Winter 2010 First Impressions – Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

I never would have expected SILVER LINK, whom I remember being responsible for a 10-penny eroge adaptation Tayutama, to pull off something like this. Because the first episode of Baka to Test was pretty damn awesome.

FATALITY.

On paper Baka to Test sounds like a shitty Zero no Tsukaima ripoff. At Fumizuki Academy students are grouped by their academic success and the protagonist, a known dimwit, ends up in the bottom feeder Class F. While students in Class A enjoy luxuries such as comfy arm chairs and a self-service bar in their classroom, Class F gets to put up with sitting on the floor in constant draft, decaying class furniture and old pillows for cushions. Not satisfied with their treatment, the students of Class F decide to challenge their superiors to rise in the ranks and get themselves a better classroom.

I suppose you can tell you’re on the rock bottom when you have KKK attending your class.

Now here’s the thing – at Fumizuki students can summon monsters, or more like chibi-fied personas of themselves, whose power level depends on the latest test results of the summoner. Classes can challenge each other to Exam Summoning Battles waged by these personas and the victorious class gets to take over the loser’s classroom. I know it sounds really stupid, but somehow it just works damn well. The system is better thought out than I expected with such details as recovery exams students can take during the battle to recover their persona’s HP (which is simply the score of their latest exam).

This would all be for nothing if it wasn’t for the great comedic mood Baka to Test manages to build and maintain. The whole setting is of course ridiculous but the fights are very fun to watch and still have a bit of depth to be genuinely intriguing. SILVER LINK does a great job with the visuals, with great animation and nice effects such as RPG-style HUD windows during the battle scenes. Looks like the studio has also decided to emulate SHAFT a bit with often minimalistic, false colored backgrounds.

OVER 9000~

Baka to Test is fun to watch. It successfully pokes fun of the school fighting genre and RPGs, and all in all its jokes are very well executed. It gives me a bit of Mx0-vibes thanks to its intriguing setting but thankfully seems to know not to take itself too seriously. Definitely tuning in on this.