“This wasn’t what I was expecting when I thought I’d sneak a peek!”, he thought as he looked up the unaware girl’s skirt.

Serves him right, I guess.

Anyway…here’s my second review: Baka To Test To Shoukanjuu

The episode starts with a short introduction of the school where the series will be set: Fumizuki Academy. It’s new and revolutionary system has changed the way tests are to be taken throughout the school.

The first way is through a series of Exam Summoning Battles (or ESB’s for short). These battles allow classes to battle each other for rights over the resources made available to the participants.

The second way is through the Student Placement Exams which happen once a year. The grade you receive on this test determines what class you will be in for that year, with the class groups aptly named after the grades.

One student, Akahisa Yoshii, is currently in the middle of this test (well, he actually just started but anyway..) when his classmate, Mizuki Himeji, falls ill. As Akahisa tends to the fallen Mizuki, he argues with the teacher that she is ill and shouldn’t be awarded a zero just because she is forced to leave the room (yes…that’s how harsh this school is..)

Some time later, on exam result pickup day, Akahisa arrives to pick up his results, late, welcomed by Mr. Nishizawa. He opens the envelope and finds that he’s been put in the lowest class group, which is F, which turns out to be a rundown room with stuffing-less cushions for chairs and broken tables. The resources a class has available to them is proportional to how intelligent the class is. So basically crap students get crap resources.

Luckily for Akahisa, there were people he knew that also failed the exams and were joining him in his class. Yuuji Sakamoto, Minami Shimada, Kouta Tsuchiya and Hideyoshi Kinoshita, as well as Mizuki Himeji who arrives late and is still feeling ill.

Unhappy with the conditions of the classroom, Yoshii and Yuuji decide to take part in the ESB’s and challenge the upper levels in order to win their facilities.

After announcing their intentions with the class, Yuuji sends Yoshii as “class ambassador” to go and declare war against Class E. Later in the day, Yoshii returns beaten and bruised as a result; something that Yuuji predicted beforehand.

The next day, Yuuji, Yoshii and the rest of Class E are drawing up their battle plans,  starting with having Mizuki take the supplementary exam in order to improve her score, because she scored a zero in her last test.

As part of the plan, the students of Class F kidnap a teacher and have him supervise the ESB. With everything in place, Class F and Class E get the battle underway.

Class F manage to score an early kill but are eventually pushed back when Class E’s class representative joins the frontline and kills a large portion of Class F’s forces. Minami, who was holding her own until the arrival of Class E’s representative is saved by Kouta and Hideyoshi, and is forced to switch out and replenish her points by taking the supplementary exam.

As Minami is struggling with one of the questions, she notices how Mizuki is breezing through her exam like it was nothing.

Back at Class F’s room, the Class £ forces have managed to break the last defensive line and are standing in front of Yuuji and Yoshii. Yuuji decides to let Yoshii reveal his “special skill” to Class E, which isn’t actually that amazing.

With all of Class F out for the count, Class E close in for the decisive win. Mizuki enters the battle and takes out all of Class E’s forces, revealing her ridiculously high amount of points, as a result of taking multiple tests within the time allotted for the supplementary tests.

Mizuki seals the win for Class F by defeating the Class E representative in one strike. After the battle, Yuuji decides to not take Class E’s facilities and remain with what they have.

Then, Hideyoshi’s sister, Yuuko, from Class A, challenges Class F to a battle.

Well…I have to say that I enjoyed this episode quite a bit.

It had good comedy that actually made me laugh (although to be fair…it’s pretty easy to make me laugh at something…)

And I like the general idea of the series; battling rival classes to win their stuff. It’s simple and easy to understand, which I think is always good for an anime, as it makes the anime more enjoyable for me.

I quite liked the end of the episode where Class A challenged Class F. It should hopefully be good!

And let’s not forget….Magical Girl Transformation Sequences! Gotta love them!

Looking forward to the next episode!

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