer. Yet when she learns he goes to a mixer, she’s unhappy.

That aside, I did get a chuckle out of the double standard ’cause in my experience, it is all too true.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, School Rumble “Give It Away” was a fun chapter. I liked seeing Harima is dating Eri, and Hanai is dating Suou. But alas, the frustrating part is that Kobayashi-sensei won’t do a proper set of chapters to explore this aspect of the series.