Joseph Luster
July 1, 2008 Enthusiastic fans lamenting the final volume of School Rumble‘s first season domestic DVD releases didn’t really have too long to ponder extracurricular activities, did they? Smartly, FUNimation wasted no time releasing the follow-up OVA that bridges the series, School Rumble OVA Ichigakki Hoshu or, as we’ll come to know it: Extra Class. This between-the-lines video, while extremely dependent on one’s love of the first season, is certainly a solid enough way to kill time before the next.
The first episode—exhaustively titled “New Term Excitement To Be Near You Scramble! The Naked Truth!•bCrLf —serves as a self-professed B-side to the series. Lots of odds and ends are uncovered from events in the first season, though that doesn’t necessarily mean the story is fleshed out or anything; it doesn’t need to be. This is basically a 25-minute reel of bonus gags delivered in short doses, from Tsukamoto dealing with the seating arrangement in her class to her sister being visited by a spirit that questions her affinity toward men.
These short bursts will be all but completely meaningless to newcomers, but that’s not exactly the group this DVD is 
meant for. This is the kind of fan-service that doesn’t involve panties and nearly-exposed breasts (well, not entirely), feeding off of the demand for just a liiiittle bit more from all of the show’s characters. It’s very scatterbrained and the narrative is all over the place, but it works as a collection of snippets that would otherwise be perfectly at home in the Extras section of a normal School Rumble DVD.
In contrast to that, anyone with a pulse and a penchant for not-even-close Godiego impersonations should be able to enjoy episode one’s Galaxy Express 999 parody credits, “Genga Ensen ’05.•bCrLf
The preview for the second episode of the OVA sets it up as a prehistoric School Rumble adventure, admitting: “if the dialogue were all •Hanga hanga,’ it would be difficult to understand. So this episode will be dubbed in modern Japanese.•bCrLf The episode itself is almost as all over the place as the first, starting off in the Was Burger fast food joint and transitioning to the Stone Age, where all of the classmates live together in one village, with the exception of the banished Harima.
Everyone’s favorite delinquent is momentarily let back in their good graces when he discovers a black rock that might just be tough enough to crack the skin of the mighty mammoth, Devil Tusk. As ridiculous as it sounds, this is the more enjoyable of the two episodes on the disc. While there are still way too many in-jokes for the unaccustomed, the story is absurd enough to show off some of the series’ appeal outside 
of the classroom setting. It also might be the closest the show ever comes to rumbling!
At a light 50 minutes, it’s really going to depend on the individual whether or not Extra Class is worth a full purchase. Fans will definitely want to watch it, as there are a ton of referential gags that only they will understand, but everyone else is going to need to start from the beginning of the term and make themselves familiar with the fairly large cast that powers the mostly hit, sometimes miss comedy. If you’re still feeling the withdrawal symptoms after this one’s done, don’t forget that the second season is more than likely just around the corner, ready to plant you right back in your assigned seat in no time flat.
