_Dearest mother,

I have completed my enrollment for Cromartie High School. I hope to get used to the school as quickly as possible and lead a healthy, academic life.
But.
I’m surrounded by people who, frankly, scare me. Annnd, I’m kinda freaking out._

I vaguely remember hearing about this when it came out in 2004, but a show about a high school full of delinquents didn’t interest me. Fast forward over a decade, and I came across a Tumblr post with the first couple minutes of the first episode (while I can’t find the video, here’s a post with screencaps that only manage to capture about 50% of the humor and absurdity). Over-the-top, exaggerated, this wasn’t a straightforward show about delinquents like I’d thought, but rather a parody. I was hooked.

The fun thing about it is that you don’t really need to know what it’s parodying. Obviously, you’ll probably get more context if you do–I know a few stereotypes about delinquents picked up from 20 years of anime and manga consumption, but for the most part, I don’t know much–but the narration and animation do a good job explaining the basics you need (all the boys look like delinquents. All the boys assume they and others are delinquents, while at the same time many of them have other goals, weaknesses, and/or spend time philosophizing).

(According to its Wikipedia article, it’s a parody of the yanki delinquent manga of the 70s and 80s. I didn’t realize it was parodying a specific thing while watching, I just figured it was taking a few tropes and just satirizing them.)

Like, I don’t have to have any prior knowledge to see that this guy is trying to be tough, and he’s got a lackey.

And I keep using the word absurd because that’s what it’s doing. One classmate is a gorilla, which is neither explained, nor something the other characters can figure out. One classmate looks exactly like Freddie Mercury. This is commented on, and is as weird to the characters as it is to us.

I watched the English dub, and it still holds up. And the episodes themselves each clock in around 10 minutes, so this 26-episode series was super easy to binge, and the dub is easily available on free-with-ads sites like Crunchyroll and RetroCrush. It was a very enjoyable distraction.

Verdict

English dub? Yes! And it’s totally worth it just for the first episode to hear the main character go “He. ate. my. pencil. HE ATE MY PENCIL!?!?”

Visuals: About what you’d expect for 2004, but the art style is more detailed–adapting specific looks from the manga, I’d assume–that it was visually a breath of fresh air.

Worth watching? Yes! It’s very silly, but it knows its being silly.