Yûdai Yamaguchi's SAKIGAKE!! CROMARTIE HIGH SCHOOL - THE MOVIE: Former baseball player Warren Croma

According to a number of Japanese newspapers, legendary former (1984-1990) Yomiuri Giants slugger Warren Cromartie filed for an injunction in Tokyo District Court (Tôkyô Chihô Saibansho - "Tôkyô Chisai" for short) on Wednesday (June 29), seeking to prevent further screenings of Yûdai Yamaguchi's Sakigake!! Cromartie High School - The Movie (Sakigake!! Kuromati Kôkô - The Movie). Cromartie alleges that the movie's (reputed) use of his name without his prior consent infringes upon his publicity rights. He stated that he is angry about being associated with the disreputable school in the movie.

Sakigake!! Cromartie High School - The Movie is being distributed by Media Suits K.K. (K.K. Media Sûtsu). It had its world première at Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival (YIFFF) on February 25th. It's scheduled to have its international (i.e., outside-of-Japan) première at Fantasia Film Festival in Montréal on July 16th. Cromartie, incidentally, also played for nine seasons (1974, 1976-1983) on the Montréal Expos. He is now the manager of the baseball team Japan Samurai Bears, which is part of the Golden Baseball League in California and Arizona.

Sakigake!! Cromartie High School - The Movie is based on the manga serial Cromartie High School (Sakigake!! Kuromati Kôkô), by Eiji Nonaka (see the sixth profile). The manga has also been made into an anime TV series - which is being released on DVD in North America by A.D. Vision Inc. - and at least two PlayStation 2 games.

There's a trailer for Sakigake!! Cromartie High School - The Movie here on the official website for the movie. As was previously reported here on ScreenAnarchy, the movie stars Takamasa Suga as Takashi Kamiyama, Mitsuki Koga as Shinjirô Hayashida, Hiroshi Yamamoto as Akira Maeda (and possibly also Akira's mother), Hiroyuki Watanabe as Freddy, Yoshihiro Takayama as Yutaka Takenouchi, Itsuji Itao as Masked Takenouchi, Noboru Kaneko as Takeshi Hokuto, Shinji Takeda as (the voice of) Shin'ichi Mechazawa, Robert (Robâto = Ryûji Akiyama, Hiroyuki Baba, and Hiroshi Yamamoto), Shôichirô Masumoto (who wrote the screenplay for the movie) as Noboru Yamaguchi (and possibly also Gorilla), Kai Atô, Sadayoshi Shimane as Hokuto's lackey, Ken'ichi Endô as Pootan 1, Noboru Takachi as Pootan 2, and Tak Sakaguchi as Ichirô Yamamoto.