Tenma Tsukamoto

Tenma Tsukamoto (塚本 天満) is a 16-year-old girl in the manga School Rumble. She is the female protagonist of the series. She is hopelessly in love with Karasuma Ooji, a stone-faced eccentric.

Overview
Even though Tenma is presented as the main character at the beginning of the series, she gradually falls into a supporting role towards the end of Season 1. She is nevertheless, an important character in School Rumble, and one of the most popular among the fans.

The older of the two Tsukamoto sisters, her childish appearance and behavior often make people think she’s actually the younger one.

According to the last Japanese poll performed by the publishers of the manga, Tenma is currently the fourth most popular character in the series.

Appearance
Tenma sports dark blue hair in the anime, and black hair in the manga, and has similiar color eyes. Her trademark is the small pigtails that wiggle when she's happy or excited. When she is upset or tired, her pigtails come down, just like a dog does with its tail. She is usually seen in her school uniform, even when she went to school in America, as shown in the manga, but will wear other clothes, like during summer and winter break. Tenma is short, immature, and flat-chested for her age, which in turn causes people to mistake her for a middle school student, usually insulting her.

Personality
Tenma is shown to have a very naiive and positive personality. She usually puts her positivity with her determination to get close to Karasuma. Tenma worries she has no good qualities, as she can only think of the bad qualities she has. She is quite childish, but really wants to be thought of as a woman. Tenma has a habit of misunderstanding and misinterpreting situations, even obvious ones. She is quite naive and gullible, as she is willing to trust anyone.

Abilities
Tenma is shown to be bad at cooking, sports, and acedemics. She is the only person who can cook worse than her friend Eri Sawachika. She fails at most sports she tries, but is suprisingly good at archery and skiing. She also learns to swim early in the series. Grade-wise, she usually gets all turtles (which is supposed to represent an F). Tenma is fairly clumsy, only adding to her worries that she is talentless. It is possible that she has a slight psychokinetic power, as she talks about bending spoons a few times to Yakumo and was once shown bending a spoon in an OVA.

Tenma’s most notable talent is impersonation. Whenever she gets carried away by her wild imagination and occurrences, she can actually become someone else and incorporate the traits and abilities of that particular personality. The Archer in episode #3 and the Pitcher in episode #5 are good examples of this.

Karasuma Ooji
Tenma's huge crush. Ever since the beginning and also throughout the series, she will always chase after him. There are times when something backfires whenever she gets so close to him. In episode 3 of School Rumble First Semester, there is a time when Tenma needs to draw Karasuma in an art class. At this time, she sits still embarrased at how the boy she likes is so close to her. But later on during the series, she recovered from that weakness and was able to get closer to him without being embarrased. This is shown in Episode 8 of School Rumble First Semester to when she invited him to eat riceballs with him together during lunch. She also travels to America, to learn medicine so that she can help Ooji with his illness.

Kenji Harima
Tenma doesn't necessarily have a crush on Harima, though has shown compassion for him throughout the series. Harima is the "pervert" that saved Tenma from bullies. When Harima takes her to his home and puts her to bed, she grabs him and says "I love you" even though she was half-asleep. This made her wake up and scream thinking Harima is a pervert. Tenma has fallen in love with him, but is still truly in love with Karasuma. Tenma switched places with Iori, Yakumo's cat, in one episode, and when Iori in Tenma's body pounces on Harima, he instantly thinks she's fallen in love with him. Tenma is still naive to Harima's feelings for her, but still acts friendly around him. Yakumo surprisingly is the one to fall in love with Harima, much to the disappointment of Haruki Hanai. When Harima goes to the airport with Tenma and Karasuma, he admits that he's in love with Tenma to himself not knowing that Tenma was right behind him. Tenma pretends to not know that Harima loves her and leaves Japan for the United States. When she arrives there, she realizes that Karasuma has picked up a rare disease and forgotten everything about her but Tenma still wants to be with him. Later, Tenma comes back to Japan and everyone from class 2-C participate in a pie fight. Harima then saves Tenma from a pie and tries to tell that he loves her, but when he was about to say it to her (not knowing that she already knows), Tenma tells Harima that she loves him too. Tenma then tells Harima that she wants to go back to America and study medicine so she can help Karasuma with his illness. Harima lets her go, saying that he wants her to be happy so he let her go to America.

Mikoto Suou
This is a very brief rivalry. In School Rumble Second Semester at the basketball arc, Tenma is shown to act as Mikoto's rival when Tenma went and joined The Outlaws with Tougou, Imadori, Yakumo, and Harima. During the basketball game, Lala was actually fouled out by pushing Tenma and with Tae's secret weapon, Tenma was brought back to the girl's basketball team and the rivalry seems to have broken off.

Kenji Harima
In Tenma's point of view, this was a very serious one-side rivalry against Harima. Right when Harima got locked out from Itoko's apartment, Yakumo invited Harima to stay at her place. One night, Harima went into Yakumo's room thinking that its Tenma's room, telling her that he likes her and its a misunderstanding that Harima and Yakumo are dating. Tenma doesn't believe him and thus kicked him out of her house. This one side rivalry occurred between School Rumble Second Semester Episode 16 to the middle of Episode 19. At the end of Episode 19, Tenma came to realize thatYakumo is just helping Harima with his manga and that it was a misunderstanding that them two are dating.

Yakumo Tsukamoto
Tenma's only known relative is her younger sister, Yakumo. But because Yakumo is taller and more mature, Tenma is usually mistaken to be the younger one. Her father is only seen once, reading a story book to Yakumo in a flashback.

Quotes

 * "Wow, I'm starting to feel a little loopy...."
 * "Bananas! Hooray!"
 * "I don't think I'm cut out for manual labor, I need to get a more creative job, like saving the whales."

Trivia

 * Her name means "pegasus" in Japanese.