I watched this anime Cromartie High School with some friends the other day and I can say this much: it plays a lot with what I would deem to be psychological torture via fiction. Seriously, this anime embodies several qualities that I found unlikeable: frustrating plot scraps, overly long gags, "no sh*t Sherlock" moments and just one too many facepalm events. If you're prone to hating shows that make you scream out "Just [verb] already!", do not watch this show, it is FULL of that. Hell, the entirety of one episode was about the characters trying to figure out a song title, leading to a lot of annoying humming.

I'm gonna say this now. I get that this whole thing is a comedy/parody. That doesn't make it any less frustrating/confusing to me.

One of said overly done gags is the character of Shinichi Mechazawa, one of the students at the delinquent high school. From what episodes I saw, they really loved playing the "he's a robot" gag much to my annoyance. The main character knows this guy is a robot but it always is played off as something like "oh he's just some hardheaded student" (hence the title). He oils himself. That should be enough of a hint, people.

All things aside, Mechazawa's alright as a character himself. Sometimes, he seems to be played as a legitimate "I'm just like the rest of you", showing that he can be as normal as any of the human characters despite the obvious (one such occurrence was when an inspection doctor recommended Mechazawa to be taken to an electronic store for "checkup" and the hint completely flies over his head). But at times, he also seems to deliberately play around with anyone who tries to point out. So I dunno what to say.

Perhaps I'm giving too much credit to a show that features a misplaced Gorilla and a Freddy Mercury caricature as recurring cast members.

Mechazawa © Eiji Nonaka