Cromartie High School

Here is another nonsensical outrageous anime comedy. Yup, I’m talking about Sakigake! Cromartie High School. No doubt that the characters here are delinquents, but they aren’t as tough as they look. In a nutshell, they’re all dumb! In a funny way, that is. Uh-huh. So it goes to show that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. They just have that tough menacing look, that’s all.

 

With a total of 26 episodes and each episode is approximately 12 minutes, you’re gonna hear a lot of those ‘big talk’ delinquent style, filled with lots of delinquent cliches and parodies and even probably those you have never even heard of. And that’s what make it so funny. You think delinquents all this while are bad ass people who have no future prospect but to bully the weak, right? Well, not unless you’re talking about this one.

 

So our main character, Takashi Kamiyama, finally gets his wish to be enrolled in the infamous delinquent Cromartie High School. His reason? Well, he mentions that you have to read the comic strip if you want to find out how stuff came to be in the first episode. Now that’s a way to make a start. At first glance, Kamiyama may seem to be the only ‘ordinary looking’ student among the bunch. He even tried to look, talk and act like one through some book on how to be a delinquent on his first day, which he successfully followed step by step. The only catch is, the book mentions that all this must be done before the start of the school term! Bummer. I guess it won’t work now, huh? Even his first day he has encountered a weirdo already. When Kamiyama dropped his pencil, some guy called Masa took it up and eats it! So Kamiyama gave him a whole stack of pencils, in which Masa stuffs them all in his mouth! Woah!

 

Luckily Kamiyama has Shinjiro Hayashida to show him around at first. This Hayashida guy has a strip of purple mohawk hairstyle on his head which seems to be able to move on its own. So I guess you could say that Kamiyama and Hayashida are somewhat ‘best friends’ because they’re ‘always seen together’. Furthermore, when it’s time to choose a new leader for Cromartie, Hayashida has chosen Kamiyama as 1 of the 3 contenders because of his twisted logic that only a tough rabbit would lie down and sleep with lions. I mean, if you look at it in a way, Kamiyama’s the only non-delinquent looking guy around and based on Hayashida’s logic, it would mean that he’s gotta be the tougest of the toughest since he’s mixing among the ‘ferocious’ delinquents of Cromartie. And how did those blokes decide who’d be the next leader? The one with the strongest back, that is. And I thought it’s gonna be something like carrying something heavy. But it’s actually putting some insy teensy weeny little hot stuff on their back! And who would’ve guessed that Kamiyama won and those other 2 losers couldn’t take the heat and screamed like a little girl.

 

Thus, Kamiyama has become the so called leader of the first year students for Cromartie. And part of his first duty to reshuffle and reorganize the school is to visit some ‘powerful’ guy in the next class. Who could it be? Why, to Kamiyama’s surprise it’s… it’s… FREDDIE MERCURY!!! Yes, Freddie Mercury of Queen makes his appearance here as well. Well, actually nobody knows whether he’s the real thing or not. Even Kamiyama wonders if he’s really a student of this school and could he really speak and understand Japanese. Weirdo number 1. Because of his familiar look to a rock star, Kamiyama decides to nickname him Freddie. Plus, Freddie has no actual dialogue throughout the entire series and sometimes a Queen style electric guitar plays in the background whenever he makes his appearance, and sometimes rides a horse to school.

 

Kamiyama later then decides to visit the second time only to find weirdo number 2. And it’s not even human! It’s a gorilla! With also no spoken lines (duh!) and only the usual gorilla’s grunt, you really wonder if it’s a student of the school as well. It couldn’t get any more weirder as Kamiyama and Hayashida pays a 3rd visit to find weirdo number 3… a robot named Mechazawa. And the worse part is, besides Kamiyama and Hayashida, nobody not even Mechazawa himself realizes that he’s a robot! So much so that in episode 2, Kamiyama and Hayashida decides to go spy and see if anybody notices that Mechazawa’s a robot. It’s so funny to see that those people seem like they’re gonna say that he’s one, but in the end, it turned out to be something else. Yeah, those blur case even stabbed Mechazawa with a knife and thought that his skin is real thick! More like their head’s real thick. Not even when Mechazawa got kidnapped and bashed by some gangsters. And when the boss of those gangsters arrive, he’s shock to see Mechazawa as… an old acquaintance of his! Shock! Yeah, the 2 recognized each other and embraced. Let’s just leave it there, huh.

 

Other fun-filled Mechazawa episodes include episode 8 whereby the doctor has some problems checking on Mechazawa’s health and refers him to another ‘doctor’, in which to Mechazawa’s horror is actually an electronics store mechanic. His fears come true when he accidentally resetted his memory. Hope you guys have a back-up. Yeah, it happened again in episode 20 whereby Kamiyama accidentally deleted his memory (in the name or reprogramming because Mechazawa’s in loooooove) and is contemplating whether to keep it or not. Well, it seems that they manage to restore him… into an Internet shopping computer, that is.

 

In episode 9, Mechazawa ntroduces his little brother, Beta, who can only say "Mecha-ratta, mecha-ratta" and really freaks out and becomes ‘sick’ when Gorilla squashes him. The gang then decides to replace Beta after they squashed him a second time, only thing he’s a little smaller. And that usual Kamiyama theory saying that just like handphones, it gets smaller as technology advances. I see. That’s what Beta became too! And when it’s time for Mechazawa to pick up Beta, the gang at Maeda’s house tried to bluff Mechazawa by using a tin can as Beta! Eventually, Mechazawa found out that it wasn’t his little bro so much so the shock caused him to ‘shutdown’. So for the time being Kamiyama and co had to temporarily hide Mechazawa in Maeda’s room while they head back to school. When they come back, they find that Mechazawa is missing and they all started to look for him. After some time, they can’t find Mechazawa and decided to rest and have some drink. That’s when they saw Mechazawa has become part of the Maeda household’s new fridge! This robot can be so ‘useful’.

 

Then Mechazawa has a bad day in episode 12 when he told off his buddies to clean up their own mess instead for always asking him for help. His day gets worse when he’s being mistaken to be a pachinko slot by some ol bugger and a pachinko mechanic while playing pachinko, and even being mistaken as a bike when the gas attendant puts the gas nozzle into him! Because of that, he angrily rides his bike and crashes into several pieces. Luckily Kamiyama and Hayashida’s there and is put back together again. Only thing, is Mechazawa’s a super motorbike now! More on this later on.

 

Of course there are other ‘colourful’ (read: mostly dumb) characters such as Akira Maeda. He’s the most ‘normal’ in terms of rational thinking (but he’s dumb sometimes too) like how he sometimes questions Kamiyama or the other’s theory. Maeda is always prone to getting kidnapped by rival high schools such as Bass High School as they always use him as a bait to lure Cromartie students to fight them. Sometimes of course, those rival schools wonder if Cromartie really cares for Maeda as they rarely turn up. Probably, because Maeda has no nickname, he’s been ignored and disrepected by others as seen in the first episode. Also, due to whatever reasons, Maeda’s other classmates seem to like gathering at his house, much to his dismay. Also, the gang freaks out whenever Maeda mom comes in or sees her. Also another character without proper dialogue but just a short grunt.

 

Then there’s big bad bald Yutaka Takenouchi, who everytime proclaims to himself that he’s some powerful reliable bad ass guy controlling the year 1 students but has a weakness. And that is, he gets motion sickness easily. And that would even mean getting in a stationary car! And he tries his best not to vomit so as not to look like a sissy in front of those delinquents. Like there’s one case where he’s sitting at the back of the bus and trying his best not to throw up. Because of it, the other delinquents on the field trip decides not to disturb him because he looks ‘menacing’ with that look. But at at the same time, and unsuspecting Kamiyama sat on his lap and even offered him some pudding! But Takenouchi decides not to fight back or else he’ll puke. Oh the horror. It must seem like an eternity for him.

 

Also, the typical ‘want to take over the world’ Takeshi Hokuto who decides to use the influence of his father to rule every school he goes to in episode 6. That is, until he comes to Cromartie, in which he finds out that it’s a municipal school. And to cover up for his mistake and not to look like a loser, he decides to lie. And one lie leads to another because Kamiyama and his buddies are so dumb that they believe and misinterpret every lie of Hokuto’s. Yeah, everybody’s dumb. So much so that his twisted lies turned into some movement to fight his evil father in which Kamiyama and co decided to join him in his fight and called him captain. And when Hokuto decides to leave the group so as not to ‘burden’ them and made Kamiyama the new captain, Kamiyama and co then decides to stay over at Hokuto’s place to protect him. Hahaha. I guess he’ll never be able to get them out of his sights. Thus, Hokuto unofficially becomes part of Kamiyama’s group.

 

But Hokuto has a henchman, a subordinate whom everyone refers to as Hokuto’s Lackey or Lackey just for short. The funny thing is his real name is never mentioned throughout the series although he says he has one. The reason? Everytime he tries to mention his real name, everybody else switches the topic, lose interest quickly, easily distracted or there would be something to disrupt his name telling conversation like in episode 16 such as there’s a gang fight to a comet crashing into the school so much so that Lackey has to go finish it himself so that he could tell his name. But each time there seems to be something always distracting and in the end, we’ll never know his name. Yeah, he’ll forever be known as just that. Even Hokuto forgot his name though Hokuto reminisces the time when they spend together while they’re young. Unfortunately, that was somebody else and not Lackey because they only get to know each other since high school. Hahaha. See the twists and turns of the plot.

 

So most of the episodes in the series can range to just one short story lasting only a minute or so, or the entire episode itself. And those with multiple storylines may or may not be related to each other and can stand alone as an independant one. Thus, it’s better to switch off your logic and thinking when watching this because there are some episodes which don’t make sense and some even ‘reseted’ the effects of what happened in the previous episode. And when the episode ends or changes to the next story scene, the way they reveal or show the twist and turn of the events or climax scene, followed very quickly by the ending credits, it’s so funny that it makes you go "What the…". Yeah, it’s so fast pace that it never ceases to make me laugh.

 

There are those very memorable ones which are also my favourite such as episode 3 whereby Hayashida overhears Mechazawa humming a nice tune but can’t remember the name. So when he asks Kamiyama, he too can’t remember it. And so the search for the song name continues as they hum to each other to see if anyone recognizes it. It’s so darn funny to see them go "Hmmm hmmm hmmm hmmm…". And in the end, we see all of them, even Freddie and Gorilla, standing on the school stage in several rows, humming the song like as though they’re singing a choir! So funny! And as mentioned in the end, even though they still don’t know the name of the song, at least their humming and singing got better. Finally, when Kamiyama decides to ask Mechazawa himself when he hears him humming that song, some ‘wrong move’ like answering yes to Mechazawa’s question that if he knew the song, prompts Kamiyama to think that the way he said things, he can’t ask that question anymore or else he’ll look like a fool. Hahaha. And I like the beginning of this episode where they show Freddie and Gorilla strumming a ukelele to that nice tune.

 

Or in episode 5 where Maeda has been kidnapped by Bass High students. Thus Kamiyama along with Hayashida needs to bring along Takenouchi to wallop those gangsters and save Maeda. And Kamiyama decides to take a taxi there. Though Takenouchi refuses to get in and decides to walk there, before you know it, he’s riding with them and they decided to do their planning in the taxi as well. And Freddie’s there as the taxi’s co-driver as well. The funny part is that the taxi driver didn’t know his way around and got lost. Yeah, Takenouchi can’t hold it any longer and tries to give excuses to get out of the taxi but to no avail. Then when Kamiyama decides to use a map to help the driver get to their location, to Takenouchi’s dismay, he saw the map is actually a world map! Idiots! And Kamiyama even said that USSR is still named Russia. Then Freddie, like as though following his animal instincts manage to guide the lost taxi driver from the rural area back to the city and then back to school. It must be a relief for Takenouchi when he got down and decides to finish the job fast so that he could pound Kamiyama and co. But he smashes the bottle on Freddie’s head after he quickly realizes that Freddie sends them back to Cromartie High. Back to square one. Hahaha. Yeah, they should’ve walk in the first place. Poor Maeda, he’s still tied up there.

 

Then there’s another school field trip in episode 11 whereby the Cromartie delinquents has to travel by airplane. You know what this means for Takenouchi. Unfortunately, there’re 2 hijackers who’re planning to hijack this trip and since it’s their first time, they’re rather quite indecisive. Takenouchi overheard them and uses this opportunity to call off the school trip. And because the hijacker is quite agoraphobic and uneasy among strangers (how ironic for a hijacker wannabe), Takenouchi orders his Cromartie guys to go home so that he could talk to them, much to those Cromartie student’s dismay. Only thing is, Takenouchi should’ve gone home with them too but somehow he got onboard the plane with them. Yeah, only the 3 of them. Must be really regretting it. And since then Takenouchi gets lost in the Nevada desert in USA (how he comes back to Japan is still a mystery) while one of the hijackers pretends to be Takenouchi back at Cromartie by wearing some white mask which made him look like some masked wrestler. And nobody even realizes that Takenouchi is missing. Yeah, everybody did notice something missing from that trip. And that is, their refund for the trip! *Triple smack!*.

 

A baseball episode 13. Well, actually the gang have a dream of playing in some terror baseball league and decides to form a baseball team, though Maeda’s pretty concern if they all know about the rules of baseball in the first place. So Kamiyama brings the entire gang to train in the forest. Unfortunately they got lost and have no food. Then this is the funny part. Freddie on his own, at certain times, leaves the group and treks across rivers and mountains till he reaches a restaurant and has a bowl of ramen. The ramen owners don’t mind because he pays them. After his meal, he will trek back to the group and sit dejectedly with them like as though nothing happened. Haih, this guy! Then Kamiyama remembers their original mission and the gang started playing baseball in the woods. One of the shot was too powerful and Hayashida went to get it. After trekking through rivers and mountains to where the ramen stall is, Hayashida is surprised! Not because he found civilization but because he manage to find the baseball! And he brought the baseball back to the group not realizing he could’ve called for help. When the group finally gets hungry and searches for food, they notce a fish paste on Freddie’s face and soon Gorilla beckons them and they think it’s a way out as they followed it. When they finally say bright city lights, they realized they’ve been following a female gorilla all the while. What happened to theirs who was original on their baseball team? Beats me. Hahaha.

 

Then the Japan Boss Championships in episodes 16-17 whereby all the bad ass boss of Japan are gathering to see who’s gonna be the big bad boss and rule them all. Of course Hokuto didn’t know of it at all and again lied that he’s gunning for the World Boss Championships when everybody cheered him on and asking him to do his best. Of course, Hokuto in the end didn’t know what it’s all about. Finally, the Japan Boss Championship starts and Kamiyama is there as Cromartie’s representative. And unexpectedly (or expectedly depends how you view it), Kamiyama won! How? Because he answered correctly a 1 true or false question to whether yoghurt is milk or not! Wah! It’s that easy to become Japan’s number 1 boss?!

 

Hmmm… I wonder how many field trips do delinquents get. That’s because there’s another one in episode 21. This time on a train to Kyoto. Takenouchi of course trying his best again. But there’s a point where he can’t take it anymore and decides to go to the loo and puke. But to his dismay there’s a long line waiting at the loo because they had too much drinks earlier on and somebody’s hogging it for quite a while. And it seems it’s Kamiyama as he comes out refreshed. Of course Takenouchi pushes his way and wants to be next but Kamiyama decides to use the Japanese eenie-meenie-minnie-mo to see who goes next. And the next person is… KAMIYAMA!!! Yeah, he heads back into the loo again. HAHAHA! Then later on, Kamiyama is regretting and thinking of how to explain to those Cromartie students of his because it’s his job to wake them up when they reached Kyoto but he fell asleep too and they’ve passed that stop. So Kamiyama tries to explain using a board map and before Kamiyama could finish those dumb delinquents concludes that they haven’t pass the stop yet and Kamiyama might as well go along with that. Even when Kamiyama decides to confess that this train isn’t going to Kyoto, the rest quickly say that they understood and need to switch trains. Real dumb!!! Yeah, donno how, Maeda got onboard the wrong train. In the end, the train reached back to where they started. Real idiots. And when Kamiyama told them something about the journey of the heart something like visualizing and remembering the place in one’s heart, the rest then thank him and concludes that they didn’t go at all.

 

But not all of the episodes are entirely on the Cromartie delinquents. There are those from other rival high schools as well. For instance, Noboru Yamaguchi, the leader of the first year students of Destrade High School. Appearing in episode 4, this sunglasses wearing and afro haired guy does a lot of deep analytical thinking and his subordinates thinks he must be planning something big against their rivals. But he’s actually thinking about being a stand-up comedian and what constitutes to be funny or not! Because of that, his deep thinking may seem ‘menacing’ to others. See, it’s all in the mind. Furthermore, Yamaguchi goes by his pen name of Ajishio Taro (Salt Boy) whenever he sends his postcard comedy. But always acknowledges that his jokes can only be rivalled by the mysterious Hachimitsu Boy (Honey Boy). And to his surprise, he finds out that Hachimitsu Boy is actually a student from Cromartie High and is… Kamiyama himself! And at 1 point he decides to eavesdrop on him telling Hayashida his funniest joke ever and stealing it. Only when he sends it in and the joke was played over the radio, he realizes how lame it was. Duh!

 

Also Yamaguchi has some sort of a right hand man, Jun Ishikawa, whom he always pounds when he tries to make a funny statement or do funny stuffs. Can’t stand anyone else who’s funnier than him, huh? But that changed in episode 14 when Yamaguchi decides to hire Akira Nakao as his second in command. What’s wrong with that? Nakao is actually a ventriloquist! And sometimes people get confuse which is the second in command, him or his puppet, Mick. And it seems Nakao and Mick can’t even decide which of them is gonna be number 2. Donno whether it’s on purpose or a joke. Furthermore, Yamaguchi told his men not to say that there’s anything wrong with the puppet or else… So much so Ishikawa decides to pick up one after that accidental meeting with Kamiyama (yeah, he too does a little ventriloquism) but even though Yamaguchi notices him, he still didn’t get to be one.

 

Other rival school delinquents include Jackson Setouchi, the leader of Bass High School, who has kidnapped Maeda and sends his right hand man Akio Takejo to go to Cromartie High and send them a message to come fight them or else it’ll be the last of Maeda. But when Akio reaches there, he’s surprised (and later panics) about the strange things in Cromartie and frantically relates it back to Jackson through his handphone, which Jackson reluctantly believes. Yeah, after seeing stuffs like Freddie on a horse, to a gorilla, to a vending machine without a coin slot (Hahaha. It’s Mechazawa actually), Jackson thinks that it couldn’t get any weirder than that. Wrong. Yeah, eventually aliens appear and the whole jin jang gang walked happily towards the sunset. What the? And what’s with that old man in the sky? Is he some sort of model or what since Kamiyama at certain points made some references to him and he appear randomly in some episodes.

 

A one episode appearance only in episode 15 is Kiyoshi Fujimoto of Manuel High School. Though he’s the leader of the first year students and uses aggressive and ruthless ways to solve problems, however he’s a nice guy online with extremely good netiquettes and has his own forum. How ironic. Then a ‘troll’ comes mocking and humiliating him online and Fujimoto has a hard time trying to reason with him and keeping his cool. So much so he can’t take it anymore. Then this ‘fateful’ meeting one day on the streets whereby Fujimoto’s psychoing himself what should he do, bumped shoulders into the contended ‘troll’. Before the ‘troll’ could apologize, Fujimoto lands him one super punch. Though the 2 still don’t know who the other is still, see it’s all a vicious cycle. Don’t too onto others if you don’t want others to do onto you.

 

Besides delinquents, there are other non-delinquent characters as well. Like that ‘hit’ stand-up comedy Pootan. Yeah, they’re just 2 grown up guys wearing some fuzzy animal suit but you could see their faces sticking out from it. The comedy I find is intentionally ‘lame’ which makes it funny and with 700 over episodes, it’s definitely a hit, right? Making its first appearance in episode 7 whereby Yamaguchi who hates the show decides to what’s so good about it since his rival Hachimitsu Boy loves watching it. Yeah, Yamaguchi’s trying to find out why it’s so popular and concludes it’s the suits which they never take off. Unfortunately, at the end, they did just that, much to Yamaguchi’s dismay.

 

Pootan also makes its appearance in episode 18 but one of them decides to use Freddie as a stand-in for an autograph signing session. So much so that a 10 year old kid, Osamu Kido (who looks like a delinquent. Probably I’ve seen too much Cromartie style delinquents or perhaps it’s their trademark drawing), an obsessed fan of Pootan, is psychoing himself that is this imposter Pootan the real thing. Yeah, Freddie’s moustache is a dead give away. Just when he’s about to accept that he is Pootan, he finds that his signature is ‘Freddie’! He can’t take it anymore as he throws the autographed pic on the ground and goes to the Pootan HQ to complain. Even that supposedly Pootan guy decides to bluff the kid by saying that moustache is the new Pootan trend. But he may regret his action when he gets fired and his Pootan role taken over by Freddie. Looks like Freddie’s the new Pootan. And his other Pootan buddy scorns him and that is, until he finds out he’s being replaced by Hayashida. Sad. Then he decides to get back the Pootan suit but Freddie seems so attached to it and not giving it up. And after some words from Kamiyama and co, he decides to do the most embarrassing old comical act in order to let Freddie give up his suit. While he’s doing it but before he could finish, Freddie already got bored and instantly took it off. Wow. That’s fast.

 

Then there’s that 1 short appearance by some guy called Sadaharu in episode 19. He’s the fastest motorcycle guy in the world so much so nobody has overtaken him. And he’s proud of it. Until one night, he spots Kamiyama riding backwards on a motor Mechazawa and zooming pass him. The next day rumours are spreading among the other bikers that he has retired. WOW! I guess he saw how he lost to some silly thing.

 

Speaking of that motor Mechazawa, Kamiyama decides to use it for the purpose of good in episode 12 when he rescues a lady from gangsters. After some cool display of powers and that weird music montage, the gangsters flee and the lady is grateful. The police then arrives and Kamiyama is sent to jail! And he’s wondering why? Yeah, probably he didn’t have his helmet on. The same thing in episode 19 but this time he saves that ‘troll’. With his helmet checked, tyre pressure to the right pressure checked and all other instruments in accordance to the national safety requirements checked, Kamiyama is pretty confident he’s not breaking the law this time as the police arrives. Unfortunately, he lands himself in jail again because… he has no motor license! Hahaha. Must’ve overlook that one.

 

Even Dejiko of Digi Charat has her cameo appearance. Appearing somewhere in episode 2 and a little longer in episode 25 whereby Maeda gets stuck in taking care of everyone’s pet that they brought to school. This prompts him to debate with Kamiyama if he really knows what a cat really wants and as suggested by Kamiyama that Maeda be a cat for a week. Yeah, and that Dejiko even asking him to end his sentences with her usual ‘Nyo’. It won’t work for a delinquent like you buddy. Just when Maeda understood how it feels like to be a cat, Kamiyama and co got bored of it all and decides to drop it, much to Maeda’s anger. Yay! Even Puchiko made a short appearance at the end of that episode.

 

Gorilla isn’t just there because so. He has an episode where entirely stars in it. After Yamaguchi and Ishikawa surprisingly find out that the sushi stall they patron at the end of episode 23 is a rogue gorilla disguising itself as a sushi maker (yeah, they thought it was an employee then when the sushi owner freaks out and says that there’s a gorilla in his shop), episode 24 sees how Gorilla manage to solve the problems between the sushi restaurant owner and his son (the latter wants the former to sign some contract to demolish the restaurant) by giving them a banana sushi. And it didn’t even say a single word! That’s because most of the analyzing is done by the father and son like how one man’s meat is another man’s poison. And just when the sushi restaurant owner is gonna accept Gorilla as a comrade (meaning, he was telling off his employees not to look at it as a gorilla but on same level as them humans), he finds out that it has been taken away by the public health authorities and concludes that it may have been a gorilla after all. Also in episode 25, those Cromartie dummies are having a hard time distinguishing who is the pet when Gorilla brings along his pet monkey.

 

Other short hilarious episodes include the time where Hokuto thinks his butler, Jeeves, may be related to Hayashida because the 2 look so nearly alike and invites Hayashida to meet his old man. But when the 2 met, the hype and way they say and look at each other was as though like they’ve never seen each other for years. But it all smothers down when they say they don’t know each other. Haih… Then Hokuto dreamt that he became a seal in class and woke up to find it’s all a bad dream. Or the time Hayashida came to Hokuto’s house to tell him something important but forgot what it’s about so the 2 spend the whole morning together like having breakfast to recall what is that’s so important. When finally Hayashida recalls, it’s just some omake on Mechazawa’s head as revealed at the end of that episode. Now how is that important. Or Akio noticing how a strand of Jackson’s nose hair is sticking out instead of listening to what he has to say.

 

In one episode, we find out why Takenouchi goes to Cromartie High is because it’s the closest school to his home since taking transport gives him motion sickness. But on that day, since he was lazy, he had no choice but to take the bus, much to his discomfort. And since there isn’t any of his Cromartie buddies around, he thought he could at least relax a bit on his motion sickness when to his surprise he saw Kamiyama in that same bus next to him! Takenouchi asks for an explanation when he finds out that Kamiyama’s house is even closer to Cromartie than his own, so why is he taking a bus instead of walking. Kamiyama then confesses that… he loves to take the bus! Argh! Tahanlah Takenouchi-san.

 

Also Kamiyama meets his old high school buddies, Tabata, who look like some simple cartoonish drawing, and did some catching up. Sounds like a sissy too. Then a time when Kamiyama decides to teach his classmates the meaning of punctuality when they decide to take on Manuel High. Yeah, they drag Kamiyama and tell him to be there too. No choice, Kamiyama sets an early time to meet there. Unfortunately, nobody turned up as he’s just the only one standing there. Not wanting to have the misconception that he’s not there since he’s thinking of going home, he decides to write on the wall a message that he’s been here. After writing a tiny long winded message on the wall, he thinks his buddies may be dumb and decides to write a shorter one. Well it says ‘Kamiyama was here’. Imagine what will the students of Manuel High think the next day. Also, a time where the gang decides to randomly pick a day as Freddie’s birthday and celebrate it all at Maeda’s house. Yeah, Maeda just shook his head. And when it’s Maeda’s birthday, they celebrate it on some boat house. You know what this means to Takenouchi, right?

 

Remember Hayashida’s mohawk hair? Yeah, there’s 1 short episode where Hayashida decides to tell Takenouchi that his mohawk hair is fake and even took it off right in front of him, much to Takenouchi’s surprise. Then the Cromartie delinquents decides to use Freddie to help them. But Freddie sulks and doesn’t want to and Kamiyama has to even hold his hand and that sort of stuff to ask him to do so. Donno how in the midst of it all, Kamiyama lost Freddie and we see Freddie switched places with some guy Mr Imai to sign some contract on his behalf, in which the contractor didn’t suspect Mr Imai’s a different person and thinks Freddie’s character is good for a change. Well, until Freddie is gonna sign it did that guy notices and his assistant quickly telling him to stop the signing. And back at Cromartie since those delinquents think Freddie has been gone for a while, they’re thinking of asking Gorilla but shortly decides not to.

 

Also, that hijacker telling those Cromartie delinquents about how he spend time in jail and got discouraged until he did some weird toy whereby one musn’t use force but gentleness and calmness of the mind to separate it. I suppose even if the whole school’s a delinquent, a sports day is still a must. Maeda’s confident that he’s gonna stand out in the 100 metre race when he finds out that a motor Mechazawa is also participating. Guess who wins? Yeah, the fumes of the exhaust must be choking. Then it’s the high jump event and Maeda thinks motor Mechazawa can’t jump and at least he’ll be able to shine this time. When it’s motor Mechazawa’s turn, he then changed into jet mode, took off and flew high in the sky! Off he goes to wherever that is. I think it’s a world record.

 

There’s even a Maria-sama Ga Miteru parody in the beginning of the last episode 26. All of those Cromartie delinquents have been given a female makeover and name (like Takashi becomes Takako) while maintaining their male gangster facial looks. And they all look hilariously and horribly ugly! It’s so funny to see Kamiyama as Sachiko and Hayashida as Yumi (still with that purple mohawk sticking out!). This storyline in this Marimite parody is somewhat similar to the one in episode 1 like that nickname thingy and when Kamiyama visits the ‘princesses’ like Freddie. Yeah, even Freddie has a girly makeover but still retains that trademark moustache of his. At least he’s not bare chested. Hahaha. Even Mechazawa too. This Marimite parody ends when the school receives a new student… Maeda’s mom. What the? Also a very short parody of the rock group KISS dubbed as the 4 Kings Of Cromartie. It ended when there’s actually 5 of them and 1 of them decides to take on that new additional member.

 

The last story in the final episode 26 has Maeda debating with Kamiyama and Hayashida about the future. Kamiyama seems ‘pessimistic’ like how can a delinquent have a future. I mean if you look at it in a way, it’s true right? Then I don’t know what is going on when Freddie and co tossing up Mechazawa in the air outside until they couldn’t catch him, dropped him and wrecked Mechazawa. It’s funny to hear Kamiyama saying that the Cromartie anime is coming to an end after going on air for 4 years, only to be quickly rebuked by Maeda that it’s only been aired for 6 months. Yeah, funny right till the end.

 

Overall, I kinda love this short, fast paced and nonsensical garbage. Dumb and weird seems to be the ‘theme’ for this anime. Speaking of which, in certain episodes there are weird creatures like that hamster appearing here and there on screen. I’m not sure what it means. Even at times you could a peek of Freddie, Gorilla and Beta’s head from the corner or something like that. Even the opening sequence is hilariously weird and the ending too is full of it. Sometimes you’d see the character’s face popping up suddenly or the zooming in and/or out of their faces which makes it quite funny. And sometimes, the characters would walk back and forth like as though somebody hit the play and rewind button!

 

Beware if you’re watching the series with subs. There is one sub whereby almost each and every sentence has the f-word or other vulgar words. Some may find it offensive, but to me, it’s real darn funny. I mean, gangsters using those profanity words would seem very fitting even if the Japansese audio doesn’t mean or go that far. Then there’s a more toned down sub version and the most extreme case they would just mention "I’m gonna fudgin’ kill you". Personally I still prefer the former one because it made me laugh the whole way.

 

I would also like to note that the ordinary delinquents besides the main casts in this anime look somewhat the same. I mean, though they look mean and such but I happen to notice and say to myself "Hey, isn’t that guy from Cromartie, then why is he in this other school". This in turn would prompt me to question "How can I tell they’re from which school". I mean, all the delinquents’ school uniform are the same so I kinda find it hard to tell where they’re from. But I guess that’s not really important. Yeah, the main characters have their name, age, school or whatever other information appear on-screen sometimes probably to remind you over and over again their names. It doesn’t get annoying because I seem to be unable to remember them until when the series is near its end. ;p

 

Basically, this is a predominantly male anime. Only a handful of females appear here and even so, it’s probably for a short while such as the lady whom Kamiyama saved from those thugs, and Maeda’s mom. Speaking of which, I was surprised to find out that Maeda’s mom voice actress is the talented Megumi Hayashibara! Wow. Such a famous voice actress doing just a short groan and no real spoken dialogue. And I would never have found out if I didn’t accidentally chanced upon it. Yeah, you could say her name caught my eye. Even Dejiko’s cameo appearance uses the original voice actress, Asami Sanada. And if you want to include that female Gorilla too, be my guest. Hey, I noticed that since this series revolves around high school students, I don’t recall even seeing a single teacher. Maybe they all resigned. Hehehe.

 

And just like in the opening narration by Kamiyama in every episode, whereby he warns viewers that the characters in this anime are delinquents and not to follow them or else you’ll end up in jail (hey, that’s Kamiyama sitting there!). But I think you shouldn’t follow these guys not so much it’s because they’re bad influence or for your safety, but rather more to save you from the dumb embarrassment! Hehehe. As mentioned, the ending credits is filled with weird stuffs and I think the next episode preview narration by Kamiyama doesn’t have anything to do with the next episode. Just blabbing some stuff. And it always ends with Freddie falling flat on his chest!

 

So, if you see thugs, gangsters, or delinquents from Cromartie High, don’t be afraid because they’re all just tough looking. Accompanied with meaningless tough talk, you’ll figure out it’s better to be afraid of heights and spiders. Alas, will Kamiyama lead his bunch of weirdos for the better or into a new era of silliness and weirdness? Hehe, I think you already know the answer. Thus, if you think life is boring and nothing exciting is really happening, come to Cromartie High, where everything is an ‘eye opener’. Yeah, you’re eyes will pop out in disbelief. It’s the most ‘happening’ school in town. Or perhaps it’s better to close an eye, shake one’s head and leave before anything happens. Yeah, it’s ‘tough’ being a delinquent.