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.