Howdy all, Xort here for the flagship
review on Anime Assessment! Today we're gonna be talking about a
relatively simple, quite absurd, and surprisingly inspiring anime:
Ben-To.
Ben-To is an anime adapted from a
series of light novels written by Asaura, with 10 installments
spanning February 2008 up to December 2011. The anime adaptation was
made by David Production and aired from October to December of 2011.
In addition to the light novels and anime, there are two manga: Ben-To Zero: Road to Witch, which is complete, and Ben-To Another: Ripper's Night, which is ongoing as of
February 2013. We're just gonna be talking about the anime
adaptation, though.
So what is Ben-To? Well on the surface,
Ben-To is easy to enjoy as a mindless action/comedy/fanservice anime,
with lots of fighting, a fair bit of considerably inappropriate humor
including two borderline rape scenes - played for laughs, of course -
and GRATUITOUS amounts of fanservice; one character, "Brunette,"
doesn't even have a face until a small moment in the last episode
shows a glimpse of it. The camera, and everyone else, always just
stares at her ample breasts. And if you want to watch Ben-To and
enjoy it for that, then it does its job fine. The action is great, if
you can stomach the occasional rape joke or other bit of
inappropriate humor then the humor is nice, and between a pool
episode, the aforementioned borderline rape scenes, and watching
schoolgirls kick the crap out of each other, there is fanservice
galore. But what if you want to watch it for the plot? Is that
any good?
In short, yes. I'll explain.
The story follows Yo Satou, a freshman
at high school, as he stumbles his way into one of the most stupidly
awesome situations ever: an ongoing battle royale between anyone,
young or old, male or female, at various supermarkets across the
city. The goal of these fights? To obtain half-priced food.
...
No, really. That's it. Some, like Yo,
get pulled into it because they have meager budgets and are looking
to save money on their food, but the series paints the fights as
something much more than that. The fighters are known as "Wolves,"
follow a set of strict rules regarding conduct during the brawls, and
most tend to view the fights in an almost noble light. In fact, a
recurring line throughout the series is "Have some manners and
wager your pride," showing that despite beating the ever-loving
crap out of each other every single night, the Wolves rarely ever
harbor any sort of ill will towards each other, often being good
friends and engaging in playful banter before a fight begins.
Originally, Yo is seen not as a Wolf,
but as a "Dog"; that is, a fighter who isn't familiar
enough with either the rules or spirit of the brawls to be recognized
as a Wolf. In fact, his first fight happened immediately before the
first episode, which resulted in him getting beaten to an unconscious
pulp and wondering just what the hell happened when he finally woke
up. Over time, thanks in part to his dire budget situation and in
part to the guidance of the mysterious Sen Yarizui - his attractive
upperclassman, an experienced Wolf nicknamed the "Ice Witch",
and president of the school's "Half-Pricers Association" -
Yo and the viewer are introduced to the rules of the fights, and
learn just what it means to be a Wolf.
The rules of the bento brawls, as
explained by Sen and roughly paraphrased by me, are as follows:
- You can't make a move on the bento
until all the half price stickers have been placed and the store's
"Half-Price God" goes back to the break room
- Don't take more than one bento, as a
courtesy to the other Wolves
- Once someone has grabbed a bento,
they can't be attacked anymore
- Sub-rule: If two people grab the
same bento simultaneously, they duke it out to see who lets go first
In addition to Wolves and Dogs, there
are those known as "Boars," people who know and disregard
the rules of the brawls and use underhanded tactics to try and get as
many half-priced bento as they can. Wolves will, invariably, team up
and do their best to take a Boar down before turning back to their
own brawl, once again highlighting the sort of noble sense about the
fights. This isn't a gang war, or a bunch of thugs fighting; it's a
group of people who see the struggle for their food as the greatest
spice. This is even explored in detail in an episode where Yo
temporarily works with a group of people who abuse the rules of the
fights to get easy food; he's able to get a bento every night, but no
matter what he eats it doesn't satisfy him like food he obtained
through a great struggle.
The first half of the series is largely
just an introduction to the world of the Wolves - there is a plot of
ominous doom that our plucky heroes have to beat the crap out of, and
that is when Yo really comes into his own as a prominent Wolf - but
even that is mostly just a setup for the second half of the series.
The setup is good, so what about the payoff?
Three words: Satisfying as hell.
The second half of the series takes an
interesting turn: the first half introduced us to the fights and
stressed that it wasn't just the half-priced food, but the struggle
to obtain it, that made the fights worth fighting. This is put to the
test when Orthrus, a duo of extremely powerful Wolves named after
Cerberus's two-headed brother, begin laying waste to every
supermarket in town. They're so destructively strong that almost
nobody remembers anything about them after getting beaten unconscious
by them, and any supermarket they visit results in all the Wolves
there being laid out and unconscious. Some Wolves apparently even
lose the will to go fight at the supermarkets anymore.
Even the legendary Ice Witch Sen
Yarizui and her protege Yo Satou get utterly wiped by the duo, so
when a plan by the appropriately named Club of Hercules (Hercules
clubbed Orthrus to death in mythology, see) offers a surefire way to
get rid of Orthrus once and for all, it seems like everyone is going
to go along with it. The plan? Let the two get whatever bento they
want, without opposing them, and then proceeding to fight as normal.
Since Orthrus primarily fight for the enjoyment of the brawls, doing
this denies them that pleasure and will force them to stop even
coming to the supermarkets. The argument that the Club of Hercules
makes is that Orthrus are just too dominant, and that nobody
enjoys the brawls when they always end the same way.
It's a compelling argument - I
certainly agreed with it when I first heard it - and despite
Orthrus's assertion that there are people who will fight them,
it looks grim for them when it's revealed that Yo, who was one of the
ones they were counting on, took off running away from the
supermarket, and Sen is at home with a cold. And then, just as it
looks like the plan will go off without a hitch, something glorious
happens. Something glorious, ridiculous, stupid and utterly
inspiring.
I won't go into detail, because I do
want to avoid spoiling how
it happens, but the Club of
Hercules has his plan thwarted, and the Wolves stay true to the code
they lived by in the first half: defeating an enemy with your own
hands, the stronger the better, just makes victory that much sweeter.
The action, humor, fanservice and plot
are all backed by a wonderful soundtrack. It's an eclectic mix of
high-energy music for fight scenes, ear-worm tunes that play over the
supermarket speakers, and the occasional utterly bizarre sounding
piece of music to fit an equally strange scene. The opening theme as
well, "Live for Life ~Ookami-tachi no Yoru~," is just so
energetic and fun that it's almost a shame you only get to hear it 11
times over the course of the show. Not all of the music is good
necessarily; the supermarket songs are definitely not something I'd
listen to on a regular basis. But each tune fits the situation
perfectly, and add much more atmosphere than some of the more generic
soundtracks I've heard in my time.
However, despite all the praise I'd
love to heap on it forever and ever, Ben-To is not without its flaws.
As I mentioned earlier, the humor is quite hit-or-miss. The vast
majority of the jokes involve Hana Oshiroi - also a member of the
Half-Pricers Association and writer of explicit homoerotic fiction -
writing a series of stories called "Muscle Detective,"
wherein a character modeled after Satou gets raped. A lot. A lot.
If not relying on rape humor, a girl named Shiraume Ume
constantly abuses Yo - multiple slaps, stripping him naked in front
of the class, kicking him in the face, etc. - and it's always played
for laughs. This sort of humor particularly grates on me because it's
rarely ever played in reverse, with a male abusing a female, and
doubly so here in this series because Yo is quite a tough guy, and he
could easily avoid taking so much abuse if it wasn't for the sake of
the joke.
Also, as much as I enjoy the idea of
the Wolves and their nightly fights, it's a bit hard on the
suspension of disbelief. The setting is modern-day Japan, and in most
modern-day settings public violence of any sort is frowned upon to
say the least. Add to that the fact that innocent bystanders, like Yo
at the beginning of the series, sometimes get caught up in the
fights, and it seems to me that the police should be at least trying
to stop the fights, but they're never anywhere to be seen.
Overall, though, Ben-To is a
wonderfully bizarre adventure that while unorthodox, teaches a great
message: even if the easy road is open to you, it's always worth it
to fight your way through the hard way. Whether it's beating the crap
out of a schoolgirl for half-priced food, working hard for that
promotion at your job, or trying to muscle your way in as an Internet
reviewer in a saturated environment, just live like a Wolf and even
if you lose, you can at least walk away knowing that you gave it your
all. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who enjoys lots of
action, extremely inappropriate humor, lots of fanservice, and a
satisfying, feel-good conclusion. Avoid it if you have a more...
conventional sense of humor, if you want a deeper and more complex
plot, or if fanservice involving underage high school girls gives you
the willies.
Well folks, that's all for today. If
you disagreed with something I said, feel free to argue with me in
the comments, and I'll try my best to argue back. See you next time,
on Anime Assessment!
-Xortberg
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