The worst of the worst square off against the best in one of the most competitive schools out there.
What They Say:
When a fight breaks out at Fumizuki Academy, nobody throws a single punch. Instead, the students utilize the school’s technology to summon Avatars, pint-sized stand-ins with battle powers based on academic ability. That “academic ability” part is bad news for Yoshii – because Yoshii’s an idiot, stuck in lowly Class F with the slackers. If these misfits want to escape their dump of a classroom and earn some respect, they’ll have to fight their way up the ranks and take on Class A, the Academy’s brightest students. It’s going to be tough, that’s for sure. But once the underachievers of Class F get motivated, they don’t give up – and Yoshii can’t even spell surrender!
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release contains two tracks encoded in Dolby TrueHD that lets the show shine pretty well. The original Japanese language is in stereo while the English gets a 5.1 mix to it. The Japanese track is pretty solid as it hands a lot of action and well placed dialogue throughout with good placement and depth where required. I liked this track a lot as it played out as the characters managed the higher pitches well and it jumped from active dialogue to bigger action without missing a bit. The English 5.1 mix takes it up several more notches, especially with the action, as the matches are even more active across all the channels. The series isn’t one that you’d initially think would have a lot of big moments like this, but it works very well across both tracks with an obvious, if louder, winner in the English mix. We didn’t have any problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally airing in 2010, the transfer for this TV series is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in 1080p using the AVC codec. The HD native series is spread across two discs with nine episodes on the first and four episodes on the second with a lot of extras. The series has a very good look to it as it moves between the standard school fare with some really fun designs to the way the lower classes work to the virtual reality scenes that lets a lot of brighter and more vibrant colors. There’s a lot of fast paced action here with very busy scenes and the encoding handles it well without any noticeable breakup and a smooth, clean look to the backgrounds throughout. There’s almost nothing in the way of dark or night time scenes, so it doesn’t have to contend with some of those tougher to encode areas. The transfer for this series lets the vibrant look of it all shine through well and handled the variety of animation styles that showed up without a hitch.
Packaging:
The packaging for this release definitely has a bit of weight to it as it has five discs inside with two Blu-rays, two DVDs of the show and a third DVD with the extra all inside one standard sized DVD case. The release comes with a slipcover that’s replicated with the keepcase artwork as well and it uses the familiar and appealing artwork that has been used a lot in promotions. The front cover features Yoshii in the center as he’s ringed by some of the women in his life and various avatars. It all has a very light, fluffy and fun feeling about it with the use of the colors and the general brightness of it. The back cover is very text heavy as it lays it out as a sheet of paper, graded with an F no less, as it runs down the premise of the series and a good look at the numerous extras. The inclusion of a few shots from the show works well with some active choices and the technical grid covers the specs for both the BD and DVD releases cleanly and accurately. Now show related inserts are included but we do get some artwork on the reverse side. The left panel has a great image of Hideyoshi looking far too good with a breakdown of the episode numbers and titles as well as the extras. The right panel gives us a look at the various characters in multifaceted approach that’s cute and fun.
Menu:
The menu design for this series is of the simple variety where the majority of it is given over the clips from the show that are cute and definitely highlights what kind of series it is with its comedy and character designs. The navigation part of the menu uses the cute school style to it that’s seen in the logo to some degree and that’s kept along the bottom with the usual standard minimal selections that keeps it clean and easy to access. Submenus load quickly and the navigation menu itself doubles as the pop-up menu. The only frustration continues to be the smaller font and size used in general when it comes to areas like episode selection and the extras. Even on a large screen, it’s small and not exactly the most size-friendly thing to deal with when it comes to reading. The series defaults to English language with sign/song subtitles instead of reading our players’ language presets.
Extras:
Baka and Test has a lot of extras to it that are definitely worth checking out. The standards are here in that we get the clean opening and closing sequences as well as a variety of TV and DVD spots to promote the series release in Japan. Also included is a cute four minute long promo video for the series that almost portrays it as something more serious and epic, which is wholly appropriate. The series has a lot of extras to it beyond that as well, with an an amusing couple like the Mission Impossible: Baka pieces that puts Muttsulini to the test over the space of a couple of minutes. Himeji gets a cute cooking special as well which has its moments as it’s all designed to provide a traumatic experience for the recipient. Add in some Christmas material in a separate piece and the whole King Game segment and there’s a lot of short extras here that have fun with the characters in creative ways.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the light novel series Baka to Test to Shokanju by Kenji Inoue that began in 2007 and has twelve releases to its name and still going, Baka & Test is a thirteen episode series that plays the wacky comedy aspect well with a twist to it that allows it to be an integral part of the series. And without making it too annoying or problematic at that. With the bevy of school based shows out there, coming up with a unique hook is pretty difficult but they came up with one here that works well. Bringing in an augmented reality/virtual reality space for the kids to play in, and in a way that makes sense within the competitive nature of the school, lets it go wacky and silly but generally within a certain framework.
The show revolves around Akihisa Yoshii, a second year student at the Fumizuki Academy. What sets this school apart is the way that everyone is so perfectly placed within their classes that are based on their academic levels and scores. The best of the best are in Class A and the real idiots are all kept in Class F. Each of these classes has a very different setup in the gradient of classes between A and F. While Class A has the best desks, high end computers and equipment, those in Class F are reduced to shoddy wooden tables. And as events progress, they get pushed down to orange crates and even art desks for sketching that hang from their necks. The only hope that those in the lower classes have of improving their standing and education is to declare an ST war against a higher class and if they win, they get the equipment from that class in a swap.
The ST war is the interesting hook to the show as it’s all done as a virtual reality contest of sorts, more of an expanded augmented reality where upon the announcement of a teacher, a contest begins between the classes. They’re all based on the students scores in various subjects and the effects do seem to carry over into the real world as well, even though the majority of it is done by using their avatars. The damage an avatar feels is felt by the person controlling it as well. This makes things pretty hard for Class F since their scores are so low and they’re generally considered idiots, but it’s a matter of being creative and using all sorts of tactics in order to win.
What makes it work is the cast of characters, though they do largely follow the norms. With Yoshii as the lead, he’s your general good guy who suffers for everything he does. The show kicks off with him trying to help Himeji during the placement test to see who goes into what class. When she has a medical issue, he gives in to it and helps her out, but it causes both of them to miss the test and get shuffled off to Class F. Yoshii wants to help her out and get her back to the class she properly belongs in. But at the same time, he’s really interested in her and she’s into him, but there’s the usual kinds of issues that crop up along the way. While these two are the primary couple in development, they’re not overused for the most part as their interactions are kind of distant since Yoshii is fairly oblivious to it.
While there are a lot of characters here, the only other pair that really worked well for me involved the class reps for both Class A and Class F. In Class F, we get Yoshii’s best friend in Yoshii, a pretty good guy who is something of a good strategist as the overriding plan to take down Class A is his here as he seeds ideas throughout it that comes together at the end. In Class A, we get the cold and somewhat scary Shouko who is actually Yuji’s childhood friend who has spent years and years now trying to capture him into marriage. The way he reacts to it on a regular basis is definitely one of the more enjoyable parts of the series, especially the episode that puts the two of them on a mock date of sorts with everyone else manipulating things so that they do all the right things. Shouko in particular is a great foil to the overactive way Yuji is with her since she’s like a murderer with the way she looks in Yuji’s eyes much of the time.
The series works its comedy well both in the dialogue and the animation as studio Silver Link takes some cues from Shaft in some of the gags and styles. From background design to the top down video game feel that they use at times, it works a lot of different things. I particularly liked the instances where it went to pencil roughs for an emotional scene, fake or not, since it added something fun to it. The character designs are solid throughout, though they do follow some fairly standard templates with nothing to really separate it from other shows, either in the overall designs or their uniforms, but they all fit their parts well and hit the right marks. The CG scenes with the augmented reality is done pretty well too, with a creative look to it while still making it cute and fun by the use of pint sized avatars that can’t help but to make you smile at them, especially when they start adding more costumes to their array.
In Summary:
I didn’t exactly go into Baka & Test with high expectations considering some of the reaction, but the show did pretty well in its original run and a second season was produced based off of the first, so it definitely has an audience. The show starts running and essentially keeps going throughout. The characters are fairly standard and there’s really nothing in the way of serious background here overall, and nothing to be said about family outside of Yoshii’s sister that has a thing for him. It’s all about the wacky situations at the school, the avatar fights within the ST war and the way characters are always on the go. The mild romance doesn’t add much depth to the show, but the way in which they interact with each other is fun and provides for plenty of silly and fanservice filled moments. Baka & Test left me smiling overall and looking forward to the next season, though it’s not a show that I expect to ever truly be plot heavy. But that works for what it wants to do, and that’s to have a lot of character based fun.
Features:
Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 Language, English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Language, English Subtitles, Mission Impossible: Baka preview, Mission Impossible: Baka mission 01, Baka-only sross-dressing contest, Mizuki Himeji Girls’ meal, The King Game in Fumizuki Academy, Special Christmas footage, Promo Videos, Original Commercials, Original DVD spots, Textless opening song, Textless closing songs
Content Grade: B-
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: B+
Released By: FUNimation
Release Date: August 2nd, 2011
MSRP: $69.98/$64.98
Running Time: 325 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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