Cromartie High School: Volume 5

In Volume 5 of Cromartie High our beloved badasses are up against an enemy they can't beat, push, or intimidate....Mother Nature! The boys have become lost in a dense forest on their journy to a baseball training camp at Mt. Fuji. They've been stranded for two days and with the brains these guys have, there's about a 90% chance they'll die in the woods! For example, Freddie wanders off and finds a ramen restaurant, eats his fill, then returns to the camp, where his peers are starving, and never says a word about his discovery! Even funnier is when Hayashida finds a convenience store, buys some supplies, then makes it back to his friends. The problem is that he can't remember how to get back to the store and then declares he didn't tell anyone they were lost because he wasn't about to leave his buds behind! Does that make any kind of sense? If they make it out of the woods, they will have to deal with gorilla impostors, rival school bosses, and new threats to their legendary toughness in the form of two new street thugs that blow into town! This volume of Cromartie was funny but by now that's no surprise. While the jokes are pretty simplistic, they work because every character actually thinks they're pretty smart, which makes their lamebrain comments even more humorous. They have all these little complicated thought processes that in the end signify nothing. I do have one complaint, and that is that Mechazawa doesn't really have a lot of panel time, even though he's one of the funniest characters. This series ranks with the funniest manga I've read. Give it a try. I would also recommend Azumanga Daioh, manga and anime versions.