Anime Review - Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

"Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu" or "Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts" is a romantic school comedy of 2 seasons with 13 episodes each, and 2 OVAs. It was produced by Silver Link and aired during January-March 2010, and July-September 2011 respectively. The OVAs aired in February and March 2011. Baka to Test is a very light-hearted and funny anime that makes the viewer laugh and relax. I actually consider it more as a Comedic Romance, than a Romantic Comedy (it has a difference).
Let's get to it!

Story
Baka to Test (BtT) follows Akihisa Yoshii, a high school student attending Fumizuki Academy, a school in which the students are divided into classes, based on their academic scores. At the start of the school year, all students take an entrance exam and, based on the score they got, are sorted into the different classes, going from A to F. Class A has laptops, gorgeous and expensive desks, armchairs, fancy furniture and a free snack bar. On the other hand, Class F only has dirty mats and low wooden tables, and is filled with idiots. Yoshii has some of the worst grades, so as a result, he gets into F class, with the class representative and best friend Yuji Sakamoto, the often-mistaken-for-a-girl Hideyoshi Kinoshita, the perverted Kouta Tsuchiya and the tomboyish tsundere Minami Shimada. Mizuki Himeji, a beautiful and very smart girl, also finds herself into F class due to her inability to finish her exam because of a strong fever; as a result, she got a zero and ended up in F class. This covers the "Baka" and "Test" parts; how about the "Summoned Beasts"?
Fumizuki Academy has a special and unique system. All students can summon Summoned Beings (Shoukanjuu or "Avatars" if you prefer). These Avatars are used in battles between the different classes, with the goal of getting another class's better equipment. These battles must be declared by one class to another one and be supervised by a teacher, who summons a special battlefield. The power and health of each Being is based on their last test score in that teacher's subject. In these battles, the Beings fight each other, until one side surrenders or if the Avatar of the class representative is defeated. Whenever one of the Avatars reached zero health points, the student has to take supplementary classes, with the very strict remedial teacher, called "Iron Man" because of his power and stature. Also, if a student leaves the battle before he loses, he can take a supplemental exam in which he can replenish lost points.
So, an example. Let's say that Class D challenges Class C to a battle, in order to switch rooms. The battle is supervised by the Math teacher. If a student got a 78 in the last Math test, when he had lost of his points before, his Being's health and power will be of 78. If another student got a 85, a 92 and a 79 on the last 3 Math tests without the Being reaching zero, its power-health will be of 256. If Class D manages to beat Class C's representative, they win and can switch rooms if they want. However, if Class D loses, they won't be able to declare any Beings War for 3 months.
That's it about most of the rules going around the school system.
We follow the characters into their school lives, while they do Class Wars and we, the viewers, die from laughter. This is, in my opinion, one of the funniest anime ever. I was constantly laughing while watching it; and my laughter didn't decrease one bit for my 2nd viewing. The comedy is so damn hilarious, without being ridiculous. However, even if comedy is covering like around 65% of the anime, there is also some good romance at some points. In the 2nd season, there is a higher focus on romance, and some very touching scenes appear, including the ones where some of the characters' backgrounds are revealed. The battle scenes between the Avatars were also interesting and amusing, and added a charming trait to BtT.
Amazingly hilarious comedy, good romance and character interraction.

Characters
There are quite a lot of characters in BtT, since there are at least two characters with names per class, + the teachers, + a few family members, + of course, all the main and main-supporting characters.
-- First is the male protagonist, Akihisa Yoshii, a very nice, kind and caring boy, who is however a complete idiot. Actually, he is so stupid I sometimes wondered if he is doing it on purpose. However, unlike certain other characters - namely Ichika Orimura (Infinite Stratos) and Makoto Ito (School Days) - his stupidity and "density" are much less annoying. The producers very effectively took advantage of that and turned it into an entertaining character and major comical relief. He is implied to have the worst grades among everyone in the same year as him, and also being the most stupid. Because of that, he was given the title of "Punishment Inspector" and his Being is the only one (aside from the teachers') to be able to touch and interract with corporeal objects. This was done to make Akihisa help the teachers do chores as punishments for his stupid actions; and because Shoukanjuu are much stronger than humans, he is able to help the teachers with tasks that would normally require many people. However, there is a "feedback", which means that any damage taken by Akihisa's Avatar will be transfered to his real body (if the Avatar gets punched in the face, the Akihisa will feel the exact same pain on his real body). [...] Pretty harsh, isn't it?
-- Next come the two main girls. Mizuki Himeji - who is considered the primary female character  - is a beautiful, kind, cute, highly intelligent girl, with a very well-developed bust size, who found herself in Akihisa's Class F, because of her incapability of finishing the entrance exam, due to her fragile health. She has a big crush on Akihisa, but is too shy to confess - and Akihisa's dumbness doesn't help at all. Despite her shy, innocent and timid nature, she can sometimes be very determined when she is serious. Despite all of her qualities, nothing is more dangerous than her cooking, which is awful and inedible. She also often gets into yandere-mode, in which cases the reason, target and victim are always Akihisa.
-- Minami Shimada is an energetic, tomboyish and quite attractive girl, who however is completely flat-chested. She is only good in maths, due to her very big difficulty in the japanese language, due to her living in Germany for a very long time. While Mizuki is the yandere, Minami is the tsundere. She also has feelings for Akihisa, but her shyness and tsundere nature don't help her confess.
Other main characters include:

• The class representative Yuji Sakamoto, Akihisa's best friend with whom he most of the time share punishments for their actions. He is cool, athletic and quite intelligent for a student of Class F. Him and Akihisa are so close that they don't even need words to communicate.
• Hideyoshi Kinoshita, the overused internet gag and meme. He is a helpful, supportive, but very feminine-looking boy. The common gag is for both boys and girls to consider him a female, and even become jealous of him, because of his attractiveness. He has unmatchable skill in acting, both in behavior and voicing.
• Kouta Tsuchiya, the ultimate pervert of Fumizuki. Because of his skills in hiding, getting information and sneaking, he is called "Pervert Ninja". He is often seen with a camera, with which he takes pictures of the girls and Hideyoshi, then selling them. Despite his perverted nature, he will always get a nosebleed whenever he sees or hears something perverted. He is bad in all subjects, except Health Education.
• Shouko Kirishima, the childhood friend of Yuji, with whom she is crazily infatuated with. She is a gorgeous, elegant  and soft-spoken girl, who is also the class representative of Class 2A, meaning she is the most intelligent student of 2nd year. She is so obsessed with Yuji, she sometimes threatens him to deposit a marriage certificate to the Town Hall, if he doesn't listen to her. I consider her to be a yandere as well, since she won't accept Yuji looking at any other girl (especially if she is in a swimsuit), going as far as to poke his eyes, use chains to prevent him from escaping, or use a taser to stun him.

Some supporting characters include: Aiko Kudou, a friendly, easy-going and mischievous girl who enjoys teasing Akihisa and Kouta; Miharu Shimizu, a girl in love with Minami; Hazuki, the younger sister of Minami; Akira, Akihisa's older sister; Kudo Toshimitsu, a boy from Class A who has a crush on Akihisa; and Yuuko, Hideyoshi's twin sister.

Every single character (almost), is enjoyable and likeable is some way. They all have their comedic moments, and the interractions between some of them are very well-done, either they are funnier, cuter or more romantic. As you saw yourself, BtT has a very large cast of characters for a RomCom; however, it is handled very well, and each character has more or less the screentime they need. Each of them also adds something more to the show. I mean, I think this is the first time I see a tsundere, 2 yanderes, a gay, a lesbian, a cross-dresser, cosplayers, fanatic forever-alone boys, a yaoi-lover, a perverted photographer and a character of unknown gender (Hideyoshi) in the same series.
My favourite characters are Shouko, Kouta and Aiko.

Sound
I think what I was the most surprised about (after how hilarious I found this anime), was the music. It actually very good. It is not a audio masterpiece, but each soundtrack fitted the scene it was used in. During the Beings wars, there was an energetic music playing; when coming up with a strategy, having a more challenging music with tension in the air; light-hearted music for the comedy; sweet melodies for the romantic scenes. The 1 opening and 2 ending themes for the 1st season are "Perfect-Area Complete" by Natsuko Aso, "Baka Go Home" by Milktub and BakaTest All Stars, and "Hare Tokidoki Egao" by the voice actresses of Minami, Mizuki, Hideyoshi and Shouko. The opening and ending theme for the OVAs are "Ren'ai Koujou Committee" by Natsuko Asa, and "Getsuyou wa Kirai" by Milktub. As for the 2nd season, the opening is "Kimi+Nazo+Watashi de Jump!!" by Larval Stage Planning and the ending theme is 'Eureka Baby" by Natsuko Aso again. My favourite of these if "Perfect-Are Complete", because it has a lighthearted tone which also portrays the high comedy and romance very well. The voice acting is good, without being exceptionnal, but all voices matched the characters' personalities greatly, and were able to portray emotions very well.

Animation
The studio in charge of producing BtT was Silver Link, a studio that appeared in 2007. BtT was their second production only, but it was already very good. However, considering that some people from Silver Link had connections with J.C. Staff and Shaft, it is much less surprising that it is good. Anyway, the animation was well done,and was changing a lot depending on the situations. Most of the time, it was normal, colorful and smooth. Sometimes though, it was changing to either funnier with the characters being chibi-ed, or only black and white in some scenes with Akihisa and Yuji, or becoming very simple but funny/touching depending on the emotions of the characters at that moment. Just from the animation, I could say it is something funny. It simply isn't amazing either; but still good. I also really enjoyed the reaction faces of the characters; they were priceless! - the best ones being Yuji trying to escape from Shouko, or the four main boys when facing Mizuki's handmade cooking.

Final Verdict
Story: 8.2
Characters: 8.7
Sound: 7.4
Animation: 7.7
Enjoyment: 9.8
Total: 8.36

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu is probably the best comedy anime I have seen! It also has good romance associated with some touching moments, a wide and great cast of characters where everyone knows their place, good animation, good music and good voice-acting. It brings a lot of laughter and relax, while still remaining able to make the viewer hyped for the next episode, something that not many almost pure Comedy anime are able to pull out effectively. The first season has more comedy and Beings Class Wars, while the 2nd season has more romance and touching moments; of course, both seasons have both. If you enjoys RomComs, you must definitely give Baka to Test a watch. The only "dislikers" would be those who don't like RomComs or anime without epic stories.

This ends my 12th anime review. I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to like if you enjoyed it and to comment in the comment section below, if you want to express your opinions on this anime. Thank you for reading.

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Anime Review - OreImo

"Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai", "My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute", or Oreimo for short is an anime of two seasons of 12 and 13 episodes and 3 OVAs which cover the ending. It is a harem romantic comedy that has a strong start, a strong mid-length, but an ending that is left to be desired. The first season was produced by AIC, while the rest was done by A-1 Pictures. It is a good anime, with a realistic perception of society's point of view on otaku - which is not the best.
Let's get to it!

Story
I need to point out that, by hearing the title alone, most people would think that this is a hentai; for obvious good reasons. However, this is NOT a hentai, not even an ecchi. Just a harem romantic comedy.
The story follows Kyousuke Kousaka, a normal high school student. He lives normally with his parents and his younger sister, Kirino, with whom he is on bad terms. One day at home, after bumping into his sister, he finds a DVD case of a magical girl anime under a piece of furniture; he opens it only to find an eroge instead of an anime DVD. As he tries to understand how an eroge is even in his house, - since he can't imagine any member of his family actually playing them - he finds out it's Kirino's. Kirino then reveals to be an otaku and her secret passion for eroge and anime to Kyousuke, who doesn't really know what to think about it, but promises her he will keep her secret to everyone.
After that, we follow the two siblings on their lives, experiences and the obstacles on their way. Despite not being in good terms, Kyousuke acts like a good big brother and helps Kirino whenever she is in trouble, either it has to do with her friends, their parents or others. He starts playing eroge at the wish of Kirino, who now has someone to talk to about her hobby and opens a bit more to him.
As the show goes on, many different characters appear, the most important being Manami, the childhood friend of Kyousuke; Ayase, Kirino's friend who is against otaku stuff; and Kuroneko (Ruri Gokou), an elitist otaku, rival-friend of Kirino. Each of them adds a new "spice" to the anime, making it better and better. The interractions are done very well, too.
The main focuses of Oreimo are obviously otaku-anime and incest. And they are handled pretty well. The incestuous themes are present, but it is light incest, unlike Yosuga no Sora. Kyousuke and Kirino are getting closer to each other over time, and they are wondering about their relationship. As they open more to each other, there is still some tension, as Kirino is surprised that Kyousuke accepts her hobby rather easily and helps her so much. Kirino wonders why her brother supports her so much; is it because he's just acting like the caring brother or is is something else, something deeper? Same for Kyousuke... he wonders why Kirino opens up more to him, while she was hating him so much before: is it because she wants to act nice to him and give themselves a chance, or is it something more intimate? All of this is done very realistically and believable (for me, at least). This is not only incest, but also love. I was not supporting the incest, because I didn't like Kirino much, but I have to admit and point out that the whole incest-forbidden love theme was very good and well done. The 2 seasons followed that very closely and were, IMO, a success.
And then the specials happened... *Sigh* [...] Why Oreimo? Why would you do that? WHY?!?! [...]
IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THEM, BE AWARE THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!!!



Basically, the 3 specials that aired in August - that were used to put a conclusion to Oreimo, and everyone having watched the show was hyped for - trolled the entire fanbase of Oreimo; and I don't think I'm exaggerating. For an anime like Oreimo, which had already crossed the morality line, there was absolutely no fucking reason of going back! But that's what it did. [...] Oreimo chose the little sister route. At that point, Ayase and Kuroneko fans had been crushed and understood that the show did exactly what the title had announced. So at that point only Kirino fans were left unharmed, but not for long. After two seasons of greatness and the selection of the sister route, just when the long wait of Kirino fans would have been awarded... everything got canceled. How is that? Well, Kyousuke and Kirino unite, go out, go as far as to make a fake marriage ceremony at a church, with the flowers, the costumes etc, kiss AAAAAAAND... they decide to stop everything, they decide to both go their own way and live normally without any deep incestuous relations... SERIOUSLY?! If this was done in another anime, it may have worked. In a general way, that ending is not bad. But exactly because it IS the ending of THIS anime, it is bad, ridiculous and stupid. You already crossed the morality line! don't go back, hoping it will arrange everything! After two whole seasons of amazing character personality, relation and connection development, they simply burned everything to the ground. When you go for the incest, don't stop right at the end! Oreimo did just that. I'm still amazed how they managed to screw 2 whole seasons of an anime in 3 minutes.
As a conclusion to that, the ending is everything but good and satisfying and trolled you to the point you wonder why they actually made this anime in the first place.

Characters
The characters are the best part of Oreimo. The connections and interractions between them are done very well, and the way to react to different events makes this show so interesting to watch. The personalities, reactions, bonds and relations were done extremely well, something that, I'm not gonna lie, I didn't think would happen.
At school, Kirino is this beautiful, smart and perfect student with no flaws that many like and respect, although she has a strange hobby she has told no one about, except to Kyousuke at the start of the show. She is very egocentric and obnoxious when talking about her anime or eroge and acts harshly towards her brother. She is hostile to him and dislikes him a lot, but slowly starts developping feelings for him, as they spend more time together and he is the only person who supports her weird hobby. AKA, she's a fucking trundere. (and a bitch)
Next is Kyousuke, who is actually pretty realistic as he thinks logically before acting compared to other male leads. Although he doesn't care and doesn't really want to get involved into anime and eroge, he does get involve because of his family values and also because he wants to support his sister just like a good older brother. Even on bad terms with her, he is very protective of Kirino and is willing to keep her secret to himself. When others do find out about Kirino's hobby, Kyousuke will come to the rescue coming up with the most hilarious and clever excuses to protect her and turn the awkward focus away from her.
Next come the two most liked characters of the show: Kuroneko (Ruri Gokou) and Ayase Aragaki.
Kuroneko is an elitist otaku, who disagrees with Kirino's opinions, watches serious anime and always have clashes with her, putting down Kirino's anime and interests. Every time they had an argument, it sound like Naruto, Bleach and One Piece fanboys doing a battle to the death, which is unbelievably hilarious. She is one of the main love interests of Kyousuke and for the whole 1st season she was my favourite character. Her constant cosplay, the fact we don't learn her real name until the 2nd season, her arguments with Kirino, her cute and/or funny moments and her love for Kyousuke made me like her a lot. She also has the cutest moments with Kyousuke, IMO.
However, all of that changed with Ayase. As I mentioned in my "Top 10 Female Anime Characters" article, she is my 5th favourite female character. She is beautiful, kind and caring, elegant and works as a teen model, just like Kirino. She is a best friends with Kirino and looks up to her, but is totally against perverted things, as well as anime and eroge which she finds indecent; and it lead to some difficulties with her relation with Kirino later on. Due to a come-to-the-rescue-of-Kirino of Kyousuke, her relationship with him wasn't all that good at first, but it slowly got better, even going to Ayase having feelings for him. IMO, she was the one with the best chemistry with him and also had the best development as a character. She is also a very good comical relief, especially with her yandere mode, which was fucking hilarious.
Other enough important characters include Manami - Kyousuke's childhood friend - who is probably the most hated character of the series, which, on one hand, I can see why, but on the other hand, I think she gets too much hate, simply because she is the representative of overall society and of what is considered normal - as an otaku is far from being considered someone normal; Saori, a cheerful, kind and a bit happy-crazy otaku girl who wears strange glasses; and Kanako - the loli of the show - a friend of Kirino and Ayase who also works as a teen model.
The rest is pretty much unimportant, but still interesting.

Sound
On the musical aspect, Oreimo has an overall average-good score. The soundtracks aren't bad, but don't really stand out either. I personally liked both openings songs of both seasons, just without loving them. For the endings themes, I don't really remember anything that stood out to me, except one; the 14th ending theme of the 1st season: Shozukai no Serenade. Man, I love that song so much! Good job, Kana Hanazawa. True story, Kana is also the voice actress for Kuroneko and she does an amazing job there, too. The voice acting is something Oreimo is really good at. Ayana Taketatsu for Kirino, Saori Hayami for Ayase, Yuichi Nakamura for Kyousuke and Kana Hanazawa for Kuroneko did a perfect job. The emotions and moods of the characters were clearly voiced well and felt like it was real.

Animation
On the technical aspect now, each season was produced by a different studio. The 1st season was done by AIC, while the 2nd one was done by A-1 Pictures. On both cases, the animation was done pretty well. The former was before known most notably for "Ah! My Goddess", "Amagami SS" and "Sora no Otoshimono", while the latter was known for "Black Butler", "Fairy Tail", "Sword Art Online", "Magi" and "Blue Exorcist". Just from that - especially A-1 Pictures - it would have been very surprising if the animation was bad; and it wasn't. During the whole show, the animation is very smooth and consistant and is overall good. It isn't however as good as their previous works; although I have to give credit for detailing each character's facial expressions. They are done very well, either the character is happy, angry or depressed. All their facial expressions matched each scene and set the tone and mood to the series.

Final Verdict
Story: 6.8
Characters: 8.5
Sound: 7.1
Animation: 7.8
Enjoyment: 8.7
Total: 7.78

Oreimo is overall a good anime until the 12th episode of the 2nd season. It is a nice light-hearted and weird comedic anime, with a very well-executed and well-portrayed view at the otaku culture, where, we the fans, are Kirino, as her passion for eroge is the same passion we have for anime. The characters are without a doubt the highlights of the show, and the story, animation and sound are overall good, with a very good voice-acting. However, is this show for everyone? No, it isn't. If you are new to anime, you should NOT watch this, otherwise you may be turned away from anime due to Oreimo. If you are an elitist who can't take Slice of Life shows, or if you have strong self-righteous morals and can't take insestuous themes in anime, don't watch it and you can also go fuck yourself :) . Oreimo is for people who have a good experience in watching anime, are open to what they watch and know anime can become weird while still remaining good and entertaining. In that case, I suggest you giving Oreimo a shot, since you will probably somehow like it in one way or another. If you decide to watch it, before episode 13 of the 2nd season, just make sure you take away all fragile items around you, tie yourself to your chair and prepare to rage, especially if you are a Kuroneko or Ayase fan.
Because: Fuck the ending, Fuck the ending and Fuck that ending.

This ends my 11th anime review. I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to like if you enjoyed it and to comment in the comment section below, if you want to express your opinions on this anime. Thank you for reading.

Youtube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/scorpy163
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