---
title: Cromartie High School
type: Television
date: 2024-08-07
rating: 8
genre:
  - Anime
year: 2003
status: Finished
image: cromartie-high-school.jpg
tags:
  - television
colorSortKey: [0, 39, 0]
---
 Hard not to draw parallels to [[Azumanga Daioh]] — a show that I think Cromartie edges out as the funniest anime I've ever seen. Whereas Azumanga feels sweet and _dated_ — not in a bad way, but in that it shows its age and clearly influenced a legion of copycat "cute girls doing cute things" successors — Cromartie, despite coming out a single year later, strikes you as incomprehensibly _modern_. The closest historical parallel that comes to mind is the Adult Swim extended universe, but whereas those shows lean too far into a kind of nihilistic absurdism that never quite resonated with me, Cromartie has a _cleverness_ with every single throwaway gag or callback that wins you over quickly. I'm shocked there's only a single season of this show; I'm shocked it's not talked about more often.