Admin's Anime Review: Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu - Idiots, Tests, and Summoned Beings

Title: Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu
Studio: Silver Link
Genre: Comedy, School-Life, Fantasy, Romance
Original Run: January 7- March 31, 2010
Episodes: 13
Director: Shin Onuma
Original Character Design: Kenji Inoue & Yui Haga
Number One Theme Song: Opening Theme "Perfect Area Complete!" by Natsuko Asou

Admin's Score:
Story: 90
Character Development: 90
Artwork: 90
Songs: 83
Animation: 90


Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu main characters (front to back left to right): Mizuki Himeji, Minami Shimada, Akihisa Yoshii, Hideyoshi Kinoshita, Kota Tsuchiya AKA "Mutsurini", and Sakamoto Yuuji.



Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu is originally a series of Light Novel written by Kenji Inoue and illustrated by Yui Haga. The first novel in the series was released on January 29, 2007, and as of December 26, 2009, a total of nine volumes, including volume 3.5 and volume 6.5, have been published by Enterbrain under their Famitsu Bunko publishing imprint. A manga adaptation by Mosuke Mattaku started serialization in the manga magazine Shonen Ace on April 25, 2009.

Synopsis
The story revolves around Akihisa Yoshii, an idiot called by name "Baka". He entered Fumizuki Academy, which divides students strictly according to their test-scores, goes from the highest to the lowest: class A to F. On the day of the placement test, his friend, a smart girl named Mizuki Himeji got a fever while doing the test, resulting in her zero score. Consequently, she was assigned to the worst class, the F class. Akihisa was assigned to the F class too. Akihisa, who felt pity toward the genius Himeji that deserved the A class, decided to declare the ESB (Exam Summoning Battle), the school rule that allows battle between summoned beings (beings created by the students and usable only in school area) in order to snatch another class' facilities/ exchange facilities. Then, class F began to blast through their way to get the final target, the A class. Will they be able to made it with a class full of idiots, yet "special" students?

Strength:
Honestly, this anime's comedy is of no match to the other's. I think the only rival is Hayate no Gotoku season 1. So far, this is the funniest anime I've ever watched (score 100 for its comedy!!)!! The idea of the school system and the plot(tactics especially) is amazing (The ESB, the class division and so on), making the story really enjoyable. Nice character development and also character artwork (no flaw in drawing, various way of drawing a character). The animation is also very good.

Weakness:
There's no good theme song.

Screenshot (this review is special, 5 screenshots, enjoy!):


In the middle of the heat of ESB, Akihisa revealed his secret, that is....he is left-handed. Then, he got beaten up. One of the most funny comedy scene in the anime.


Black transaction happened between Mutsurini and Akihisa. I don't know why they would value their life and money just for Hideyoshi's photos (Hideyoshi is a guy ya know, if he's not lying...). Mutsurini's left eye turn to the left eye of Lelouch from Code Geass. I like the copyright-violation joke!!

Akihisa found a good way to keep his stomach filled with limited budget. That is, dividing the instant noodle into two, every time he ate, resulting in infinity pieces of instant noodle. Admitting that he found this theory and was this generation's Einstein, one day he said that he ate 1/67 of the instant noodle (How could multiplies of 2 result in 67???!!!! It's 64 you idiot!!).

The Exam Summoning Battle screen. It's battle between class E (represented by 2 no eyes boys with their E beings) and class F(represented by Mizuki Himeji with her knight-like being), you can see that the HP and the attack power is based on the scores of the test you have taken. I like this status screen, seems sophisticated. Modern day anime....

Himeji's summoned being, adult version(caused by server chaos in Fumizuki). By the way, Shouko pierced Yuuji's eyes and the reason is written there. That's my favorite character in this anime. Her appearance, although being changed a bit reminds me of a character from Darkstalkers series (guess who? clue: she's up in the Otaku CC main header screen).