Ben-to

[Ryllharu]

Description: The story revolves around a poor high school student named Satou You. Satou wakes up in the supermarket after clearly being severely beat up, with no memory of what happened that entire day. He leaves the store hungry, collapses, and is taken to the hospital. The following day, he again goes to the supermarket and discovers a bento (boxed meal) on sale at half price. Just as he reaches to grab it, he ends up on the floor unconscious once more. Satou just entered the no-holds-barred supermarket survival battle for half-price bento.

Genres: Comedy, Combat, Nonsensical Premise, Mild Ecchi

Links: AniDB, ANN, Official Page

gg: 720p
EveTaku: 720p
Shikkaku: 720p (10bit), 480p (8bit)

I went with gg, but EveTaku is probably good as well.

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Calling it now, funniest show this season. Primary reason? The cast.

Shimono Hiro is the man. He alone sells this first episode. He's funny as Katsuragi Keima in TWGOK, but the mocking impressions of others that he uses as Satou are gold. This kind of badass-yet-ridiculous series really play to his strengths as a VA. Better yet, he's not alone. The Ice Witch, played by Ise Mariya, also emphasizes her talents. She gets to be both cold and calm, as well as yelling some good battle cries. With her higher pitched voice, it's hard to take her character seriously despite her character's incredibly serious demeanor, and that plays well to the tone of the series. Then we have Yuuki Aoi playing another maniac character. Oshiroi Hana is half exceptionally perky fangirl, half masochist, and half delusional stalker. I couldn't imagine anyone else playing her, Yuuki Aoi is the only person who could pull all those things off at the same time. Rounding out this episode, we have the honeyed voice of Kayano Ai, who plays the class president Shiraume Ume, the apparent stalker/protector of Oshiroi Hana. She plays her serious and cold, but she was only a small part of this episode.

The overall plot makes sense, kind of, but only from an extremely exaggerated viewpoint. You've got poor high school students trying to eat good food for super cheap. But instead of shoving and grabbing, they legitimately brawl over them. The full-on combat sequences are fun to watch. They really got a good feeling of impact in each punch and kick thrown.

Then there is the next-episode preview format. I'm not even going to spoil it. It's also hilarious.

[David75]

Well, couldn't get into it. Will try next ep.

[NeoCybercoin]

What did I just watch?!

[Penner]

"no-holds-barred supermarket survival battle for half-price bento"

....waat?

[animus]

584-jackie-chan---head-full-of-fuck.jpg

Me when watching this episode.

[Buffalobiian]

Stockings = win.

That is all.

[Xelbair]

This is probably one of most awesome shows of this season.

[Sapphire]

One of the best anime ever.

JdwiR.jpg

[Ryllharu]

Rules of the game, pride of the wolves.

[gg] Ben-to - 02
[EveTaku] Ben-to - 02


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So it isn't quite an all-out brawl. The wolves have very clearly defined rules that keep the staff from being badgered, regular people are still able to buy the full-priced bento, and everyone else gets a fair chance to eat the half-price bento. They despise groups that seek to monopolize, and the behavior of the boar really makes you hate those who don't play by the rules. It's hard not to respect the wolves when they operate by these methods. I'm even starting to like the three generic fighters (Monk, Brunette, and Beardy).

Shiraume's monopolistic, militant lesbianism is pretty funny. Satou's got balls to call her "Bye Bye" even after she already beat him. All these fights must be toughening him up. She even dares to threaten the Ice Witch, who has her own methods of boosting her club's numbers. I wonder if we will see a showdown between the two.

(If I called Shiraume a yandere, I wouldn't get to call her a militant lesbian.)

[Buffalobiian]

Very much a street-fighting thing with a twist. It makes it feel both familiar and fresh, so I really can't complain that. What's also different from your conventional fighter is that Satou didn't go through a technique/martial arts development phase to keep the focus on food and pride. As much as I like that move, I have to wonder at how Satou is going to "improve" as a wolf. Unless they shift over to covering tactics and turf, not improving or climbing the system somehow would just turn this show into a harem/highschool anime with an extra idea.

Shiraume's monopolistic, militant lesbianism is pretty funny. Satou's got balls to call her "Bye Bye" even after she already beat him. All these fights must be toughening him up. She even dares to threaten the Ice Witch, who has her own methods of boosting her club's numbers. I wonder if we will see a showdown between the two.

What I liked about her was that she still bashes the glasses-girl even though she loves owns her. She can act nice(yet scary) without being way too two-faced about it.

It seems Boar was the only chick Satou didnt' check out this time round xD

[Kraco]

This show has pretty nice characters even though I still can't fully accept the silly fight over discount food idea. Especially when in this ep Satou was already standing right next to the meals but instead of grabbing one and hitting the road he actually turned around to defend them. What's the point in that? It goes against the basic goal of fighting your way to them to grab one. I'm not even talking about beating the storm or boar either just because they were annoying, but also the other wolves (or are they dogs? Wolf pups?).

So, it's mainly the characters that keep me watching this show. I like the Ice Witch, who is a nice combination of loneliness and friendship. Not to mention she's cute. Can't say Shiraume wouldn't be very funny. She's so straight-forward and violent - even towards the person she loves, which is a nice twist, just like Bill said.

[Buffalobiian]

I like the Ice Witch, who is a nice combination of loneliness and friendship.

Judging from the OP and the club book, I would put my money on the idea that this show will predominantly be about rebuilding Ice Witch's club.

[Ryllharu]

"Those guys are dogs, but we're GUNdogs! No wait, MISSILEdogs!"
"Yeah..well we're LASERdogs!"

Ben-to - 03 [gg] [EveTaku]

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So, Satou is the fscking man. Despite the indignities he suffered from Shiraume's lesbian wrath, he still dove into an incinerator. He also decided to dive into the fires of battle. He is not a dog, who must group together to succeed, he is a wolf that fights for his taste of victory!

Over the top dramatics aside, I rather liked the message this episode conveyed. Winning is not nearly so sweet if you didn't put your all into achieving it.

Oshiroi seemed to understand that even earlier than Satou did. She's like a little ninja wolf though. She sneaks in. I wonder what will happen when she actually has to fight. Not all the other wolves and dogs will be so distracted by Satou's generalized badassery. I could see Shiraume defending her, but then Oshiroi wouldn't be much of a wolf if she had a guardian.

We also finally saw the big-tittied blond. She's a childhood friend of Satou's I suppose, and a highly competitive one. It not clear whether she is going to chase after Satou and enter the half-priced bento battles due to her need to compete with him, or if she already has a reputation of her own. How did she sneak into his dorm room?

[Kraco]

Over the top dramatics aside, I rather liked the message this episode conveyed. Winning is not nearly so sweet if you didn't put your all into achieving it.

Oshiroi seemed to understand that even earlier than Satou did.

I feel like that's a misinterpration. Especially since I thought exactly like that until near the end of the episode and was ready to judge this ep bullshit. What really happened, in my opinion, is that Satou realised right away the truth about food tasting better if he worked for it. However, what he actually was judging for days (since I think we saw him eat with the dog pack multiple times), is that if secure half-price meals are worth swallowing his pride (and switching the company of a hot Ice Witch to that of a sausage fest), given his strict financial situation and everything. In end, fortunately and expectedly, he chose the path of a wolf, despite needing to fight for every fricking meal. Or who knows, judging by how fast he learns, he might actually enjoy the fist fights already.

[Ryllharu]

Given his speech about Virtua Fighter 2 and how the stronger the opponent, the more fun it is, I would say it is the latter. (I'm guessing that is referring to the blond since she appeared to have won handily.) He probably enjoys the fights as much as the food.

[Buffalobiian]

In end, fortunately and expectedly, he chose the path of a wolf, despite needing to fight for every fricking meal. Or who knows, judging by how fast he learns, he might actually enjoy the fist fights already.

Notice that he single-handedly disrupted the monopoly the hounds have enjoyed at the shop in the past few days. He definitely loves the fist-fights.

I'm with Ryll on the interpretation. Satou had a hunch since his food didn't taste as good, but was a bit slow in finding out why. His reaction when talking about Virtua Fighter spelled realisation rather than self persuasion.

edit: ah, missed Ryll's 2nd post.

[Kraco]

Like I somewhat insinuated in my previous post, if I accepted that interpretation, it would require Satou to be a dense and slow idiot. So, I'll rather keep believing in my more friendly one...

[Yukimura]

I'm loving this show, they've distilled out the essence of over the top shounen action and slid it into a slice of life wrapper so that there's no stupid underlying plot to try and push forward while facilitating the action (contrast Maken-ki or Ikkitousen). The slice of life aspect takes care of generating motion outside the basic shounen hero's rise to power device. I'll be interested to see how long the show can continue, and be entertaining, without pulling out some stock evil villain with a nefarious plot to conquer the grocery store circuit. I think they've set up some stuff with delving into the past of The Ice Queen and some of the other famous wolves so we'll see.

[Buffalobiian]

gg - episode 04

[Ryllharu]

Not even Shaga can resist the lustful temptations of Shiraume Ume! I was pretty amused that even after all that, and escaping, she still called her Shiraume-sama. Shiraume was right though, she did look good in that dress.

The Ice Witch is correct, Shaga is too focused on the fighting, not the food. Even as much as she wants to get more friends, she understood that Shaga needed Satou more. Their battle did bring into perspective how good the Ice Witch really is at the fighting. Shaga could easily kick Satou's ass, but she had no chance against Yarizui.