Baka to Test - Summon the Beasts - (Jan 7, 2010 – Mar 31, 2010),
Director: Shin Onuma
Romance, Comedy, Fantasy, Parody, 
Key Words: School Life, Harem, Summoning, Slapstick, Yaoi, Yuri, 
Studio: Silver Link Licensed American Publisher: Funimation Entertainment

Episodes: 13

My Thoughts: This is a really stupid show, and with that, I freaken love it! It’s pretty much a slapstick comedy with meaning behind it. I consider it like Hetalia, so stupid that it’s funny and with a bit of heart put into it. Some of the jokes seem not to translate well unfortunately but when watching the English dub, they do add different things into it to make it a bit more helpful. As I watched the show, I had prier knowledge from the Five Point Podcast and they had rated it a bit low but I actually think that it’s better then they made it sound. They talked about how the characters were rather stupid and made it sound more like Puni Puni Poemy but the characters actually do sound smart at times; weather they are or not, I will leave that up to you. 

By the second episode, they hooked me and I already have my favorite quote from that episode! It’s the one that Himeji and Yoshii are talking and she says ‘They also are pretty sure that you’re the doughnut to his banana.’ I couldn’t help but start laughing and right then, I figured I would watch the whole thing. There are a lot of sexual tones with this and it dives both into yuri and yaoi as well as a lot of odd ideas. There is a hint of incest but nothing makes this show seem like it should be a Hentai or even creepy. It’s just how characters are shown. All the characters are pretty much the extremes of school stereotypes and yet there are actually only a few that people care for and the rest become no name characters like a tower strategy game. 

Now as we talk about the characters, we should start with the main characters… and who better then the main idiot, Akihisa Yoshii. Yoshii is well, they call him beyond retarted but I actually think he is at least a little smart. He lives alone and would probably die if he didn’t know how to do basics of life. Now some of the time though, I wonder just what goes through his head. For instance, he figured that if he cut a thing of raman in half over and over again, he would be able to feast forever. What he lacks in brains though, he seems to have it in heart. Almost everyone seems to fall in love with him and when I say everyone, I mean men and women alike. I consider him the Italy of the show if we want to compare this to Hetalia. A fun thing about his character is that he is a probationary student but what I would like to know is how the heck they were able to have his avatar pick something up. It just doesn’t seem right. 

Next, I think I should talk about the transgender character character, Hideyoshi. When I call him transgender, it’s not because he is one specifically. It’s more because he is somewhat girly. He has to remind almost everyone time and time again that he is a guy and it doesn’t help that his sister looks exactly like him. He is a actor, and always seems to get dressed up in woman’s clothing all the time leaving a lot of room for fan fiction about him and Yoshii it seems. 

Mizuki is the next character and she is the stereotypical girl next door. Pure, sweet, innocent… and sometimes gets on my nerves because of this. On top of that, she is pretty much a Mary Sue character. She’s good with academics and almost anything she can get her hands on. What she isn’t good at, she is very Moe about. All these thing would make me cringe but somehow, probably because she is surrounded by so many other interesting characters, she isn’t that bad.

Minami is supposed to be from Germany, although she never seems to speak German or have any signs that she is from a different country except for the fact she can’t read kanji. It makes me wonder just how she got into the school in the first place but that is kind of beyond me. She’s pretty much a bitch with a bad temper and almost the opposite of Mizuki. (You can tell that the character descriptions get smaller the less they have an impact on me.) She has a female suitor from another class which brings the yuri thing out that I was talking about.

I think the last one I really should talk about is Yuji although it’s hard to actually talk about him. Little is known about him and he seems to be only a close friend to Yoshii and some think a little two close. He has some sort of intention but it’s not clear at all what it is.

The Avatars are really cute and look a lot like ones from the game Maple Story. They are little chibi versions of the characters themselves and sadly, the only ones you really see are the avatars for the actual main characters and some supporting characters but the others are all generic with letters painted on their faces. I wish they had more designs and I actually want to see a Avatar creator sometime with these characters. Sadly, it seems like you don’t get much of the avatar characters, mostly its gags and strange slapstick. Sometimes they even add a battle sequence that really isn’t even part of the battle. This show is pretty much just random for a lot of it.

The animation is stunning, bright and beautiful. The colors are almost brightened as a pastel most of the time. There is a lot of fan service with hetero, yaoi, and yuri stuff. I noticed that a lot of girl’s breasts bounce a lot. It’s really really annoying. I’m normally fine with fan service but it was all the time and pretty noticeable. Now this goes for the most part at least. There are small parts that change really strangely. The artwork is not fully consistent but it isn’t bad. It just adds to the strangeness of the show.

The opening is really interesting and reminds me of Hetalia’s ending, how crazy it is. It’s bright, colorful, with rainbows and it actually made me feel that it was more about yaoi romance then a hetero romance but it’s pretty cute. 

Surprisingly, I didn’t want to kill any of the characters because of their voices. Most seemed to fit rather well and I can’t believe I’m saying this but only person I didn’t really like was the first teacher who turned into a narrator. His voice just seemed really dull then everyone else’s. I really loved Akihisa’s voice where he did sound stupid but not in a way that was bothersome.

Link to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baka_and_Test 

Rating:   
I say watch it if you love slap stick and Fan service but if you hate yaoi, yuri, and anything crazy, I think this is the time you stay as far away from this as possible.

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May Also Like: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Hetalia: World Series