I must say I love the camera work in this show. It doesn’t have the largest budget, but the clever use of camera angles, along with the soundtrack, has actually made up for this lack pretty well. And then there is the introduction of this episode which wonderfully played with that.
In any case, this was the midway climax for this series. The Monarch really looked like he was going to be the end boss… only he already got beaten. Looking back, he fits much more as a mid-boss like this. Have something more creative for the final fight.
Having said that, I’m impressed with how this show handled this climax. After the introduction, the comedy was completely gone, and it went for action and drama. And I have to say that it worked really well. Liking the Monarch together with the pasts of some of the other characters did a great job of putting some drama under the fights, even though it turned the side-characters into the interesting ones, and not Monarch himself.
And beyond that there still is the rock-solid characterization of this show. I especially like the part in each episode in which the characters just sit and eat what they conquered.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Ben-To – 06
Now here’s where the series could go downhill. Looking at this I figure this to be the climax of the first book. The start of a story is easy to make good but keeping it going is the hard part. Usually with light novels the first volume is good but after that things get boring. Case in point, Index. First volume was great but after that…
Dunno, for me Index got mildly interesting just in the Sisters arc. From the first, only the fight with Stiyl left a lasting impression. In fact, the novels only got interesting (for me) around the time Accelerator got his protagonist seat and Shigure was introduced. In other words, I probably found Touma boring…
About Ben-to, Monarch seemed like a typical mid-boss right from his introduction. Also, these two episodes were even more enjoyable due to the complete absence of Shiraume Ume. I can’t wait ’til someone draws a doujin of her being raped by Sato with Oshiroi watching and taking notes.
The storytelling for this episode was really tight, confident and well-paced. Taku Iwasaki’s excellent score really gave it cinematic heft. We like how the comedy and fanservice were all but set aside so that the drama could unfold. Not a moment of runtime was wasted. The great thing about this series so far is that no matter how serious things get, there’s always that overarching absurdity of the existence of a bento fight club to begin with. I was dreading the “big, dark, regimented organization” dominating the rest of the show, but my fears were misplaced. This and Un-Go are our favorite Fall series so far.