Ben Tó

I have to say, Ben-To is very strange and wonderfully filmed. To think of such an awesome comedy-battle shounen from such a subject matter is crazy, which only the Japanese could probably have come up with. Anyway, it was great fun! The characters were great, and I would almost say the main male protagonist was the weakest in this regard; otherwise, most of the girls around him were just awesome. My absolute favorite was Asebi; she was incredibly endearing, awkward, adorable, funny, and most of all cute, and sometimes I felt sorry for her because she is cursed with extremely bad luck, which spreads to anybody she touches. I liked Asebi so much that I was sometimes inclined to give it a full rating just because Asebi deserved it. In the second place, of course, was the "Ice Witch", who I found incredibly interesting, occasionally cute, and sometimes sexy. The third one, Ume Shiraume, was probably the scariest character for me as a guy, though something tells me that if I were a straight girl, I would probably be even more scared. If I met someone like that in the real world, I would probably get slapped around badly, for which she would then apologize and eventually kidnap my female escort so she could maybe take a bath with her. However, in this anime series, the character was incredibly funny! Anyway, on to the cons, practically the only thing that annoyed me was the ubiquitous tropes like the classic "swimsuit" part. I was also a bit annoyed by the ecchi at times, especially when, out of nowhere, the camera just wandered onto one of the female protagonist's breasts, which I found rather unnecessary. On the other hand, some of the ecchi elements and some of the "perverted wolf" interactions with the girls were quite funny. Like when he "got a little stiffy" and did not know how to indicate it to the girls tactfully. The overall impression is well above average, and unlike some of my fellow reviewers, I think it deserves strong four stars, 8/10. (2015.07.12)