Leaving little to the imagination, Baka to Test to Shokanju features precisely what the title specifies. The first three episodes are a grab bag of different influences that run the gamut from the quick fire rowdiness of Excel Saga to the fantasy-high school blend of Maburaho, successfully mixing them all into a comedy that hits more than it misses. It may have a tendency to grind some of its more lukewarm jokes into the ground, and many elements of the paper-thin plot are obvious to all those paying attention, however it elevates itself above these faults with diversity and a pleasing cheerfulness befitting its presentation.
the titular idiot Akihisa whose propensity for dimwittedness keeps the entire affair tolerable if not predictable
On the day of Fumizuki Academy's placement test, Akihisa isn't doing well; one of the other students, Mizuki, however is struck down with a fever and despite his protestations, she is awarded a zero for the test. Dropped into the worst graded class of the school, she joins Akihisa and fellow underachievers Minami, an aggressive tomboy who recently returned from Germany; Yuuji, one of Akihisa's childhood friends and surprisingly charismatic given his placement in class F; Hideyoshi, an beautiful male student constantly mistaken for a girl; and Kota, a serial pervert who repeatedly tries to photograph under girls' skirts. Together they try to elevate class F using the school's unique system of competition by battling diminuitive avatars whose strength is determined by their summoner's test scores.
Having a character in a series attempt to win an argument using squirrels seems like it would go down well around these parts; thankfully squirrel related tomfoolery is not all Minami-ke has to offer as it manages to break out of its well trodden, all-girl-school-comedy premise and develop into a raucous look at the life of a family of oddities and the selection of characters which get pulled into their orbit.
Characters, situations and comedy are stitched together so deftly that it's hard to think of Minami-ke as a series at all
The first season of Minami-ke seems to constantly better itself by proving time and time again that it will not beat a dead horse, providing capricious situations that seem patently obvious when shown, but on reflection take on Rube Goldberg-esque set up. For instance: Makoto, a typically brash and uninteresting character whose only lot in life seems to be to provide a catalyst for Chiaki's deadpan cynicism, add in the desire to visit the Minami household without incurring special kinds of wrath, mix in some typical gender-bending and atypical cross-dressing, sprinkle in some adoration for Haruka and the result is something that never seems anything less than hilarious. Time and time again the off-the-wall comedy provides sporadic moments of howling laughter buffered by constant amusement with a boy with a propensity for loosening his shirt and sparkling to the trio of straight-faced brothers who also share the name Minami.
That is the smell of familiarity; tried-and-tested, often copied but rarely bettered, it's the smell of all-girl school comedy. Treading in the territory of giants such as Azumanga Daioh and recently Lucky Star, Minami-ke has had the bar set very highly for it. Whether you enjoy the slice-of-life monotony or the genuine, sometimes slapstick humour, the series has a lot going for it. However its real test will certainly be whether it can maintain such a standard throughout its run.
the boisterous and unfortunately less than intelligent Kana whose antics oscillate between charming and tiresome
Attempting to mix-up the formula somewhat, Minami-ke not only introduces a select number of male characters (currently only one) but breaks up the ordinary three sister group dynamic into home and school life, the latter of which is split across three different age ranges and subsequently three different schools. This is a superb move as it highlights one of the primary sources of humour for the series: age difference. In the first three episodes alone there are numerous times when Chiaki, the youngest, innocently asks about a topic ("weird activities" being the most prolific) while Kana, the hyperactive middle child, blithely continues rambling and Haruka, the eldest, is left to blush and to try and change the topic. It's not a great change from the otaku-tinged chattering of Lucky Star or the off-the-wall dialogues in Azumanga but it works by at once being age-specific while highlighting that there isn't any fundamental difference in what the different groups talk about.
