What would you do if you suddenly found yourself enrolled in a high school for juvenile delinquents?  Not your ring-the-doorbell-and-run-away delinquents, more like the set-fire-to-the-teacher type of hoodlum.  You'd probably be pretty terrified, and that's exactly how Takashi reacts in the first volume of Cromartie High School, ADV's latest comedy anime series.  This is an uproariously funny show, and one that deserves a look.

Sixteen year old Takashi Kamiyama is a clean cut kid, and the newest student at Cromartie high, the school with the worst reputation in Tokyo.  He tries to blend in with the background and not make waves, hoping that the thugs and bullies who make up his class will ignore him.  That idea doesn't work of course, and soon he finds himself in a contest to see who's the toughest.  As one of the other students theorize, Takashi looks like a normal person, and that's who you have to watch out for.  If you saw a bunny rabbit in the middle of a pride of lions, you'd know that it was a real bad-ass bunny.

It's strange logic like that, things that almost make sense, but not quite that give this series it's kick.

Most of this volume involves introducing the odd cast of characters who attend Cro-high.  There's a mute student who looks to be in his thirties and is a dead ringer for the lead singer of Queen.  Everyone calls him Freddie.  Then there's Mechazawa, a robot.  The only thing is that no one except Kamiyama and his friend seem to notice that he's made out of metal and not a real person.  Oh yeah, and one of the students is a gorilla.

This series consists of short ½ length episodes, about 10 minutes long if you don't count the credits.  With such a short time frame to work in, there's not a lot of time to work in a lot of plot or characterization or any of those other things that just get in the way.  They go straight for the humor.  It's silly, nonsensical type of things a lot of the time, but the jokes work.  There isn't any fan service type humor, which I was very glad to see.  Just good bizarre humor.

One of the stories involves Takeshi Hokuto, heir to the Hokuto fortune.  He transfers to Cromartie so that he can use his father's power and his own skills to rule the institution.  Unfortunately Takeshi has accidently transferred to the wrong school, and Cromartie is a public academy where his father has no influence.  Rather than admit that he's made a mistake, he tries to cover his tracks by claiming that his father is the head of a secret organization that controls the Japanese government from behind the scenes.  Takeshi claims to have dedicated his life to destroying this evil entity so that goodness can rule.  Against all odds, Kamiyama and his friends not only believe the story, they want to join in Takeshi's crusade.  Hokuto starts telling more and more outrageous lies to try to get himself away from Kamiyama, but he just ends up in a deeper hole.
 
While the humor is very good, the animation style isn't.  The show is done on the cheap, and if they can get away without animating something they do.  They often freeze on one drawing and zoom into it or make it grow smaller.  They pan across images and show the backs of people talking so they don't have to animate their mouths.  Even with this low grade animation, they show works so I can forgive that they cut a lot of corners.

Audio:

This DVD has a Japanese stereo sound track with optional English subtitles and an English dub in 5.1. Both were very good. While I wish that the original language track was in 5.1 also, I couldn't complain about the sound quality. The dialog was clean, and there was no distortion or other audio problems. The English 5.1 track had a bit more punch to it, and used the soundstage a bit more. The voice actors were very good. I was quite impressed. There were not any stupid accents or phony sounding voices. While I prefer the Japanese track, I enjoyed the English dub as well.

Video:

The full frame image was very clean and clear. The colors were bright and varied. The picture has a good amount of detail with the lines being tight and clean. Digital defects were minimal, though there was some light aliasing.  A very good-looking DVD.

Extras:

This disc features a clean opening and closing, the original warning that accompanied the show in Japan and trailers for several other ADV series.  There are also several text pages of cultural note that explain such things as what taxi coupons are and what a moxa treatment contest is.  Very helpful in understanding some of the humor in the show.

Final Thoughts:

This show is what you would get if you meshed Excel Saga and Azumanga Daioh.  A lot of rapid fire, off the wall humor that just seems to work very well.  I found myself smiling at the first episode and laughing out loud soon after that.  A funny show that is worth checking out.  Highly Recommended.