Ben-to is a show about students brawling for discount food. Also there are spoilers in this review.
In Ben-to, the main character Yo finds out about a competition for half priced food. He joins a club that competes for the food and learns the rules of the competition. Along the way his club defeats some tough competition. Towards the end of the show they put more emphasis on twins named Kyo than the original main characters.
Now a guessing game. Pick which of the girls below did the most to ruin the series.
In the beginning I enjoyed the different premise behind this show. Most of the time when characters fight it is to save something, a girl, or over some special prize. Having the coveted item be a convenience store food box was a bit different. Also they were all so serious about it and had special rules so it was pretty amusing.
The fanservice for this show was mostly well done. It wasn’t very over the top at first and they were hitting some different areas even. I thought the masochist guy that liked watching Yo get beat up was a nice touch. Later in the series they had a heavy handed lesbian episode and even that was ok. The twins who seemed to be too into each other was a bit too much though.
One of my biggest problems with the series is the shift away from the main characters. We spend all this time learning about the main characters and watching their triumphs and then out of nowhere the focus shifts to a set of twins. They have several episodes totally dedicated to them and it first it isn’t even very clear why. The girls are downright annoying and it is frustrating when they finally start to fight that no one takes them on together. They are two people, so why is everyone trying to take them on individually? So if you guessed the twins were the worst you are correct.
The ending to the show was a real let down. When I saw the new guy introduced for the final battle of the series I was not impressed with his looks. He looks like Ash from Pokemon, but I expected him to be tough. I was very wrong however, and that cheapened the series for me. They didn’t even show the very last battle to get the final bentos. I guess after the focus shifted to the twins I shouldn’t have expected much, but I was hoping they would turn it around some.
Ash why are you here? Gotta catch all the bento. I totally understand.
Score: 2/5 I don’t like my main character switched out to make more fanservice.
