http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4R7j5iR7JM&feature=related

To be entirely honest with you all, I never really got into anime the way my other associates have until 2008. Sure, in elementary school I watched DBZ at friend’s houses, and when we first got cable Toonami was my bread and butter with adult Swim as my dessert. However, I was always just a passing fan. I had no merchandise, no DVD collections, just an enjoyment of the anime I had seen.

That all changed when I started watching shows on Youtube. I know now how archaic that system was, but it was the first time I sat down and watched shows as they came out. My first show was Toradora, which I have mixed feelings about, but watching it I happened upon the full season of a strange show called Cromartie High School.

To the uninitiated, especially in this age of high animation quality, Cromartie High School may be hard to get into. From a technical perspective it can sometimes make Azumanga Daioh look like a masterpiece, but in all honesty it adds to the strange charm of the show. The opening is a terrific example of this, showing everything Cromartie is about.

I could talk someone’s ear off about how hilarious this opening is, at least in context of having watched the entire series beforehand. As a huge disciple of the absurdist genre of comedy, this opening pushes all the right buttons. Many things are just shown with no explanation in an eclectic mesh of madness, full of robots, gorillas, and Freddie Mercury, all of which actually appear in the show.

By far, one of the hidden gems of this opening is the song itself. At first, it seems very droll, and it is definitely in a musical style unaccustomed to foreign ears. For the most part that’s a pretty apt description, however looking at the lyrics you can see quite the hilarious juxtaposition. It is a dirge about the decline of manliness and justice and a call to action, interposed with the image of two men in bunny costumes beating each other up followed by airplanes and tanks hit off protagonists like peanuts. It fits so well because it doesn’t fit well.

If you appreciate the absurdity of shows like Azumanga Daioh or Arakawa, but missed Cromartie, you really owe it to yourself to watch this show. It can be found on Rightstuf, both new and old versions, but both are out of print so there’s actually less than 60 copies left total. Hilariously enough, I actually bought my copy off of Meijer’s online website. Why the giant retail store carried anime on its website at all will be a mystery, but unfortunately, that option is no longer available.