First Impressions / Series Introduction / Snapshots

OP Sequence

OP: 「Perfect-area complete!」 by 麻生夏子 (Asou Natsuko)
Watch the OP!: Download, Streaming ▼

「バカとクラスと召喚戦争」 (Baka to Kurasu to Shoukan Sensou)
“Idiots, Classes, and the Summoning War”

Now why didn’t my school have a summoning war system? Not that I needed it as motivation, but if it entitled me to a high-tech facility, first-class treatment, and meant I could own everyone with a digital personification of myself, it sure as hell wouldn’t have hurt. If you’re looking for a comedy to watch this season that has everything from a “pervert ninja” to the ultimate trap, look no further than Baka Test!

Before I get into the wacky yet unbelievable awesome premise we have here, let me start off by saying that the production here is amazing. The screencaps speak for themselves, but I have to give credit to SILVER LINK for doing some incredible work here. They’re a relatively new studio that formed in December 2007, and is comprised of ex-employees of FRONTLINE. This is only the second series that they’re heading the production for too, with the first one being the relatively low-profile Tayutama – Kiss on my Deity- last year. As a whole, Tayutama was nothing to write home about, but it was fairly good animation-wise. Baka Test on the other hand? It feels light-years beyond their work there. Let’s just take the animated digital backgrounds for starters, followed by the simple yet unique overhead camera views.

While the stills look pretty good on their own, it’s a totally different story when things are put into motion. What’s even better though is that the comedy is spot on, and had me laughing more than the manga I skimmed through last season at Patrik’s recommendation. (He’s still the resident backseat blogger/on-call translation checker here.) Some of you may remember he wrote a post about the light novel some eons ago (i.e. May 2009) and while I can’t speak for the novel’s content, this first episode does go about things differently than the manga. However, therein lies the beauty of it all, as the screenplay behind the jokes are really well done, plus we get right into the thick of things with a taste of a Shiken Shoukan Sensou, a.k.a. Exam Summoning War.

 

I almost feel like I should direct you to Patrik’s post for a rundown of the premise, but the story here follows one Yoshii Akihisa (Shimono Hiro), whose high school Fumizuki Academy has an experimental summoning war system in place. Students are required to take a placement exam every year to decide which class they end up in, which not only range from A to F in name, but also in the quality of the classroom facility itself. The smartest students get placed into class A, where they have everything from reclining seats, notebook computers, and a free self-service snack bar. At the other end of the spectrum, class F gets rundown tatami mats, shoddy tables, broken windows, and floor cushions that don’t even have enough cotton in them. Naturally, to make things hilariously interesting for our sake, Akihisa is a complete idiot and winds up in class F.

It’s intellectual discrimination at its best, but oh-so-funny when their class representative Sakamoto Yuuji (Suzuki Tatsuhisa, Eishirou from SoraOto) rallies everyone into taking part in a summoning war. In this teacher-supervised event, a class may challenge another and fight using digital personifications of themselves (a.k.a. Shoukanjuu/Summoned Beasts), whose powers are directly proportional to the student’s latest exam score. Evidently, this puts the stupid kids at a huge disadvantage, but the incentive is that they can take over the facility of the better class should they win. All participants risk reducing their beast’s score to zero in the process however, in which case they have to take hellish remedial classes to bring it back up.

In this first episode, the pace picks up quickly when class F challenging class E to a war, which has three of Akihisa’s friends, Kinoshita Hideyoshi (Katou Emiri), Shimada Minami (Mizuhashi Kaori), and Tsuchiya Kouta (Miyata Kouki), holding down the front lines and unknowingly buying time for their pink-haired secret weapon, Himeji Mizuki (Harada Hitomi), to take recovery exams and improve her beast’s powers. As it turns out, Mizuki is actually a genius but got a zero on the placement exam because she came down with a fever and had to leave. She’s able to return just in time with a supercharged beast and annihilate the entire class E single-handedly.

Akihasa on the other hand is so dumb that he’s a Kansatsu Shobunsha 「観察処分者」, i.e. “A Person Under Observational Punishment”, which gives him the “awesome” privilege of experiencing all the pain and hardships that his beast does. It’s basically punishment for being the ultimate dumbass, but comes with the benefit of allowing his beast to handle real-world objects and be stronger than his test scores would indicate. In reality though, the ability to handle objects is just so he can be the teachers’ errand boy.

 

I won’t get into describing each of the jokes and ruining the fun, but some of the screencaps probably speak volumes about what you’re in store for. I will mention that you are staring at some serious “male ass” in this scene however, which already puts Hideyoshi as the number one candidate for Best Trap of 2010. The best part of his trap is that he doesn’t even dress like a girl, yet everyone sees him as one, especially Akihisa who wants him to come out and proclaim that he’s a girl at heart. I actually didn’t pick up that it’s Katou Emiri (Kagami in Lucky Star) playing him, but she also doubles up as Hideyoshi’s hot twin sister from class A, Yuuko. As for the aforementioned “pervert ninja”, that would be the upskirt-peeking, camera-snapping Kouta, whose Miyata Kouki also plays Hanatarou in Bleach.

When I found out that Shimono Hiro was going to be playing Akihisa some time ago, I really couldn’t have imagined anyone else in the role. If you want stupidity and comedy, Hiro’s your man. Sure he played Hirono Hiro in ef – a tale of memories, but this is Ikuto from Nagasarete Airantou and Jin from Kannagi we’re talking about. I got a good chuckle from him buying into Yuuji’s spiel about being special and talking smack when they were cornered, only to end up owning himself with his beast. That was absolute comedic gold, but wouldn’t have had the same effect if he didn’t try to act cool just before. The one voice that I found terribly off though was Himeji’s, but it was bearable given her character’s timid nature.

You know, I was really hoping that no new shows would compel me enough to blog on a regular basis this season (due to lack of time in the upcoming months), but Baka Test is damn hard to ignore. I still can’t say I’ll commit to it, but it’s high on my consideration list. If you haven’t watched it already, do yourself a favor and check it out. It doesn’t have any fan-service like the other new shows I’ve covered thus far and the jokes are clean enough for anyone to enjoy. Don’t let the strange premise dissuade you from doing so, as it’s pretty damn funny and the production is “stupidly” good.

* I’m not going to bother uploading OP/ED videos anymore, since not many people tend to download them. The streams are still available as usual. If you want a copy of the videos, please see the Community section on the sidebar for sites where you can get them.
* Added them this time as requested.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「バカ・ゴー・ホーム」 (Baka Go Home) by milktub
Watch the ED!: Download, Streaming ▼

61 Comments

  1. WOAH! SUPERB! I’m already hooked on this anime because of its originality and creativity, not to mention its laughter, i lol’ed so many times. It has a lot of potential, and I have extremely high hopes for this show. I’ll definitely keep watching this!

    Kevz
    Reply

  5. awesome that you are blogging this. nice first episode, but it seems to be on high speed fast forward through the novel though. almost already to the climax of the first volume.

    xcswmboy
    Reply

  7. I thought this is gonna be a FFFFFFUUUUUU compared to the manga, but it’s already a Winrar from the first episode. Hideyoshi is a tarpp, he’s cuter than any other female in here.

    the ED made me LOL’ed so hard!

    Sunny
    Reply

  8. The sequence of event is a bit different here in the anime than that in the novel. In the novel, the class that they first declared war on is the D-class instead of E-class. And it’s not until later in the series that they “almost” have to face the A-class. Now, I can’t help but wonder how the story is going to proceed with the A-class already declared war on the F-class this early. Other that, I think Silver Link is doing a decent job overall in the first episode, and I will definitely be following the rest of the series.

    お化け屋敷の主人
    Reply

  12. Now this was the show I was waiting for ever since it was announced….ages ago like…2 seasons ago T.T.

    Well seems like pervert ninja (silent pervert in the novels)is STILL win….so is Hideyoshi. AM SO GONNA FOLLOW THIS.

    Synchronicity
    Reply

  20. Well I was feeling down, maybe post holidays depresion… That’s it until I just watched this!!! It was plain fun. The only thing I’m worried now is that the tap got me !!! *shhh
    Common that butt ain’t a man… she is female FEMALE artghhh!!

    Island Esper
    Reply

  23. Oh God… Instant Favourite! Honestly, judging by the screen caps alone, I was quite put off by the whole stupid game simulation thing… But after watching it, I realized how wrong I was!

    SirMuffin
    Reply

  24. yea, came across this and it seemed pretty fun. was hopin’ it would get blogged and bam… yes!
    dammit, those chibis’ are too damn cute.
    double dammit, felt like i just copy-pasted what above repliers already said.

    rum
    Reply

  26. Couldn’t agree more about Shimono Hiro, he plays the role perfectly. And I wasn’t a big fan of Mizuki’s voice either. I just hope she’ll grow into the role a bit more and drop the really high breathy voice.

    Really a super well produced episode, if they keep up this level of animation the whole way through I’d be super shocked, but really pleased. The gags were also really great and timed very well to fit in between everything else that was going on in the episode. Really looking forward to more of this.

    Nazarielle
    Reply

  27. LOL. Damn this is too funny. I had to pause it a few times to finish dying during a many of the scenes. I must be losing my touch or something. I usually hate shitty slapstick, but when its funny my gut will burst like any other. I still hate traps but I can definitely deal with this one (since he acts like a girl & all – not in an annoying way).

    Megas
    Reply

  30. I like how the battle screen not only gives us a mini-map and summoning stats, but also the weather report. 18 C and sunny!

    What’s… what’s up with those hooded creepy guys? Were they in the novels?

    nanon
    Reply

  31. This is the only anime that can surpass or at least on the same level of Sora no Otoshimono from last season, even the novel has me laughing and crying in tears. I am talking about novel here too, just nothing but reading words and not manga with picture but it still has me die laughing.

    Mike
    Reply

  32. This show looks awesome, but am I the only one who thought the ending seemed out of place? I like it and all, but it seemed like they were doing a parody ending or something. Like Yaoi or something. Maybe that’s just me…

    fullmetalQAF
    Reply

  33. @fullmetalQAF

    You should check “ef tales of memories” openings or endings.
    The director of this anime is the same as ef’s one who has been involved in most of SHAFT anime .

    PaniPoniDash! + ef = Baka Test

    NekomimiMode
    Reply

  35. I thought that I was going to be disappointed with this series after just finishing Sora no Otoshimono but this was great. Defiently equal if not very close to Sora no Otoshimono in terms of animation quality and comedy.

    Sadman
    Reply

  39. @nanon

    those hooded guys….I don’t remember em being in the novels….who knows it might be some original stuff? In the novel the ninja pervert(silent pervert in the novels) ain’t supposed to talk….but he is doing just fine here…so yeah some minor differences here and there….oh and class A didn’t declare war on em in the novel

    Synchronicity
    Reply

  41. That voice….that high squeaky voice..AAAHH!

    Joking aside; this series looks like it could have potential, but could also collapse on itself if it relays on slap stick humor to and nothing else.

    Azar
    Reply

  46. * I’m not going to bother uploading OP/ED videos anymore, since not many people tend to download them. The streams are still available as usual. If you want a copy of the videos, please see the Community section on the sidebar for sites where you can get them.
    * Added them this time as requested.

    ->Don’t do that… There still people like me to download it…

    Kiel Hyre
    Reply

  48. After two seasons of nothing to watch except Full Metal Alchemist and giving up watching Kobato, this is a HUGE breath of fresh air.
    The name looked funny, the screencaps looked beautiful and I downloaded and watched it before reading the review.
    I want next week to come already!

    chingoo
    Reply

  49. @Kiel Hyre: I concur. I also enjoy having a convenient link ><
    @Lancelot: Doesn’t Divine usually link it off to another hosting site anyways? I could swear that it is not hosted on site? (?)

    chingoo
    Reply

  57. Hey, does anyone know what the students who had a KKK looking blue hat with an F on it was supposed to represent? It’s the part when he called the people in the class retarded in the beginning. I have a feeling it’s some Japan symbol for a organization or something. Thanks.

    TheUnknown
    Reply

  58. Um just to say the OP dwnld isnt working…. Best series ever in my opinion me and my friends are having bets on which episode they have the “I’ts Over 9000!” joke…. I put my money on last….

    DeadRobots
    Reply

  60. I had a friend say I should be under punishment probation…. I know now what he means…. I think….. still not sure D: What DOES IT MEAN! all I know is it’s linked to this show… this epic amazing hour stealing soul eating show….. And ehem Island Esper to your that butt ain’t man…. no it isn’t he got it from his twin sister…. that or he really is a girl <..> you never know….

    DeadRobots
    Reply

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