Director: Shin Itagaki
Screenplay: Kazuyuki Fudeyasu
In line with the Light Novels by Asaura
and Kaito Shibano
Explain Solid: Emiri Katō as Ayame
Shaga; Hiro Shimono as Yō Satō; Mariya Ise as Sen Yarizui; Ai Kayano as Ume
Shiraume; Aoi Yūki as Hana Oshiroi; Ayana Taketatsu as Asebi Inoue; Eriko
Nakamura as Chapatsu; Kazuyuki Okitsu as Ren Nikaidō; Ryoukichi Takahashi as
Bōzu; Tomoyuki Higuchi as Agohige; Yui Horie as Kyō Sawagi; Yūichi Iguchi as
Hiroaki Uchimoto; Yukari Tamura as Kyō Sawagi
Seen in Eastern
with English Subtitles
Proving anime can have the oddest
premises, Ben-To items a
ridiculous yet enticing one which managed to closing for fifteen volumes of a
light original series. The title refers to bento, boxed lunches that are a trope
even in anime and manga of homemade meals in containers, however might possibly well even be bought at
retail outlets, of a increased quality in actual fact then you definately would presume for store made meals
looking on the bento in ask. Not like enlighten a TV dinner or a ready meal as
neatly, bento containers might possibly well well well also additionally be historically traced help to the Kamakura length (1185
to 1333), in screech that they’ve developed a historical and cultural relevance in Japan
which, elegant from what number of anime I grew up with referenced them, makes them
great of even a extraordinarily silly premise about. Right here, this imagines if, when the
unsold increased live ones are labelled half imprint later in a day, a world of high students
and younger adults who’ve space up ritualistic brawls over them. Folks, gender
equality enthusiastic as females war men and each other, defeat the total competitors
who wait wherein store this happens in at evening, identified as “wolves”,
till the winner claims the discontinue prize, which is on the total the finest bento marked
with a laurel leaf sticky label, the runners up salvage the last bento, and
all americans else has to invent with cup ramen.
Enter into this Yō Satō, a new
high college scholar who’s the stereotype of the male anime lead, very horny
valid thru the female populous, who’s a plucky and clumsy figure. Give Ben-To its due, with the principle episode
steered in reverse till the center which him attempting to build in mind what came about, it
opens with him having had his head kicked in at a store and, upon his brief
term reminiscence coming help, realising he had wandered into a tradition of bento
brawlers with out realising it and got decimated. This does alternatively lead him to
the strict female figure of Sen Yarizui, nicknamed the Ice-Cool Witch, who
decides since she is the top person in her dangle Half of-Sign Club, for bento
brawlers where the reduce price stickers she divulge are saved in a book and positioned on
the wall, to welcome him and Hana Oshiroi in, the later a woman who merely
dodges thru the brawls and, in a running gag, is the utilization of Satō and others in
this world as inspiration for her man-on-man fan erotica known as Muscle Cop.
Any premise can work in anime,
in particular as Ben-To has a enormous
advantage in a bigger funds than most reveals. That is seemingly as a end result of, frankly,
of the total true product placement. We are able to salvage into the total fan carrier and
sexual humour, however this again is historical past of the video sport company Sega’s strange marketing choices in
phrases of anime, doing this a decade earlier in Arcade Gamer Kabuki (2002), alongside there being licenses merchandise
from others as neatly, within the retail outlets and a pharmaceutical company a co-producer. Ben-To as a end result is able to indulge
in additional polish and beauty, in a attach to indulge even in three define opening
animations, one elegant feeble as soon as. It also takes advantage in having war scenes
that are define and of a elegant quality, even if they’re pointedly no longer martial
arts fights, however brawls. This in itself is outlandish, with characters in a attach to flip
within the air, mass war fights among a horde of competitors, one enemy early on
nicknamed the Boar, a woman who makes recount of a loaded trolley a battering ram, and the
final opponents having perfected hand baskets as defensive/trap weapons for
limbs.
The arena because it’s promises a
deeply silly however doubtlessly impressed one – where there are fights admire this in
every store in Japan, right here with West and East groups established, and a code of
ethics among the wolves, corresponding to easiest preventing when the person that locations the
half imprint labels on finishes, and that after any individual gets a bento they’ll no longer
be touched or have it stolen off it. Everyone has nicknames and, as I notion
the camouflage might possibly well well well be, the tropes of an anime preventing story of increasingly more
stronger enemies and define scenarios would play out.
Arguably there are too many
characters for easiest twelve episodes, however you are going to have adequate at the same time as clichés for
elegant discipline topic. Satō and Sen are regulars, as is Ayame, Satō’s cousin who’s the
stereotypical gargantuan busted personality who’s also a wolf; inexplicably
half-Italian, which is no longer even feeble for personality element however this being undoubtedly one of
the top anime who wishes to bid a female personality with blonde hair, and is
very intimate with Satō in a borderline methodology. Her friend Asebi, a criminally
underused figure, is a holy fool who’s so cursed with obnoxious ultimate fortune that, for all
the mess ups and chaos she causes herself however especially to the entirety discontinuance to
her, is blissfully chuffed. Fortunately more feeble is Hana, the Muscle Cop creator,
and Ume, the college council president who’s explicitly in other
ladies, and beats up Satō up for presumed mistreatment of Hana, who she is amazingly
more attached to, easiest with the distance that Hana (even if no longer sexual) has a
fascination with muscled men and pleased erotica. Ume has an additional element to
her in that undoubtedly one of their classmates, secretly a masochist, has found since she is going to
no longer beat him up, he will as one more take enjoyment of staring at her beat Satō up
as one more. Then there are other wolves, aspect characters, preliminary rivals, a crew
identified as the “Canines” who gang up to scavenge the bento faraway from
fights, or a persona admire Hair Dye, her most renowned element that she is
one more female fighter, also one more with a gargantuan bust, however you by no methodology take a look at up on the
face of at all below her prolonged brunette hair in undoubtedly one of the funnier jokes.
I will present that twice I have in
one paragraph talked about the figures of one of the female characters. That
sounds crass, however Ben-To is also
explicitly an ecchi fan carrier camouflage too, clearly so that you just might possibly well sell the camouflage
to a bigger viewers of male otaku, which says something that a fun preventing
premise and even Sega merchandise became
no longer adequate already. The space with it right here is more, as we are able to salvage to, a
premise being too distracted by padding than the discipline topic I wished. Sex comedy
and humour is in quite lots of anime, and there might possibly be a aspect of this I mediate would have
worked with out the entirety else. Hana’s pleased erotica jokes are price having, even
the truth Ume is explicitly in her.
Even that closeted masochist who
thinks Satō is into being overwhelmed up, and later tries to bond with him over
discipline topic, admire an “tutorial” self defence video where a busty
lady beats up men, or that Satō is a lewd person, that might possibly well well well also merely be toe curling at
instances however might possibly well well well also additionally be build up with if elegant for the truth, to his awe, americans birth up
calling him “Hentai” (“Pervert”) as his Wolf nickname,
which makes his inherent horniness in actual fact a persona trait he will deserve to
address, especially as with some of it, he is definately a high college
scholar who has no bloody idea what to invent if he in actual fact had a woman point out any
intimate with. Powerful of the series is elegant titillation for the sake of titillation,
with the total female bathing scenes or the pool resort episode, all and not utilizing a
true nudity mind, that sense of no longer in actual fact being erotic and losing time.
All as soon as more, it amazes me Sega notion this
became a gargantuan methodology to sell their historical past, where Satō has a Sonic the Hedgehog wallpaper on his phone and the characters play Virtual Fighter 2 (1994), planting their
flag on something again where the fan carrier dominates.
That a true pharmaceutical
corporations have been involves reveals the blunt truth that anime is also a product, and
that it wishes to promote itself in a technique, even if it methodology cute ladies packed
into bento containers for gaze catches within the center of episodes. Truthfully, the
bigger space is that I had hoped Ben-To
might possibly well well well be the entirety that premise had been, the total preventing story clichés in a world
of retail outlets and supermarkets, however doesn’t notice it and is distracted by the
likes of the fan products and providers. You invent have a boss strive to manipulate the West and
East, angered over a war within the past, and the pool resort episode gets away
with existing as they’ve a bento brawl where the prizes are floated within the
heart of the water, at the side of an completely varied series of physics to deal
with. However you’ve got had secret supermarket war ways, events in
other areas, even have location aspects from other stories admire something attempting
to execute the bento brawling society for them harming them or a loved one in
the past.
No, what we salvage is k, however is
beholden to all that fan carrier, and squandering its funds and time, it feels
dinky. Even the Sega product
placement is unnecessary – the top 2nd of present is when, where Sen decides to
throw his Sega Saturn video games console
out a window as a end result of she saved losing, Satō with regards to loses his existence falling down
with it to guard it, a shaggy dog story which is funnier, at the same time as a non-gamer, as I
in actual fact had a Sega Saturn as a toddler,
a console which failed utterly however secretly loved by americans especially if
they might possibly well well presumably import the Eastern video games. The
sense of the camouflage spinning its wheels, clearly no longer going to take a possibility when it
has been k, is felt when two episodes, eight and nine, are a fracture of time.
One is when Satō went out a window to guard that Saturn, ending up in
neatly being facility very injured and recuperation; it’s intended to introduce the Sawagi sisters,
the final adversaries, however the episode feels padded with them pretending to
be nurses, in cute purple uniforms, to scrutinise him for a punch line that takes
too prolonged. The one after is so oddly paced with nothing in actual fact happening; it
does have more about Ume in her romance with Hana, and that sadly her like
is more attention-grabbing in muscular guys with other guys, however it absolutely feels so non-existent
as an episode.
This camouflage does reinforce a chunk of more
for the final three episodes, however by no methodology became there a camouflage admire Ben-To where it felt disposable admire
this. All as soon as more, this premise, no topic how absurd, will have been unheard of if it
had been far more over-the-high or dramatic. What I salvage with Ben-To is a camouflage which didn’t embody
this truth.
