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Jason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Cromartie High School


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Yosuke Suzuki



Joined: 23 Sep 2009
Posts: 77
Location: Indonesia
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 9:45 am Reply with quote
until now i'm still can't believe what reason that Takashi Kamiyama,,actually had done"bad"things,,back then,,
the reason why i read the manga at first place,,because curious when watching the anime,,about bad things you already done,,Kamiyama said"please read the manga if you want to know the answer"
then i know what Kamiyama meant"bad things".
the manga is very hillarious,stupid,,
the anime also isn't bad.
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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 2665
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 9:49 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Nonaka likes to parody and deflate old-fashioned manga: the title of one of his other manga, Kachô Baka Ichidai ("The Life of a Stupid Section Chief"), is a pun on Karate Baka Ichidai ("A Karate-Crazy Life").


And, likewise, Cromartie High School's Japanese title, Sakigake!! Cromartie Koukou, is a pun on the Shonen Jump manga Sakigake!! Otokojuku (a.k.a. Samurai School: Be A Man! via Media Blasters' release of the live-action movie), which itself was a parody of 80s shonen battle manga.

So Cromartie is a parody of a parody, in a sense, which makes the fact that it's so absurd all the more understandable.
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corinthian



Joined: 20 Feb 2009
Posts: 264
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 9:53 am Reply with quote
As with the above poster, I started reading the manga because of the anime and its "if you want to find out what happened, just read the manga!" Which is probably the reason ADV licensed the manga to begin with. Sadly, I no longer have the few volumes of manga I did purchase. The only particular explanation I remember was that Takashi applied to Cromartie to be with his friend, but his friend was too stupid to get in...
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nottimkai



Joined: 05 Jan 2009
Posts: 77
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 10:49 am Reply with quote
I'm glad this manga got a writeup in this column. This series is one of the stains on my manga collection. Not because it is terrible, but because it is one that I started buying and then never went back to after the first volume. At the time, I just didn't get the humor. Recently I found that volume while I was digging through my manga collection (if it hasn't hit 2000 volumes at this point, I'll eat my hat) and discovered it in a box that I never unpacked. Read it. Realized that I had been a fool. Went to amazon at the time and discovered that the manga had become intensely overpriced (although I checked again just now and there are a lot more used copies available for very cheap - That is new) and lamented my cursed fate, and contemplated the hubris of the industry.

I busted out laughing when you revealed that the art in this series is essentially clip art cribbing from Ryoichi Ikegami. I figured Nonaka was just emulating Yankii manga. In context, that is absolutely hilarious, but is a detail I missed entirely.

(Weird that I seem to know the style and general content of Yankii manga but haven't heard of Ryoichi Ikegami until this column ... )

Great column, as always.
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SethMosrite



Joined: 27 Nov 2010
Posts: 173
Location: Boston, MA
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 11:10 am Reply with quote
I actually find School Rumble to be quite surreal in it's own right. It has more in common with Cromartie than Real Bout HS.
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vashthekaizoku



Joined: 30 May 2009
Posts: 261
Location: The House of Rat
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 12:50 pm Reply with quote
I've been hoping for a license rescue for this for years! Thanks for raising awareness for this awesome series! ADV canned Yotsuba at the same time and it got rescued. Maybe there's hope...
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GVentola



Joined: 16 May 2007
Posts: 23
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 1:09 pm Reply with quote
I'm re-reading the Cromartie manga right now! I wish all the volumes had made it over here. I remember reading a volume in the library and it was so funny my nose started to run and I didn't bring enough tissues and it was kinda embarrassing.

The anime is good, too, though I would recommend it dubbed. I tried watching it subbed and it was just too wordy and hard to keep up. I got a headache. Hey, sub fans, at least I tried! Wink
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7358
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 2:28 pm Reply with quote
Oho, Cromartie! You do indeed crack me up! I have all 12 manga volumes, and the anime singles (which possibly have the best DVD menus known to humankind on the singles). They're both equally awesome, though the anime kinda feels like a supplement to the manga.
But man, this series, both the anime and manga, have so many golden one liner quotes it's ridiculous! And the dub, one of the best ever made! Yeah, I do quite miss not having those last 5 volumes on my shelf, so much more happens in the manga, the Five Great Ones get plenty of page time (in the anime they just get the introduction), more stuff happens with the seal, more gorillas, and, at least to me, the biggest surprise of all: spoiler[there are teachers at Cro High! They just....sit in the teacher's lounge and do the same thing all the students do, talk about mundane bs], which I thought was quite brilliant, but it only happens towards the end of vol 12 iirc. But then the anime has Cromartie Girls' High, easily one of the funniest gender flip episodes ever (sorry, Adventure Time, you can only get the #2 slot behind Cro High)

For fans of Cro High, I would most certainly suggest you watch Sexy Commando, Cro High felt rather like a spiritual successor. Yes, they do more school related things (or more, the club is actually in the school and has students in it), but it's just as strange and absurd, complete with ukulele lessons out of nowhere (to quote Cro High "OH MY GOD! This is a non-sequitur!") and not a lot of school stuff actually happening at any time. Somehow there's even an obviously older than the rest of the cast character wearing a ski mask. Seriously, if no one can bring over the rest of Cro High, then I beg them to bring over this 7 volume manga instead.
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Nadare Xizos



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 115
Location: The Heero Hole
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 2:37 pm Reply with quote
I loved "Cromartie High School." It remains one of my favorite manga. Where else would random babbling be so funny?
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Snomaster1
Subscriber



Joined: 31 Aug 2011
Posts: 2904
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 3:26 pm Reply with quote
I remember the anime version of "Cromartie High." It was on G4's "Anime Unleashed" block. It was pretty strange. I've never seen the manga version. I'd like to see what else this Nonaka guy does. I'd love to see it.
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Shippoyasha



Joined: 28 Aug 2007
Posts: 459
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 3:36 pm Reply with quote
Both the manga and anime were hilarious and highly unpredictable.

One of my favorite comedies ever and there are not many anime or manga. that can match its atmosphere.
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Julia-the-Great



Joined: 14 May 2005
Posts: 328
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 5:45 pm Reply with quote
The anime is one of my... no, it IS my favorite comedy anime. My brother and I still quote it to each other to this day. I've read a few volumes of the manga, but never got a chance to purchase it myself. Sad
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Conflagration



Joined: 13 May 2012
Posts: 3
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 8:15 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
There's nothing less funny than someone explaining a joke, so the best way to describe Cromartie is to just shove it in someone's hands and make them read it.


That perfectly sums up how I feel about the anime. For a while I was trying to explain Cro High to my friends so they would get into it, but that never really worked out. Now I'm just going to sit them down and make them watch it. That was the lesson everyone else got from the article right?
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Zewerr



Joined: 09 Jun 2006
Posts: 539
Location: Tacoma, WA
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 9:00 pm Reply with quote
Classicalzawa pretty much covers everything. ADV's original volume three anime release has the absolute best DVD menu of any DVD I have ever watched to date. It's so good, that you immediately have to explore the entire menu and every sub-menu of it before you can even watch the show. Whoever the ADV menu designer was for that is a pure genius!

The resemblance to Sexy Commando she mentions is also very accurate. The jokes in Sexy Commando are probably just as funny as they are in Cro High, but they're not nearly thrown at you as frequently. I agree, though, anyone who's a Cromartie fan, should check it out.

I've only been able to read about up to halfway through volume two of the manga, which I lost somewhere. Volume three is waiting for me to read, but I'd like to finish two first if I ever find it. I'm looking to buy the rest at some point as well.

A friend of mine originally told me about the anime a few years after he had seen it on G4. I really didn't think much of it at the time. Like people said, it's incredibly hard to explain it. I ended up throwing it in my Netflix queue, and it eventually made it to the top. Holy crap, I wish I could watch it again for the first time. It was an instant hit with me, as well as my brother.
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7358
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2012 9:10 pm Reply with quote
Oooh yeah, oft little mentioned fact, but my username, the "-zawa" part of it is indeed named after Mechazawa.

@Zewerr
You definitely need to read more of the manga. Since it's so wordy, I don't think it goes down quite as quickly as the anime does, but sooooo much more happens too! Though the frequency of The Five Great Ones did start to annoy me at times to be honest. I hope you at least have them all.

But yes, someone else who agrees Sexy Commando is the next logical step for fans. Since it never came over to the US, it's probably not as well known, but there are fansubs out there. But if it ever came out R1, anime or manga, I'd buy it. And hope that whoever cast Cro High's dub returns.
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