Cromartie High School Volume 1

Before sitting down to watch Cromartie High School, make sure you give yourself time to acclimatize. This is comedy so deeply embedded within the surreal that even I had to check whether or not I had lost my mind too. I’ve seen a lot of anime comedy before, but nothing comes close to this madness.

So how do I go about trying to explain an anime with no conceivable story? I suppose the main character is Takashi Kamiyama; the new kid at the roughest school in Japan- Cromartie. On his first morning, he drops a pencil on the floor and a fellow classmate picks it up for him- and then eats it. A shocked Takashi then empties out his entire pencil case for the bully to chew on.

Takeshi’s other class mates include a Freddie Mercury look-alike (yes, the iconic lead singer of Queen), a gorilla and a whole host of weird looking (or rather, weird thinking) rough necks; my particular favourite is the strongest student from a rival school who, complete with a wiggling afro, secretly fancies himself as a comedy genius. All his friends want to do is attack Cromartie, but he- despite being an excellent fighter, loves only making people laugh.

There are 9 episodes on this first volume, each around 10 minutes in length. As such, there is no reoccurring story, rather each episode is given away to a unique (and often, totally bemusing) situation. A good example of this is when we meet the toughest kid in year 1- the fat and intimidating Yutaka Takenouchi; everyone is afraid of him, but he quietly suffers from terrible motion sickness! So despite always being treated with respect, he inevitably ends up fretting about throwing up.

It’s this kind of humour that’s at the heart of the success of Cromartie High School; everyone is so deadpan and tough that their “cool” reactions to such bizarre situations raise the biggest laughs. Hearing their frantic inner thoughts run over and over while they try to maintain a tough composure is priceless. Of course, there is also some just plain weird touches- like you know, a mute Freddie Mercury (clad in his shirtless briefs) randomly appearing. Like I’ve already said, some of this show is about as weird and surreal as it can get, there’s no trying to explain it. No doubt this will turn off some viewers, but honestly, I loved it from the get go. This is a show that so captures the ridiculous male ego, it’s not Absolutely Hilarious- but just great fun; I could watch it for hours and never get bored.

The animation- produced by none other than cyberpunk favourites Production IG- suits the comedy perfectly. It’s vital that these characters look as serious and as tough as possible- basically, Cromartie High School is full of mad punks and the character designs, sporting more than a few mohawks and afros, are spot on.

In Summary

Humour is perhaps the most subjective thing in the world but I urge you to give Cromartie High School a chance. It’s weird, surreal and funny- there is no swearing either, it’s just a series full of characters so thick, so tough and so serious that the laughs bounce off the walls.