It has been the nature of anime fans to compare romantic pairings in anime shows. I suppose that one trademark of a great romance anime is that people would always be comparing that their favorite pairings in such anime – lead guy x girl A would be better than lead guy x girl B; if that was the case then, School Rumble in my opinion is arguably one of the best romance anime ever created.
School Rumble’s romance plot is quite simple if you look at it. It is a romantic comedy that created a 3 way possible romance with Kenji Harima, the main protagonist. On one corner, there’s Tenma Tsukamoto, the anime’s resident unremarkable oddball girl and in another is Eri Sawachika, your usual blonde rich oujou character who has tsundere elements in her personality and finally is Yakumo Tuskamoto, Tenma’s younger sister who is the resident gentle and beautiful girl who doesn’t know how to act around boys because of a peculiar situation. In my experience, if someone pops in the topic of School Rumble, it starts out as comedy talk then quickly morphs into the “my pairing is better then yours!” talk.
The series ended without resolving Harima’s true love interest, I was practically angry about it because I so desperately wanted a resolution to my Harima x Yakumo pairing but after giving it a lot of thought, I personally think it was a brilliant move. While I personally think that denying the fans Harima’s romantic issues a resolution is a bad move and left me a tad sad, I think that worked more to the anime’s advantage. I think that the way School Rumble ended gave it a some sort of immortality among anime fans. A conversation about School Rumble will almost always have the “my pairing is better then yours!” talk and that is why School Rumble in my opinion is the best shipping wars ever created.
Kuro's anime ramble blog 
If that’s the way you like it(the final shipments being unanswered), then please don’t read the manga. You won’t be happy if you do.
Just curious, but when people talk of the School Rumble ending, do they mean the ending of Season 2, or the two episodes that were released from season 3?
Anyway, I totally agree with you. School Rumble is awesome for Shipping Wars. I think it’s because unlike other anime, there are no “bad” characters. All the characters are likeable in some way or another.
Manga and anime pretty much the same, Harima still ends up with nobody. Normal people would be talking about season 2, the more knowledgeable ones would ask “Season 3?”.
Yup, all characters in School Rumble are pretty much likable.
Oh woops, I guess the manga technically doesn’t have a proper ending. Though, School Rumble Z does have a sort of flash forward thing to the future in chapter 10. I think, that’s what confused me.
The truest of truth! Btw, you’re in the Onigiri Faction? I was once in that faction, until my darkside overwhelmed me and made me switch to KidsMeal Faction. =P
Onigiri faction all the way, sir.
What an old post you have here, haha, oh man, how I wished this series was still ongoing (though I just found out that the manga may re-continue and started to google for more info on this like crazy). I personally want a Harima x Eri ending, but I’d be very happy if Harima x Yakumo happened as well and would be ok with Harima x Tenma 😛 I think all of the ships got a decent amount of development and are overall good 😀