Cromartie High School Volume 1 DVD Review

By sothis Published: March 2, 2005

PACKAGING AND MENU

9.5 / 10

Cromartie has some of the most interesting packaging I’ve seen for an ADV release. The box itself isn’t terribly exciting but still gets the point across quite well. The front boasts a picture of Mechazawa, Kamiyama and two buddies looking very delinquent-like, and the edges are faded yellow like they have been worn down. The side has the title, as well as a silhouette of Mechazawa holding a sign that has the volume number. Cute! The back has a very nostalgic catch phrase, along with yellow text on a black background (very easy to read), and many screenshots. Also, throwing in some randomness (very appropriate given this series), we see a little sumo guy yelling “EXTRAS!” listing, you guessed it, extras!

The DVD is fantastic, looking like a vinyl record. The insert is made to look almost like cliff notes and is done in black and white. There are useful cultural notes on the inside, including explaining seemingly random scenes that are shown throughout the episodes. Really, really good job on this packaging.

The menu was equally as unique and innovative. The main menu shows a record player spinning (a real one) and the music is a big grungy just like real music would be. The sub menus are either static (but still interesting) or involve the record player with something happening, like a banana peel being stuck on it. Font choices and colors are great.

FEATURES

9 / 10

Cromartie has a wide variety of special features. First of all, there are a few mini interviews of sorts in the insert, as well as tons of helpful commentary in both the insert and the extras section in the DVD. The commentary is extremely useful as far as understanding why certain translations were made, figuring out what was up with certain scenes (like the moxabustion, I had no idea what that was before reading it), etc. Also included is the obligatory clean opening and ending, and two original Japanese warning clips (two of the main characters saying that you shouldn’t sit in front of the TV, but in a funny manner). A great set of features that span both the DVD and the insert, which is a huge plus.

VIDEO

8.5 / 10

The video was generally fairly clean, with very good color and detail level. One major thing I noticed was that there were a lot of dancing lines where there was a lot of heavy detail and still animation. Aliasing wasn’t too much of a problem, only so with the dancing lines. The video wasn’t grainy and there was no noticeable artifacting. The colors came through quite nicely.

AUDIO

7 / 10

The transfer from the Japanese audio was fairly clean, and there were no noticeable distortion or dropouts. However, the Japanese voice audio wasn’t much louder than the music, which made it more difficult to hear. On the other hand, the English vocals were quite a bit louder, adding a needed contrast between it and the music. The English seemed to make more use of the right and left channels than the Japanese audio, but both primarily stayed around the center stage.

CONTENT

10 / 10

Cromartie, aka “funniest series of all time”, follows a school of delinquents as they do, well, various random things! Looking for a plot? You won’t find it here, but you will find a barrel of gut busting laughs that will make you cry in joy. I’ve seen a lot of humor, from harem comedies (hate) to random comedies. Random comedies tend to have groupings as well, such as Azumanga-style girlie randomness, Abenobashi/Excel Saga/FLCL spastic randomness, and Haunted Junction “normal” randomness. Cromartie, on the other hand, blows them all out of the water with its humor, and I can easily say this is the funniest series I’ve ever seen in my life. The humor itself is dark and subdued, but still completely random. Little things make the humor worthwhile, and these little things aren’t things that necessarily would be funny on their own. For example, whenever the characters are shown talking, they all have an extremely furrowed brow, and all of them are always looking off in the distance. If several are on the screen, they all are looking in the same direction!

Then there are the characters. There’s the typical delinquents, and the delinquents that have weird quirks such as carsick boy, and other totally random characters such as a Gorilla, Freddie (a hairy older man that appears to hail from the 80s), and Mechazawa, a robot. Spastic characters often pop up out of nowhere, there are plenty of parodies and in general, it’s just hilarious.

Animation-wise, Cromartie is crude on purpose, making it even more hilarious. The characters are shaded with lots of pencil-looking black lines, giving them a gruff look. It’s the most amusing because all the guys look pissed off no matter what, so even if they are discussing things like normal guys, they always look like they are about to get in a fight anyways! Colors are vibrant but a bit more neutral in tone, which worked well. Spastic scenes are interspersed with plenty of explosions and things that make no sense. Fantastic animation.

Minimal music was used, but it was very appropriate. It tended to alternate between rock music and minimal noises. Great voice acting, I especially enjoy Kamiyama’s totally neutral tone he uses, even when talking to the ultimate badasses!

Cromartie is easily, in my opinion, the most hilarious show of all time. I can’t think of one episode that I wasn’t laughing out loud. What are you waiting for?? WATCH IT!!