…Except it’s not really final thoughts now. For all those who haven’t heard already, there’s been a second season of Baka to Test announced already. It was the surprise hit of the season but for a new season to be announced already is a bit sudden. Seriously, did everyone like Hideyoshi that much? Whatever the reason, I’m happy enough a second season’s been decided, though I would be lying if I said there aren’t others I’d prefer, like another DtB or another Mushishi or a sequel to Hikaru no Go and so on and so forth. Second season aside, at least the first season has ended well enough for Baka to Test to leave with fond memories, and no horrible ending backlash.

Summary: Yoshii beats Shouko but nothing much comes out of it.

Overall, this was slightly better than what I had expected, but I still would have preferred some explanations, thank you very much. This may have been Baka to Test to No Plot but they never addressed any of the ‘why’s’ of the show. Why was the ESB system set up in the first place? What are its ulterior motives? What exactly has that principal been planning this whole time anyway, because she is so planning something and it’s not stealing candy from babies.
Baka to Test isn’t a show that set out to examine or undermine the education system. It’s a comedy, plain and simple. The show’s premise is and as far as I know will always be just a backdrop for everyone’s amusing mishaps. What I’m trying to point out is that the ESB system has so much potential for deeper, darker stories and it’s a shame that all we got was comedy and a touch of romance. On the other hand, if Baka to Test was a deeper, darker story then maybe I would be complaining here instead that there was so much potential for comedy, so whatever. Situations like this are for the fanfic writers, not me.

So anyway, the episode itself. Basically, it was mildly entertaining, just as the rest of Baka to Test has been. As always, the best part was simply watching the character interactions. Baka to Test has around three characters who have developed personalities. For a 13 episode comedy, that’s pretty decent. Comedies need at least one character who’s not extreme, so the craziness of the character traits around them stand out, the so called ‘sane man’. Baka to Test has no sane man, but it functions fine without one by either passing the role around or by ignoring it completely so everyone is insane. I’ve always preferred the sane man approach myself but Baka to Test does the insane part extremely well in this episode. Now that the characters are established well enough, we don’t need an explanation as to why Shimada’s killing Yoshii, or what the hell is up with Voyeur. It just is, and it works.

Now that talking about this season is done, time to make my predictions for Season Two! OK, it’s a bit early but I’ll have forgotten by the time it ever airs and for all I know I might not blog it then, so I’m taking the chance now to get my two cents in. 
There are a number of possibilities as to what could happen:

• The series could be episodic stories like much of this one was.
• It could give the gang a goal to work for, or an obstacle to surpass, that will be their focus for the second season’s plot.
• It could track Yoshii’s development as he moves up the school, surpassing obstacles and all that jazz (shonen).
• It could focus more on the romantic side-plots and end with a wedding (shoujo).
• It could do a Railgun and tell the story of one of the side characters, or maybe stores about each of the side characters.
• It could chance the ESB system so they summon giant mecha instead and they pilot them in battles against rival schools that were set up by an evil society of some sort set to kickass BGM (I wish…).

My guess is no. 1 with a bit of 2 and 4. I wish I could say 6 but yet again that’s a job for the fanfic writers.

And now everybody who’s actually bothered to read this, that’s the end of Baka to Test. Thanks for reading and for putting up with my ridiculously overdue posts. Blogging is far harder than I ever thought it would be and if I’m still doing this in a years time I bet I’ll look back on these posts and shudder at how bad I was. I’ve enjoyed watching Baka to Test every week and even though writing posts is a challenge I never expected to find outside of an English exam, it’s also been surprisingly heartening to be able to finally contribute my piece to the world of anime after nearly three years since the time I first went onto Youtube to find something decent to watch. I’ll be sticking around for this season too, though I haven’t decided what to blog yet, so watch this space. I’ll be back once I’ve cleared my backlog.

And this may be a bit pointless but don’t put any spoilers for the second season in comments. Just making sure.

I could’ve sworn that episode 12 would be the last of the series. The whole thing seemed to be aiming to end on a big final showdown with Class A vs Class F. Now though it seems like the series will end with some morality lecturing on what’s important in life, a bit of romantic plot tidying up, and some gags. It’s a shame since these last two episodes have been really strong and ending it all on a wishy-washy note will make the whole series fall flat. But these last two episodes were good so I’m happy enough.

Summary 11: Class F beat Classes D and B while skipping C for no adequately explained reason.

Summary 12: A few practice battles later, Class F and Class A battle.

What interested me in both episodes was how the ESB’s went out. The fights themselves don’t seem to really rely on your grades much at all. All they determine is how much physical strength the chibis have. The battle is more determined  by your ability to make effective tactics, exploiting your enemies weak points and making the best uses of your sides strengths, and then there’s the terrain factor and physical condition and I could go on for longer but there is a point I’m making here. The point here is winning an ESB is more reliant on abilities other than intelligence, and the importance of those abilities is what Yuuji has been trying to prove all series if I’ve got my guess right. Of course this leads to the question “Was this system set up with this in mind?” That principal definitely has ulterior motives.

Whatever the reason or power behind the fights I believe they went far better than any of the previous ones. The little diagrams in particular reminded me of Galactic Heroes, if they had been on a smaller scale, and pink, and with little pictures of people beside each ship. (Actually that would have been pretty cool. The pictures, not the pink.) The whole fact that they were using tactics instead of having Himeji own the lot of them helped too. Baka to Test yet again manages to use every character all with their own personal traits, which develop into unique battle abilities on the side. When Yoshii’s Being isn’t used for comedy it’s surprisingly effective, though if they’d sabotaged the other team with Himeji’s cookies it would have been a lot easier for them to win.

I predicted last time that in episode 11 Nemoto would either go on a rampage of revenge or would be completely humiliated. In the end it turned out to be a bit of both. He pulled the whole love letter scheme but still ended up in girls clothes like everyone else in the series (though he’s no Hideyoshi).
My predictions for episode 12 were that class F would narrowly win, would narrowly lose, would get curb stomped at the start and the rest of the episode would be about something else entirely, or that something would happen mid battle and it would end undecided. It ended up being the second one, with a bit of the last one in there too, though I have the feeling that the decision may be debated a bit in the next episode because of all the romantic saving people from falling off buildings and all.

There’s a couple of other points I’d like to mention on top of this.
First off in episode 11, it was really odd to hear Himeji call Yoshii “Akihisa”. And why Yoshii didn’t get the hint from that I don’t know.
Secondly, wow that Ironman guy is strong! He’s carrying a whole pile of unconscious guys in episode 11 and in episode 12 he basically throws 4 people over his shoulder! And beyond! He hasn’t done all that much so far but now I definitely like him.
Thirdly, Voyeur and that green haired girl should so get together. They’re a perfect match, and Voyeur probably couldn’t do better.
Lastly, Yoshii actually got smarter? I suppose that he has been studying, what with all the detentions and all, but we haven’t had any concrete evidence of a rise in his grades. The “Alexander the Great” incident back in episode 9 prevented us from seeing if he’d gotten better test wise and I have no idea what system the chibi power meter is recorded in. It seems different every time. I guess I never expected Yoshii to get smarter, since being an idiot was such a fundamental part of his character. How would they continue the story with a protagonist of average intelligence? Is he going to gradually get smarter or do the novels end here?  Or does he go back to being an idiot again? I hope not. Character development exists for a reason.

The final  episode I’ll guess will be either clearing up loose romantic plot threads, explaining the ‘true’ purpose of the ESB system, an unrelated stand alone story like the rest of the series, or a mixture of all or some. I hope it’s the second one but I kinda doubt if there’s any real meaning here. This is a show with no plot after all.

I did predict this. I did say in an earlier post that they would end the series on a mini plot arc. And I for one think it’s a good thing. They need to end the series with some sort of achievement, or else the whole thing will just sort of peter out at the end. Unfortunately this also reduces the chance that there will be any romantic resolutions now, since the final conclusion will now be the conclusion of the mini plot.

Summary: The Baka gang lose some stuff, then find it again.

So as far as I can make out, the plot for the next few episodes is going to be about the F class challenging someone, most likely the A class but possibly the B class. I’d also guess that our newly introduced antagonist Nemoto will be attempting to interfere. He seemed like the type who’d go for that revenge stuff. The F class may choose to challenge the B class because he’s in it as well, so that could be our plot. Of course that is if they decide to play him seriously. Since Baka to Test is broadly a comedy they might just take the mickey out of him constantly trying to cheat but keeps being stopped by coincidental coincidences.

The important thing to note here was that the addition of plot didn’t affect the comedy. The plot didn’t really make much change to the episode at all, though there was admittedly not much plot added anyway. The best part of this episode was the random comedy as it always is. Baka to Test has finally succeeded in making a cast of characters where it’s fun just to watch them doing anything and nothing needs an explanation. Himeji’s cookies need no description of demonstration, why exactly Voyeur is collecting bust sizes doesn’t need to be addressed. The only thing that was missing was there wasn’t any Glasses Guy! He never turns up! Why? I was starting to like him!

A series’ ending is crucial in how it’s judged. A show that ends on a low note or simply ends horribly, despite what happened in the middle, always ends up badly rated on my list. For example, the last 2-3 episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion. To put it plainly, they make no sense and that’s only my first complaint.The ending skewed my whole view of the show and it took watching the two Evangelion movies in the cinema in high def. with surround sound for me to admit that Evangelion is actually pretty awesome. On the other hand there’s Code Geass. I actually stalled the series in the middle of R2 but thanks to its kickass ending it’s in my top 10. My point here is that Baka to Test needs to pull off this plot-driven ending well or else I’m going to hate it and the whole series will just seem like a waste of time.

Most of you have probably seen the next episode but I’m still downloading the stupid thing so please no spoilers.

Trying to find evidence of a concrete plot in Baka to Test is proving to be like trying to find political satire in a Mr. Men book. In short, there isn’t any.  So the big question is, if Baka to Test had a continuous plot, would it be any better? Say if the plot wasn’t focused on Yoshii’s hilarious hijinks in his multisexual love life and instead was about Class F’s struggle in rising the ranks of the school, amidst hardship and turmoil and stuff like that. It would be a different show, that’s for certain.

Summary: Yoshii’s sister visits and embarrasses the hell out of him.

Despite the whole no-plot thing, this was one decent episode, first real laugh out loud one in a while. It really just was everyone making fun of Yoshii for most of the time, in a way I guess you could call this episode a Yoshii character development episode.  Most the other episodes have the focus on Yoshii as one character of many so his main feature, being stupid, is the one we usually see. This episode had the best part of the focus on Yoshii so he actually gets depth. Now he can cook, and has a sister, and only has six porno mags, and likes paella!

The funny thing here is that all of Yoshii’s friends think he’s some kind of perverted idiot, so obviously they come to all the inevitable conclusions when he starts studying and bringing in fancy lunches and the like. Seriously, what kind of friends are these guys? You’d think that if you knew a guy for a certain length of time that always jumping to the wrong conclusions wouldn’t happen, though Yoshii’s no different with his “Hideyoshi is a girl” line. Maybe the F class really is that stupid. From the way the lot of them are portrayed I’d call them “limited” rather than stupid but not knowing your own friends gender is too much.

I’m now going to spare a paragraph to talk about the animation because I never usually have the room. 

The switch between animation styles when the characters get all serious is a pretty cool technique. Baka to Test is a show with no bishies or real manly men so throwing in these tough pics every now and then is a great way to make the male characters stand out visually, though when they did it to the girls back in episode six, that was a bit weird. It’s also the only time that Yoshii, who I can only describe as cute, gets to be all manly and buff. Unfortunately for him, the ‘serious face’ is usually played for laughs, as in when exactly they choose to use it (i.e. the silly parts).

So now that the end is coming soon, how will it end? Will Yoshii actually get together with someone or will this show end on an open note to encourage sequels or because the novels haven’t decided yet either? I say the latter.

As before, no spoilers in comments.

It seems that Funimation have decided to license Baka to Test already. A bit of a hasty decision if you ask me since only about half the episodes had aired when they decided and 6 episodes isn’t enough to decide on the next best thing. Also for some strange and unknown reason they’ve only translated some of the title. Shokanjuu is now Summon the Beasts but they leave Baka as it is. Maybe they’re trying to market this to the hardcore otaku core who know what baka means but I think it’s a stupid decision.

Summary: The school system gets seriously messed up and Yoshii fixes it with some effort.

First off, this thing wash seriously awash with parodies, both ones that I recognized, ones that I didn’t know but looked like a parody, and even ones that probably weren’t parodies but looked right well familiar. To illustrate, here’s my Parody Corner:

As for the episode itself, it’s good to finally see Yoshii use that bracelet for something useful but it seems to come across as Yoshii’s chibi being solid as a bad thing since he keeps getting beaten up through it. There seems to be no improvement in his actual intelligence so if he’s going to get any stronger any time soon it’ll be through that bracelet.

As for the plot, that guy at the start of the episode does pose some questions. Who was he? Will he turn up again? Is he actually important or is a mysterious character setting off the plot yet another parody I missed? The interesting question is why was he hacking into the system in the first place. It seems like that was the system for the summoned chibis so was he trying to hack them for some reason? Or maybe he was trying to find information on how they worked. The whole Summoning system is a bit of a mystery really. All they’ve said has been at the start of the series that it was a revolutionary new design or something like that and they never say why it was designed. Baka to Test seems too jokey to have a plot that would delve into this but who knows…

Now the big question here is: what’s up with the principal? She really seems to have some underlying motive here with all her vague references to idiots and with setting up all this in the first place.The plot doesn’t focus on her that much, probably because there’s no quirky character trait or love interest but I wish it would. I want to find out what she’s up to.
Here’s a few of my theories:
1. She set up this program as a way to help idiots because she is/was once an idiot herself and wants them to learn from her mistakes.

2. She’s a multi millionaire/genius with too much time on her hands.

3. She’s Yoshii’s long lost mother/sister/aunt/whatever and is secretly helping him to improve himself out of familial concern.

4. She’s one of Yoshii’s love interest’s (probably Glasses Guy’s) long lost mother/sister/aunt/whatever and is secretly helping him to improve himself so he’ll make a better husband/wife for her beloved child.

5. Yoshii’s actually playing a very realistic video game and she’s the narrator/guild master/helper person who assigns you quests and gives you hints at those bits in the game that make no sense.

6. She’s just the principal and happens to seem all important while actually not being so at all.

7. She’s a Seleção who’s method of saving the country involves either making the idiots smarter or making the idiots powerful so the world will be goverened by idiots in the future (it explains where they’d get the money for the system at least).

I hope some underlying plot point will run through the last few episode. It’ll make things a bit more interesting to watch and I’ll feel more like it was really worth watching this, and it’ll also avoid a crappy harem end. I hope even more that my Bit Torrent will start working so I can watch the last few episodes, stupid thing.

As before, no spoilers. I’m having too much fun guessing.

According to one of the articles I read on TV Tropes (it’s a bad habit of mine), Hideyoshi is considered the dark horse character of Baka to Test, scoring high on light novel popularity polls despite not being the main character or really doing anything despite being a trap. I don’t know how reliable this info is but it’s interesting to see I’m not the only one who likes Hideyoshi.

Summary: Yuuji brings Shouko to the park under duress, and everyone else conspires to get them into romantic situations.

The first remotely serious episode so far, and also the first episode with back story and plot development. Told chiefly from Yuuji’s point of view, it develops his character a bit, but enough that Yuuji is now the most relatable and most complicated character in Baka to Test so far, though that obviously isn’t that hard to achieve. The lack of other characters and their quirky things made this episode worse that episode 5 but at least it was better than fanservice laden episode 6. The nearest this episode had to fanservice was Shouko in a wedding dress, not the type of image that makes you all hot and sweaty.

Shouko and Yuuji started off weak but now they make an interesting couple. Shouko is obviously head over heels in love because of something that happened when they were children and by what he said Yuuji doesn’t think that was worth anything. It didn’t seem like it at first but Yuuji actually does seem to have feelings for Shouko, which does raise the point that if Shouko had been a bit more persuasive and patient she could have got Yuuji as a boyfriend without the ESB in the second episode and the extreme violence and its like. Or maybe she was trying to win him for years and Yuuji’s constant refusals caused her to go to the extreme. Either way, at the rate these two are going, they might end up doing all right if Shouko calms down a bit.

Apart from YuujixShouko, episode 7 wasn’t all that brilliant. There just wasn’t enough comedy. Having the focus on one character helps the plot but it loses the rapid-fire random comedy that episode 5 had. And there was no cross-dressing or Yoshii making girly faces, though I’m sure there are some jokes you can do without these.
Speaking about the new ending, there was something that caught my eye.

It’s either that both endings have Hideyoshi or it’s his twin sister that hardly ever shows up. The expressions s/he pulls in the second ending seem reminiscent of Hideyoshi so I’m really not sure. It is Hideyoshi after all.

When something comes out that combines excessive fanservice with a lack of original jokes it will inevitably make me lose all enthusiasm for the episode. So while Baka to Test episode 6 may have been a thrilling idea for all the guys on the staff of this show I’m pining in my corner wishing for the days when Baka to Test looked like one of the best shows this season.
Oh, those happy days, where did you go!

Summary: Everyone goes to the pool… and that’s about it.

Since there wasn’t any plot or character development or smart jokes or much of anything for me to discuss, I’m going to spend a little time saying what a show should have to make it worth watching.

It should have animation that stands out and makes you want to watch it in high def.

(Note: This is from Haibane Renmei. I haven’t actually watched it yet but I swear I’m gonna someday.)

It should have a plot that makes you go “whoa” when the next twist gets revealed.

(Second note: I’m not a big DN fan but I will admit that the first half’s plot is an example of plot done right.)

A cast of characters that are memorable, engaging, funny and maybe that you would want to know in real life.

(Third note: I have seen and liked Baccano. I’ve mentioned it because it’s a 13 episode series and I know every characters full names.)

And to end on a slightly less professional note, there is something that can increase my enjoyment of a show and that is…

or possibly

I will admit that I often watch anime not because of its plot or the deepness of its characters or the coolness of its fights but instead I will watch it because it has good looking guys. But there is a difference in this and the last episode of Baka to Test, a show has to have good looking guys and something else. The fanservice episode of a series will fall flat because it only has fanservice. Half of the worlds population at least will be bored by this episode because they didn’t want to watch Himeji’s bouncing boobs or Shimada getting her towel pulled off in the baths or any of that stuff. There was only one thing this episode that made me laugh and that was this:

Hideyoshi is now the best thing about Baka to Test. My optimistic expectations have now hit rock bottom.

When I decided to start blogging I had no idea that the hardest part would be coming up with engaging and witty opening paragraphs every week. Nor did I know how fun it is to take screencaps, or that there’s this setting on my player that plays the actual episode on your desktop. Guess I’m still really new to all this. On another unrelated note, Chartfag’s chart is out and man am I looking forward to this season. It all looks good, except maybe that one about the 100 casual sex partners…
OK, now for the post.

Summary: The school goes orienteering and Yoshii and co. win some key rings and bracelets.

Episode 5 is as of now the best episode so far. It’s got a pretty simple concept; come up with a situation of sorts and show all the different character’s reaction to it. What was brilliant about Baka to Test’s episode was that even though we’re only 5 episodes into this show, many of the characters already have defining personality quirks and they will inevitably end up in a situation to showcase these. Voyeur will end up in the girls locker room. Glasses guy will end up somewhere Yoshii related. Hideyoshi will end up unexplainably (even more so than normal) cross-dressing.

Minor characters in comedy shows often are a character with one quirk that is always exploited when they’re onscreen to the extent that you can guess what will eventually happen after a while, like whenever Yutaka Takenouchi appeared in Cromartie High School you knew there would be some travelling going on, or when Ryouga appears around the start of Ranma 1/2 he will get hopelessly lost at some point. I’m not saying I don’t like this or anything. Episodes that have every character coming in and doing their one thing are comedy gold to me, especially if that character hasn’t appeared in a while. Nothing’s more gratifying then seeing your favorite character return with all the things you loved him for, and maybe this will happen in Baka to Test in the future. It seems like the type of show, and it definitely has enough characters.

The above I’d guess was a parody of special weapons in general, though it reminded me of Bleach. Either way, among its tough competition, any scene involving pencils wins as the best scene this episode (though the blink and you’ll miss it Gundam SEED reference comes a close second). It also shows why Yoshii did so badly in his tests but it’s already damn well obvious by now he’s deserving of the title baka.
An interesting thing to note is that Yoshii and Yuuji know that they’re idiots but in the orienteering they work out a plan that actually takes their idiocy into account. None of the characters are through and through idiots; Shimada is good at maths, Voyeur’s got his health, Yuuji’s got a degree of street smarts, and even Yoshii sometimes shows some smarts (not that often). Hideyoshi hasn’t shown his hidden smarts yet but he hasn’t shown any serious stupidity either. To be honest he doesn’t really do much except cross dressing.

Overall, I like where Baka to Test is heading. The bracelets present an opportunity for Yoshii to actually gain a main character power other than chick person magnet attributes and that principal definitely has something up her sleeve.I just hope it can keep up with this level of class.

As always, no spoileriffic comments, and apologies for being late but in my defense it would have been sooner if I hadn’t found Wolf’s Rain DVD’s in the library.

I’m not going to make a habit of having my posts being a week overdue.I’ve been so busy this past week that the only thing I’ve had time for doing in my house is sleeping.
Anyway, enough with the excuses and on with the post.

Summary: Yoshii goes to school on Sunday and after a while eats lunch.

After the first three episodes being a good laugh to watch, this episode was a real disappointment. Maybe because there weren’t any Summon battles, or any scenes of Hideyoshi cross dressing, but this episode fell flat, though maybe it was because I watched it between Durarara and FMA and it suffered in comparison. I was all ready to have a laugh when watching this episode but the jokes in general were either cliche or made no sense at all, and not in the good not making sense at all way.

For example: Himeji being a bad cook. If they wanted to make Himeji bad at something they could at least have picked something original. The horrible beyond compare food thing has been done before many times over. What I don’t get is how the food actually looks good when if you had made it so bad it’s instant death, and by accident, there should be some evidence of mistakes. You know, char marks or mysterious green stuff. Not happy sparkles and pink auras (though maybe that’s shards of metal and radioactive substances…).

And then there’s those guys in black. Their appearance in the Christmas special was what made me interested in Baka to Test in the first place and I was really anticipating their introduction. So when they came in, I wasn’t expecting some strange thing involving crucifying a guy if a girl shows interest in him, or something like that anyway. The whole scene seemed like an inside joke for the original fans and was never really explained. I doubt we’re ever going to get an explanation. A tragic tale on how these upstanding young citizens were betrayed by the women they loved and sank to become the Black Cape Men with Glowy eyes (who look kinda like those things from Ookamikakushi but that’s beside the point) to prevent any guy from going down their path doesn’t seem like Baka to Test’s style.

Now I’m going to try find something good to say about this episode.

.

.

Well the narrator teacher guy is good, though he doesn’t do much. And the glasses guy who has a crush on Yoshii is growing on me in a strange way, though I started liking him when they showed his schedule in episode 3 and it had a slot for daydreaming. And Yuuji’s OK too, I guess.

The next post will be out soon, and there will be less ranting. As always, no spoilers in comments.

When I started to watch weekly shows, there was something I was told to keep in mind; that you watch the first episode to decide if the show’s bad, the second episode to decide if it’s good, and the third to decide if you really want to watch it. After three episodes of Baka to Test I think I’ve caught the gist of where this will go, and I’ve decided to stay for the ride, even if, or more likely because, it will be one weird ride.

Summary: Yoshii worries about love, money and food, then gets chased by a raging lesbian.

This episode seems to have decided what Yoshii’s main character attributes are. They appear to be unexplainably attracting women people, and looking good in a pink frilly dress. Actually I’d say he’s probably a nice guy as well, since he was taking the girls out and paying for their food and all, but obviously the pink dress is far more important. While on the subject of the pink dresses, was there any reason at all for Hideyoshi to be there, and if there was, was there any reason for him to wear the dress? Maybe so Yoshii wouldn’t feel lonely or as a demonstration? He’s got to work out how to tie the ribbons after all.

It’s also obvious that Yoshii is definitely an airhead, though how much of an idiot he is has yet to really be seen. Strangely enough, his theory about splitting the noodles so they last to infinity resembles a belief that the Greek philosophers had that stated that Achilles couldn’t beat a tortoise in a footrace if the tortoise had a 10 metre head start.

So Yoshii is as smart as a Greek philosopher…

Coincidently, he also had a better Japanese score than Shimada in the ESB but they did say that Shimada was living outside Japan before this. On that note, what kind of score system does this show use anyway because it’s not out of 100 like it is here in Ireland. Is it made up or is it the Japanese grading system they’re using? I can’t work it out.

To sum up Baka to Test so far, I would say it’s a wacky, episodic style comedy with a love story on the side. It doesn’t appear so far as if the whole school system thing is going to factor heavily in the story, which will be a good thing until they find a way to make the fights more interesting. The fights themselves have probably been Baka to Test’s low point. I don’t really understand them and the rules seem different in every one. I’d like to see more of them if they improve, but for now the characters themselves are more than enough to keep this show afloat. 

As always, all comments but spoilers welcome.