Fantasia Festival Report: Cromartie High School

Yudai Yamaguchi's adaptation of Cromartie High School - the second live action take on a popular anime in a row for me today - is a film that's virtually imposable to synopsize. And, really, you shouldn't even bother trying. Don't even bother approaching Cromartie for a sense of plot or story. Basically an extended batch of comedy sketches revolving around the students of the bizarre Cromartie High School the film ignores linear story telling entirely opting instead for a series of inventive, rapid fire, hysterically absurd comedy moments. Yamaguchi attracted widespread notice for his equally bizarre Battlefield Baseball but where that film had a tendency to stumble and drag from time to time Cromartie crackles with energy from start to finish.

Cromartie High School has a well deserved reputation as the worst high school in Tokyo. It is the school for freaks and outcasts, run entirely by the student body. If there is a single teacher in the entire school they fail to appear on screen even once. The school is so desperate for students that they will accept virtually anyone or anything, as the gorilla and cylindrical robot attending classes prove. A well-coiffed Tak Sakaguchi, however, is judged too stupid to be admitted in a hysterically against type early cameo.

Into this chaotic free for all enters Takashi Kamiyama, a bright student who willingly enrolled in the school to encourage his primary school friend and protector, played by Sakaguchi, to continue his education in the only school that would possibly accept him. His friend is rejected, of course, and Kamiyama has to go it alone.

"Wait a second," you're thinking, "Sakaguchi is playing a high school student? Isn't he in his thirties?" Yep. He plays a role half his actual age. Virtually all of the high school students are played by men obviously in their thirties or forties. It's part of the film's goofy charm.

Anyway ... Kamiyama is stranded on his own in this utterly chaotic environment and since he is unable to help the friend he originally went there for he decides that he will instead help the entire school by changing the culture of the place and helping them all to succeed in their studies. His quest to bring quality education careens wildly from adventure to bizarre adventure before, finally, an encounter with aliens leaves the school in heaps of rubble.

From the opening monologue detailing the school's lengthy history of violence and destruction through to the closing credits Cromartie High School doesn't pause for breath even once. Don't even try to make sense of it all, just roll with it and let Yamaguchi take you where he will. The man's got a fantastic visual style and a better budget to work with this time out. The characters are richly detailed and the film is jammed with bursts of stylish action, visual gags, film references and as much plain old oddity as Yamaguchi can possibly jam in there. Make no mistake about it, Yamaguchi made this film with only one aim in mind: to entertain. Nothing's too strange, too bizarre, or too low if it'll draw a laugh. And he draws a very great many of those. Battlefield Baseball announced the arrival of a very distinctive talent, Cromartie High School shows that talent refining itself and pushing its own limits. It's deliriously fun stuff and I can't wait to see what Yamaguchi comes up with next.