[Anime] Baka and Test

[Todd]

Type: TV Series - 13 episodes

Genres: Comedy, Romance, School, Super Power

Plot Synopsis
The story of Baka and Test is centered around Akihisa Yoshii and his fellow classmates. The academy he attends splits up the student body in classes A to F based on their test scores. The smartest students go to class A with air conditioning, a nice classroom, and top quality equipment. While Akihisa and the least smartest students or "baka's" are in Class F, with old, worn-out, tea tables for desks(which eventually turn into cardboard boxes), a dusty, broken down classroom, and old-straw mats for sitting on. A girl in Akihisa's class named Mizuki Himeji, is one of the smartest students in the sophomore class. But she had a fever during testing and wasn't able to take the test, resulting in a zero and being placed in Akihisa's class. Besides Mizuki, all of Akihisa's friends are in his class as well like Yuuji Sakamoto, the class president and Akihisa's closet friend, Akihisa's childhood friend Minami Shimada, and many more.

The school has developed experiments of summoning digital creatures called Avatars, the students use the avatars to go to war with one another(each students avatar looks like them, but chibi). Your avatar's strength is based on your test scores for each subject e.g math, english, history. So, A having the strongest avatars, while F the lowest. Akihisa and Yuuji, decide to rally their band of baka's to take on the higher classes to claim their perks such as equipment like chairs, desks, etc. Class F aims for beating Class A in a war for ruling the school.

Story (9/10)
The story of Baka and Test is very creative and humorous. It has comedy, action, and even a bit romance. The idea of having Avatars fight, and their strength based on student's test scores is a really cool concept, as well as splitting up the students based on test scores. And the war to be the best in school was exciting to watch, being the underdogs, rising from below to take on the smarter students. But I think the quality of the story does not come from the plot development, but from the hilarious story line that keeps you in tears. The jokes in this show ranged from the boys' nosebleeds, to Akihisa's getting the crap beat out of him(usually by Minami) for saying the wrong thing or for having 2 of the cutest girls in the school like him(by the other Class F boys).

Characters (10/10)
The characters in Baka and Test we have an idiot or "baka" protagonist, moe, tsundere, yandere, lolicon, both yuri and yaoi situations, a pervert with a LOT of nose-bleeds, overly sized breast and also the flat chest, a lily trap and even the incest sister. They have all kinds in this series. The characters is the thing that really makes this series unique. It has some of funniest and most memorable characters I've ever seen. All the characters have development one way or another, and you don't see that often. Each character has their own attributes that give them more of a personality as well.

Art/Animation (8/10)
This anime is very interesting to look at and the backgrounds are great. The character designs are nice and the animation is very fluid. The colors have a large variety, and are great to look at. It always keeps an upbeat, bright colored feel to it. Never sad/depressing or any of that. The battles between the avatars are fun to watch, but not amazing. Almost every episode Akihisa and Yuuji, have these little, short one-on-one talks when Yuuji says something deep or explains something important to Akihisa. They turn into drawings, with no color. It's pretty funny.

Voice Acting/Music (10/10)
The best part about Baka and Test is the voice acting. It was great. The english dub was also very well done. It has a good cast of voices that knows how to deliver. The music wasn't bad. The opening was alright, but I for one prefer the ending which was upbeat and is really fun to listen to. The background music really wasn't anything special, but not bad. It always did an alright job setting the mood or going with what was going on.

Overall (10/10)
Baka and Test was one of the funniest school/action anime I have seen. I loved the plot, and the characters that really made the show special. Once I started watching I couldn't stop. I'm glad there's a season 2 I can start watching too. I recommend this to all who love a good a laugh, and not have to worry about sad/tense or dramatic moments. You can just sit down and enjoy. If your looking for something like that, this series does not disappoint.

This series shows that even idiots, given the determination, can do anything they set their minds to.

Reviewer Comment
First of all, I want to thank you for taking the time to read this review. It's my first, so please be gentle. But I hope it has influenced you to check out this awesome series. Thanks again for reading and I hope to do another review soon!