Thursday, November 3, 2011

First Impressions: Ben-To

Hoo, now that Early Action deadlines are past for me, I'm rushing to do all of these First Impression posts. Here's another one - one that I think you should definitely watch this season. Welcome to the world of Ben-To.

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This is what happens when you steal sandwiches from Safeway

Ben-To's production studio, David Production, has co-worked with other studios on many solid series such as Code Geass, Soul Eater, and others. Their experience with these shows are clearly demonstrated in Ben-To. For a series about boxed lunches, this series seems to have all that a regular season-watcher might want in 20 minutes - a harem, action scenes, a good protagonist, and a hella silly premise on which to base everything upon.

Let's get into the technicalities. The OP and ED aren't bad, but they're not very noticeable either. They both seem to be watered-down versions of stereotypical openings with the husky female voice and the synth. The BGM is the standard action-scene drumbeats and so on and so forth, so nothing really special there. Not exactly Clannad, but it's not too bad nevertheless.

As for the graphics, they shine quite decently and manage to put Ben-To relatively ahead of the pack. Obviously working with the creators of Code Geass has helped this studio create well-made tablet sketches, and the action scenes are surprisingly tense and fluid for a brawl in the middle of an Asian Wal-Mart. There's nothing quite like seeing a chopsticks duel in the middle of the air Matrix-style between two hot girls...except maybe if it was between three hot girls.

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That wasn't the threesome I was thinking about, but that's fine too

As for the plot and characters, I'm not sure how to phrase it in a coherent manner. The studio essentially pulled a Yuruyuri and jumbled together a whole bunch of characters that act high at the most inappropriate moments. Couple that with a random we're fighting to the death for lunch, add in a couple of Fight Club-style rules, add in random vocabulary that actually doesn't make any goddamn sense, and you probably have most of Ben-To. It's hard to describe, but as with the OP/ED.

Ben-To's production values (there, I said the nasty thing) seem to turn this sterotypically absurd premise + normal characters into something decent for this season, but we'll have to see how it develops. Definitely in the Top 5 for this season though in my opinion.

2 comments:

  1. I prefer Toriko over Ben-To in terms of action animes that involve fighting. TORIKO ALL THE WAY!

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  2. Toriko probably does have better action, but it's much more focused on shounen themes than Ben-To is. As if the last picture didn't tell you that by itself >_____<

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