Cromartie High School: Not Your Typical High School

So I had watched this anime a while ago in my Anime Club. I instantly fell in love with it. Sadly, after only 6 episodes, our club decided to drop the anime due to its wild and erratic nature. The absurd comedy and spontaneous content appeared to be stupid and pointless to most. But I found the silver lining. More like gold mine. More than a year later, I sat down and watched the 26 episode, ten minutes per episode anime. In one day. And I loved every second of it.

Cromartie High School is the story of a bunch of badasses. These badass delinquents constantly fight for dominance as to who

Check out this group of badasses.

the true boss of all badasses is. And it’s a fight that’s never resolved. You can choose your own champion, but it’ll get you nowhere. These guys are stupid, impulsive, and nonsensical. They have no idea of the concept of normal or logical. And this is quite an endearing quality if I do say so myself. (Not in reality, mind you.) So this show comes down to a bunch of instances in the first year of a group of idiotic boys attending an unsupervised high school.

According to the anime, Takashi Kamiyama is the main character. After transferring to Cromartie, Takashi befriends Shinjiro Hayashida, a purple mohawk wearing badass. With this friendship, Takashi encounters the badasses around his school and embarks on a series of hijinks. And that’s not even the best part! Takashi isn’t even the main character! Some episodes don’t even include him. With a multitude of lowlifes and delinquents, this show has some interesting characters.

Is that? Yep. That's Freddy... Mercury?

Akira Maeda, a fellow member of Cromartie, constantly has his home invaded by his so called friends and other badasses from Cromartie. His hurt feelings and trashed house means nothing to anyone but he and his mother who appears to look exactly like him. Shinichi Mechazawa, a robot appearing robot, known as the biggest badass of Cromartie, refuses to fight and refuses to believe that he is a robot. The entity known as Freddie, is another badass, but more for his mute behaviors and the ability to ride a bucking bronco. With his strange resemblance to Freddie Mercury, this delinquent shouldn’t even be in school. But he makes up for it with his suspenders and bare chest. Gorilla, the gorilla. Anything else I should say about that? Yutaka Takenouchi, the leader of the Cromartie High School badasses, has motion sickness. Despite his attempts to keep his bossish facade in the forefront, his constant use of transportation threatens his credibility. Also making appearances are Takeshi Hokuto and his reluctant lackey known only as Hokuto’s Lackey, due to the fact that no one will allow him the time to tell them his name. Add rival schools with amazingly comedic leaders like Noboru Yamaguchi, the afro haired appreciator of true comedy, and you have one amazing show.

What makes this show even greater? The animation. There is next to none of it. Besides the traditional lip-flaps, characters rarely move. Cromartie High School

What.

Did I mention there was a live action movie?!?!?

consists of head shots mixed with color shooting star background indicating intense emotion and actions. The comedy comes entirely from what the characters say and the tiny absurd actions that occur in the background. It’s almost worth another watch because of all the hilarious things going on in the background.

What more is there to say about Cromartie High School? The content, the dialogue, the characters. It all adds up to comedic genius of the most absurd kind. This show isn’t really meant for everyone, so I wouldn’t highly recommend it. To the few who would appreciate a really weird, yet funny sort of comedy, then watch this for sure. 9.3 out of 10.

RomeoxJuliet: Neo Style

And yet I keep coming back. I know I’ve been gone for a short while, but those college finals are creepin’ up on me. But I’m here for yet another anime review, and this time, it’s academically related.

So this time in Anime Club, we watched RomeoxJuliet, the slightly altered fantasy version of the classic Shakespearean teen angst play, Romeo and Juliet (not much of a title change). But this time, it’s different. No spoilers (already had it ruined for me before I saw the ending) but it’s not as different as you’d think. Slightly different. Okay, kind of a major plot twist ending. And yet, still romantic and tragic. Yeah…

So this is the story of Juliet “Insert ridiculously long middle name here” Capulet, the remaining member of her noble family who were wiped out 14

Juliet. More manly/aggressive.

years ago by the evil Montagues. It was a good thing she had Conrad (who was only a badass in his earlier years. Now he looks like a whiny old coot.) or else she may not have survived, thus, no need for this anime. But anyways, now her and her family’s followers are out for revenge. But for the first 5 episodes or so, she doesn’t know she’s of royal descent. But yeah, of course that changes her and gives her a bit more of an edge and a chip on her shoulder. It’s expected.

But what does she do before she learns this sworn hatred of the ruling Montague family? She falls madly and irrevocably in love with the son of that

Romeo. Pansy.

evil bastard, Romeo Montague. I feel like it was a love based on herbology, but that’s for another review. Just know: irises. So this complicates things. OH, AND DID I FORGET TO MENTION? They have been passing off Juliet as a boy for the last 14 years of her life. She’s been Odin, knowing she was a girl, but she never knew why. Now she does. And now, Romeo is sexually confused. Add that little twist to your lemonade why don’t you.

So the rest of this little Twilight romance (yes, there are references) is played out in Neo Verona, a floating island above God knows what and it’s falling apart. That’s cool. But these little lovebirds must decide what’s more important, love/angst or their families, and we all know how that one goes. But it’s a great twist and quite worth a look see.

Great supporting cast.

Things I liked. The use of other characters from other plays. If only in name, this was a great tribute to Shakespeare, and, being in a Shakespeare class now, I can appreciate the sentiment. Again, I also liked this anime because it didn’t follow the exact plot of Romeo and Juliet. It used the new additions and twists to carry along a well told out story to a new end. Quite interesting if I do say so myself. Looking back on the list of voice actors, I wish I had watched this dubbed and not subbed. J. Michael Tatum as William “Willy” Shakespeare? Thanks very much I’ll take that.

The animation/art was quite good and the plot was ripe for the homages. The ending reminded me of Xam’d untimely end, but I think that’s the only reason I liked it. Otherwise the ending was terrible. The explanation, the random use of the tree of life… I was a little thrown off by how out of place it all was and why any of it was relevant. You have this nice little Romeo and Juliet plot zooming along and then you throw that tree/world wrench in there. Completely unnecessary. Other means to end the anime would have been appreciated.

Other than that, quite a good show. The story empowered Juliet instead of making some damsel in distress out of her, and it actually turned the story around completely. It made Romeo into the princess in the tower and quite

How cute. He's "watching" her from afar.

the whiny, unlikeable counterpart to Juliet. It took a while, but he came into his own. Tybalt destroyed people, I loved the Curio/Francisco (Eric Vale, by the way) dynamic, and it was all good (sort of) in the end. If you’re a Romeo and Juliet fan, or a Shakespeare fan in general, check this out, it’s worth the watch/twist. 6.8 out of 10.

Did I mention this anime ruined Josh Groban’s “You Raise Me Up” forever. Well, it sorta did. But here it is all the same.

Claymore: The Female Berserk

So we just finished watching this anime in my Anime Club, and I have to admit, it was ridiculously great. As the title of my blog suggest, it was in fact the female version of Berserk, an anime I reviewed earlier (just as equally badass.). I had really no complaints about this show from beginning to end, but let’s get into the heart of the show to start off.

What you have to know about this anime is that it centers around three species that, you could say, derive from humans. There are humans (us), Yoma (evil creatures that resemble intelligent, radioactive zombies/demons) and Claymores, badass women who go around, part Yoma, part human, and destroy the evil Yomas that take on human form. Sensing the Yoki (you could relate this idea of energy to Ki in DBZ, a lot of the fight sequences are similar, just add swords.) of the Yoma, the Claymores go to fear stricken towns and easily eradicate the Yomas.

Now here’s the kicker. Wait. I can’t give away the kicker. You’ll just have to watch. After you get through the first 8 or 9 episodes, things really start to spice up and the blood really starts to fly. I wish I could say more, but it really is a twisting and turn-filled anime ride that is worth taking.

After having watched this over such an expansive amount of time, I find it a bit hard remembering exactly the plot, but that didn’t stop me from sitting silent in my chair (mostly) and just following the plot quite religiously. The animation and drawing is fantastic. The fight scenes, although laden with unrealistic sword clashing and sparks, is quite amazing to watch. You definitely get a DBZ feel watching this as it plays out as every major goodie and baddie talk out their strategy to the “audience.” (Really, who does this? I would complain about the strangness of talking out battle plans to your opponent, but I guess there would be a lot of dead air without it…) The back stories are great and there’s next to no recap in the entire anime. A definite selling point for me.

The Japanese sub was great and I almost want to watch the dub to see if it’s just as good. I mean come on, Todd Haberkorn as Raki, a completely disposable character and letdown of the entire series? That’s great. They even get Monica Rial, (Miria) Caitlin Glass, (Deneve) and Brina Palencia (Priscilla) to play 3 of the biggest characters, and who are, coincidentally my 3 favorite female voice actors (mostly for their work in Gunslinger Girl). Even Vic Mignogna and Christopher Sabat (MY FAVORITE) make appearances in a few episodes. So yeah, might watch that…

But yeah, this show is great. Battle scene after battle scene, back stories on unbelievable characters, and big, badass bosses? SO glad that they came out with a video game for this. It came out in Japan for the Nintendo DS and should probably be here soon. I’ll let you know if I get a hold of it. (Cool feature, control Yoma with the stylus and screen.) So yes, this anime was great. 8.3 out of 10

 

… And if anybody is really paying attention to my ratings, I know I haven’t really given anything a bad review. If you feel I’m wrong, post a comment and let me know. I’d love the feedback.