Cromartie High School Volume 3: Sailin' Fools - Anime-Planet
- Anime-Planet
- Kim Johnson
- 08/19/05
- click here
"...don?t let this one pass you by. You?ll laugh!"
Synopsis:
At Cromartie High, it?s tough being a delinquent -- a fact that do-gooder Takashi Kamiyama intimately understands. When he?s not engaging in contests of strength and rival gang wars, Kamiyama can also be found submitting punny jokes and planning his own rise to fame within the delinquents? ranks, and that?s just the beginning! With friends like robotic Mechazawa, a giant gorilla, a hairy man from the 80s named Freddie and a clan of delinquents with mohawks that flow in the wind, how can anyone not enjoy high school?
Packaging & Menu: 3 / 10
It?s times like these when I reconsider bunching packaging and menu together. Generally I?d think that good, well thought-out covers and packaging would mean the menu would be equally as impressive. In this case, I was terribly wrong. And unfortunately, no matter how great I think the packaging is (I?d give it a 9.5, probably), the menu is so atrocious that it kills any chance of this section getting a remotely decent score.
The cover is wonderful. In typical weird Cromartie style, a full image takes up the entire front. In this case it?s Mechazawa swinging on a swing, kicking off high heels. This makes no sense, but hey, that?s the point of Cromartie! The artwork looks almost painted, which is a nice touch. The back is also very well done, with a pleasing green background, a large image of two characters, and then little screenshots aligned across the bottom of the disc. There?s nothing bad about the outer packaging at all, and I think it?s safe to say this is one of my favorite designs for a DVD. The insert, like every insert in every Cromartie DVD, is wonderful. It?s filled with character bios, cultural notes and random facts and jokes.
But the menu... my god, the menu. When I first put the disc in, I seriously thought I had put in something else on accident. I took the disc out, looked at it (?hmm, this is indeed Cromartie?), then put it back in and hoped I had accidentally accessed some sort of freak menu. Nope, that?s the real menu. Wow. Part of me hopes this was a joke from one of the staff, and the rest of the staff was gasping in horror when they saw the final product. But in general, most of me screams ?what the hell were you thinking?!?
What is the menu? Well, it?s a plain white background with black text for the links. Period. On each screen, an annoying as hell old school computer voice talks about the purpose of each of the menu screens. Stuff like ?to navigate through the links press the keypad down and blah blah?. That?s IT. I kept thinking ?there really must be more to it than this? and kept watching, hoping that maybe the voices would start telling jokes or inserting statements about Cromartie in some way. This wouldn?t have saved the score, but would have at least made it a little more appropriate. Nope! The same old text. I then thought ?well maybe one of the episodes is applicable to this?. So, perhaps there was an episode on the disc where Mechazawa was formatted on accident, and started talking like an old computer. Nope? nothing related in any of the episodes. In the middle of writing this I noticed in another review, that this was a parody of Radiohead. I don?t care: it?s out of place and doesn?t fit, especially with the theme of the first two discs. The first two discs were great. The menus both had a theme of vinyl or record stores, and the discs were designed to look like vinyl. In volumes 3 and 4, the discs still looked like vinyl, but the menus became weird. And hey, the menu in volume 4 was about eight thousand times better than this menu, so I?m not sure what?s up. Even the front cover picture with music in the background would have made for a better menu. And hey, I?m all for randomness; I just don?t see how this menu had anything to do with Cromartie at all. Here?s hoping it was a not-funny joke that will be remedied by a different version of the DVD some day. I hate to be so harsh, but I can easily say without a doubt that this is the worst menu of any DVD I?ve ever viewed. That includes really bad titles like Leprechaun 4.
Extras: 9 / 10
A clean opening and closing are included, as well as PS2 and regular commercials (quite amusing), and the production booklet aka the insert. Also included yet again are the useful cultural notes. For people who want to know why things are translated like they are and/or want to understand the inside jokes of the series, this is the place to go. Very useful information all the way around.
Video: 8.5 / 10
Due to the same information applying to this volume, this text is copied and pasted from previous Cromartie disc reviews. The video is fairly clean with good color and detail. The dancing lines are still a major issue in heavy detailed spots such as forehead lines. No major problems with aliasing, graininess or artifacting. Excellent colors.
Audio: 7 / 10
Due to the same information applying to this volume, this text is copied and pasted from previous Cromartie disc reviews. The transfer from the Japanese audio was fairly clean, and there were no noticeable distortion or dropouts. Like the previous volumes, the Japanese voices tended to be in the background compared to the sound effects and other music. The problem definitely wasn?t as prevalent in this volume as it was in, say, volume 1, but was still noticeable. Like the previous volumes, the English vocals were quite a bit louder, adding a needed contrast between it and the music. The English seemed to make more use of the right and left channels than the Japanese audio, but both primarily stayed around the center stage.
Content: 8.5 / 10
As with the other volumes, the content of Cromartie is top notch ? if you like this sort of humor! Luckily I do so the section gets high ratings! The subject of the episodes ranges from Mechazawa falling in love to a multi-episode boss competition. Also, we are shown the cutest baby seal ever! Though each story had its own hilarious quirks, I found the overall funny-ratio to be a little less than other volumes of the show. Animation is very manga-ish and crude looking, which helps with the charm. Colors are bright and vibrant, and backgrounds are minimal. Music is quirky and effective. It?s hard to re-hash these content sections since all that?s changed is the stories involved, so I?ll wrap this up by saying this is another solid release from ADV (except the horrendous menu). If you like Cromartie, don?t let this one pass you by. You?ll laugh!
Posted on Friday, August 19, 2005 (Archive on Monday, September 19, 2005)