Takashi Kamiyama with his mecha mount.
Nagasarete Airantou should be the last 2007 anime reviewed this year, and the last review for this year should be Cromartie High School. The next anime in the pipeline are Karas (now fully subbed), Angelic Layer and also Myself Yourself (a 2007 anime but will be reviewed next year). Read on to see how this Lucky Star-esque anime fared in my last post this year.
One of the parodies in the anime. DiGi Charat is quite a popular anime isn’t it?
Story:-
Takashi Kamiyama, a do-goody high school student enrolled at Cromartie High School which is famous for its delinquent populations. He encountered plenty of interesting characters, inclusive your bog-standard Japanese delinquents, a gorilla, a sentient mecha and also Freddie Mercury. The delinquents of the other schools also tried to challenge the infamous Cromartie with varying degree of success. Despite how it looks, the anime involves very little violence, which in this context is a very good thing.
This anime is really similar to Lucky Star in many ways. To a certain extent, Cromartie High School is also a dialog-heavy comedy anime, but not as intense and also not as fast as Lucky Star (the fact that each episode is just about 10 minutes long helps greatly). It also contains references/parodies to other anime/manga/musician/actors etc but not as often as Lucky Star. But unlike Lucky Star, jokes in this anime are delivered in variety of ways, unlike the near-monotonous method Lucky Star employed. The jokes used in this anime are generally just as good as Lucky Star, but with some exceptions (some jokes are downright lame) and a few others need intricate understanding of Japanese culture.
Generally, the anime has a very loose plot but supported by the character strength of surprisingly very many of the characters. There are a lot of outstanding characters in this series, such as the main protagonist himself, the delinquent with the false Mohawk, another one with blond hair, the heir of the financial group and many more. The stories and secret behind all of those characters ensures that Takashi Kamiyama did not steal all the limelight for himself. In this aspect, this anime is vastly superior to Lucky Star. This anime does not really have an ending just like Lucky Star, but it is more open-ended.
The anime does not have a weakness actually, and if you ask me, this anime is better than Lucky Star.
The main protagonist trying to act tough.
Character Design:-
This is a positive point for this anime. The characters are designed perfectly for their roles, whether the pacifist main protagonist or the whole group of delinquents who seems ready to went off whenever possible. Plus the mecha, the gorilla, Freddie Mercury and others, how can you complain? It may not have the usual design that a shounen title has, but you will be satisfied with designs that are usually reserved to side-characters a.k.a. small villains that will be beaten in every other series.
Even without dialogues, Freddie Mercury and the gorilla is still cooler than 99% of the anime characters out there.
Voice acting:-
Another positive point for this anime. The voice acting here are excellent, with everyone doing their best sounding like hot-blooded delinquents. I like the delinquent mecha the most.
A typical delinquent meeting.
Music:-
Unfortunately, only the OST is any good, with plenty of over elaborate rock tracks. The OP/ED themes cannot match the quality of the sections above at all.
Things that only a delinquent can do.
Animation/Direction:-
The animation is decent, even for fast-paced scenes. For a series like this, it is very surprising that there are virtually no action scenes such as fighting scenes. Directing is generally good, not really outstanding.
Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. A very good score to end up the reviews of all anime I watched this year.
He has the best voice acting in this series.
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