There is not much story to Sakigake!! Cromartie Kokou, as its main purpose is to make a parody of the genre. The setting is very cliché: Kamiyama enrolls at Cromartie High, where everyone is a delinquent. Because of the most absurd and twisted logic, he becomes the toughest of the class, and this is where the story kicks off. Being considered the toughest of the class can only lead to more trouble right? The narrative, besides of focusing on Kamiyama, gives a lot of attention to all the diverse characters and their lives, habits, including the different interactions between the protagonists which leads to absurd and hilarious situations. These are often predictable, and some spectators may dislike this.
These situations are everyday business and problems, such as competitions in humor, public transport, motion sickness, basically what everyday life is, which makes it for the spectator easy to relate the events to themselves. The reasoning, the discussions and conclusions behind some of these situations are often absurd, but hilarious. Monologues are often used to make the audience understand what's on the mind of the characters, as adding an amusing tone to it.
The strongest point of Sakigake!! Cromartie Koukou are the characters. As stated earlier, instead of having the usual cast of characters, it introduces a great variety of them, each with their own personality and charm. There is the main protagonist Kamiyama, who is basically the character the cast relies on whenever something comes up. The robot Mechazawa, a very dependable and manly character, and whose voice actor is Wakamoto Norio. Then there is literally the gorilla, and not to mention Freddie, who obviously represents Freddie Mercury. This isn't by any means the cast of Cromartie: the delinquent who aspires to be a comedian, the boss with motion sickness, nameless servant, and the list goes on. Without its characters, it wouldn't be as great as it is.
The animation of Sakigake!! is nothing outstanding, but it nevertheless fulfills its purpose. Character facial designs are very similar and manly, which probably was done on purpose; however, through different hairstyles and bodybuilds, the cast is easy distinguishable from each other. The sequence of different scenes and well placed character worked well in favour of the comedy displayed in the anime.
The soundtrack fitted perfectly well with the ambience it was trying to portray, for example through the use of rock tunes or violin. A great variety of voice actors were used, all with a distinguishable and well fitting voice for the characters. As for the opening and ending, I personally don't find myself indulging more than once on those, but with Sakigake!! Cromartie Koukou I found myself watching it every single time: it had a very catchy tune that perfectly described the anime, as well as the animation with it.
All in all, Sakigake!! was a very enjoyable experience, especially as a comedy genre. The amazing cast of characters, the diversity of those, as well as the absurd and hilarious reactions and situations really made the anime a very enjoyable experience. The jokes and absurdness may get old if it is marathoned, so I would personally not recommend doing this.
Thank you for reading.
