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R2 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Tuesday, 28 November 2006 00:00 |
 More madness and mayhem from the boys at Cromartie High. Mechazawa's little brother have problems being noticed, another rival school tries to teach Cromartie a lesson, Takenouchi has a run-in with hijackers, and more besides. And watch for the not-so-subtle Revolutionary Girl Utena reference there - if Anthy can turn into a car, what can one of the Cromartie boys manage...?
Episode 9
It's Maeda's birthday, and Kamiyama's arranged a birthday party for him - kind of payback for always invading his home for various meetings. He'd be quite pleased at their consideration, if his birthday hadn't been last month, but it's the thought that counts so he decides to just go with the flow. Later, Mechazawa introduces his little brother, who's been having some problems on account of his diminutive size - people keep stepping on him...
Episode 10
Cromartie's rivarly with the nearby Bass High School looks to be stepping up a gear, with the delinquents at Bass deciding it's about time they taught the boys at Cromartie a painful lesson. Meanwhile, Kamiyama and Hayashida ponder just how boring school's become. What they'd give for a little excitement - which the boys from Bass are only happy to provide...
Episode 11
The class are taking a trip to Kyushu, home of many historical sights - just the sort of thing Takenouchi loves, when his travel sickness lets him. His mood isn't helped when he overhears two fellow passengers talking about their plans to hijack the plane - one thing leads to another, and the next thing Takenouchi knows he's in the US. And no-one at Cromartie seems to miss him - they're too busy worrying about when their refunds for the ruined trip are going to arrive...
Episode 12
The hassles with Bass High continue. Mechazawa apparently has a friend there, so some of the boys ask him to see if he can use his contacts to get Bass to back off, but Mechazawa's not feeling very co-operative at the moment and refuses to help, opting to spend his afternoon doing more constructive things - like being converted into a motorcyle...
Episode 13
Kamiyama and the others decide to form a school baseball team, and head for Mt Fuji for the team's first training camp. It's a worthy enough idea - except they have no proper equipment, a team where two of the members aren't even human (you could probably argue for a few more than that, even), and no-one really seems to know the rules of the game. And they're lost in the woods. Will they ever see civilisation again..?
Episode 14
Hayashida's back. He's been looking for someone to be his #2 at Destrade High, and he's finally found his man - Akira, and his two hand-puppets. Hang on, that makes three #2's, which really isn't right. Never mind that Akira's unique talents have nothing to do with fighting, which makes a few of Hayashida's friends wonder if he's flipped - or if they should be learning ventriloquism themselves...
This volume of Cromartie High serves up another 6 short episodes of the show's unique brand of comedy, and dips into the surreal at one or two points, just for a little change of pace. I learnt my lesson from volume one and watched this in several sittings, and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot more as a result - although having a better idea of what to expect probably didn't do any harm, either.
Mechazawa gets a good outing this disc, first with the story of his little brother Beta (small enough to be stepped on, and getting smaller every time he's repaired), followed by another story where he refuses to get involved with Cromartie's battle with the rival Bass High - and instead opts to become a motorcycle. The first story is full of visual gags, mainly around the two robots being mistakenly used for everything from a mobile 'phone to a refrigerator, and definitely raises a few chuckles. The second story, though, is just downright weird - I had the scenes from the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie, where Anthy becomes a car, running through my head the entire time. It was the most surreal thing I've seen in quite a while, but any reference to Utena is always welcome with me. Whether that was intentional or all in my head is another thing.
Speaking of seeing other shows, the return of Hayashida has shades of Best Student Council about it, when the Destrade High #1 chooses a new second-in-command, complete with two hand puppets. There are some quite bizarre moments here as the boys argue over who's really the new #2, which just go to show how no-one in this series could ever be described as normal.
Poor Takenouchi draws the short straw this volume, as the travel-sick one finds himself stuck in America after the flight he was on for the class trip to Kyushu is hijacked, while the hijacker steals his identity back at Cromartie. It's best not to ask how that worked out - as with most things in this series, it just happens, leaves you wondering "what the ….!?", and moves on to the next story. One thing this story did flag up, though, was Cromartie's consistency when things like this happen - it takes Takenouchi a few episodes to get back home, with the hijacker making several appearances in the meantime. There's no end-of-episode reset, which is quite surprising for this sort of show.
Baseball, birthdays and boredom provide the subject matter for the remaining episodes. There's no one episode on the disc that stands out as a real highlight - the quality is very consistent - but neither is there a real lemon in the batch, and that can only be a good thing.
I definitely enjoyed this volume of Cromartie a lot more than I did the first volume, although there are a few possible explanations for that. It's still very strange, but there are plenty of good gags and as long as you don't think to hard about why things happen, it's easy enough to switch off and enjoy the mayhem. The key seems to be to just go with the flow - do that, and you'll get a good bit back from the series.
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