Cromartie High The Movie: Review

This may get me in some trouble with Dave, but in my lowly opinion, seldom do comic book characters translate well onto the big screen as live action. Superman, Spiderman, and the X-men are the only three thus far that have done the genre justice in the cinema. In Japan, however, manga flows well from ink to anime; as long as there are decent script writers to take an author’s vision and do it justice. But does the original idea get garbled when it goes from manga to anime to live action? Not if the heart of the manga stays true as is the case in Cromartie High: The Movie.

The unpredictability in the anime was a huge part of its success so making a movie that flows like the anime, keeps its ideas, and is still a stand alone movie would seem a tall order. However, the studio approached the movie as if it was several episodes of Cro High that were woven into one long seamless episode, without “endings” or “beginnings” (which weren’t all that noticeable or necessary in the anime). This approach worked quite well in keeping with the bizarre fast paced nonsense of the series.

The story that’s the basis for the manga and anime is the same as the movie: A straight laced A+ student (Takashi Kamiyama) enrolls in Cromartie High (a school filled with thugs and delinquents) so he can accompany his less than genius delinquent buddy through high school. Kamiyama is accepted into Cro High but to his utter amazement and dismay, his friend is too stupid to get into the worst school in the Tokyo school system. Now Kamiyama is stuck in Cro High by himself; a lamb (or rabbit) among mohawked lions.

Kamiyama decides to make the best of a bad situation and tries to turn Cromartie High into a reputable school. He meets and befriends Shinjiro Hayashida and Akira Maeda whom he enlists to help in his struggle to make Cromartie a better place. Kamiyama is informed by Hayashida that he’ll never reform Cro High as long as “he’s” at the school. The “he”, Hayashida is referring to are actually three “hes” and are the resident freaks of the school, aka Mechazawa, Freddie, and Gorilla.

Mechazawa is a badass high school student that also happens to be a robot. Because of the student body’s mind numbing stupidity, only Kamiyama, Hayashida and Maeda are aware that Mechazawa is a robot. Freddie is a dead ringer for Freddie Mercury and Gorilla is, well, a gorilla.

Although Kamiyama has good intentions and is reasonably book smart, he turns out to be just as dumb as the rest of Cro High when it comes down to it. Witness his utter gullibility and unwavering commitment to Takeshi Hokuto’s enormous lie about his family and father.

Hokuto, the son of a wealthy and powerful man, enrolls at Cromartie with the intention of taking it over using his father’s influence on the school board. Alas, since Cro High is a public school and therefore has no board, his daddy has no power there. In order to cover up his snafu, Hokuto spins an elaborate tale involving global takeovers, shadow prime ministers, and a quest to stop both.

More madness ensues with a possessed Mechazawa, a doomed school trip, and an alien invasion.

I really liked the quality of this film. The actors where well chosen and stayed true to the characters, at least in heart if not totally in appearance. For example: Hayashida is missing his trademark, animated purple mohawk and Yutaka Takenouchi has medium length blonde hair instead of a well shaved pate.

Mechazawa, however, was awesome! He’s my fave character from the anime and I didn’t know if they’d do him justice in a live action film. But they did and he looked great. Freddie looked weird as a Japanese man and gorilla was just some dude in a gorilla suit, but Mechazawa made up for it all, especially in my favorite scene from the movie.

The absolute best part of the movie was when Mechazawa begins acting mighty strange. His whole demeanor changes as he’s possessed by some strange power. It was so much fun when he started cursing like a sailor in accented English.

Some of the movie was a bit slow. The beginning kinda crawled and Kamiyama’s “Smoking Will Kill Ya” seminar was too drawn out. Overall, though, the movie was funny as hell and delivered round after round of “OMG”!

If you haven’t read the manga or seen the anime before you see the movie, no biggie. It does help, though, if you have a passing familiarity with the characters as some of the jokes are in jokes. This movie is pitched to both the initiated and uninitiated alike so you’ll get most of the laughs even without reading the manga or seeing the anime.

outta possible four gummies