We have a tendency to take mundane things for granted. We all have a lot on our minds and basic things like commuting and preparing meals rarely take up much of our headspace on an average day. Typical families and individuals dont put much effort into choosing what goes on the dinner plate. There are many days where its such an afterthought for us that we dont know what were doing until we get home change into comfortable clothes and check the fridge hoping that theres something we can throw together. Many of us would order some delivery at this point or perhaps get some fast food or heat up some leftovers from yesterday depending on the situation. While grabbing some readymade sandwich or a slice of pizza is always an option for many in the west Japan has raised this quick takeout style food to something of a cultural point with their prepared meals known as Bentou. Bentou are wonderfully convenient and while they are typically made quickly they are of a surprisingly high quality in most cases. Grabbing a bentou before heading off on a train or getting a seasonal or locally made hand crafted or decorated bentou during holiday or special events can be a pretty nice experience. Because of the nature of the food after a few hours these readymade hot meals need to be sold and the stores will generally begin marking them down in order to entice people to buy. Its entirely possible to score a reasonably nutritious and tasty meal for a very decent price this way if you understand the scheduling of these lunches and the best times to show up. For those on a tight budget or those looking to save some cash its a great opportunity. In the anime Bentou its also taken to a rather absurd conclusion of gang style wars for cheap eats. While the premise of this show is taking something seemingly mundane to comical levels it takes the premise so seriously that its actually a compelling show to watch and a bit of a sleeper shounen title. With regards to the basic technical aspects of the show the audio and visuals of the show are good. The themes are pretty catchy and fit the theme of the show well. The fights and animation are of reasonable quality. The music and sound effects work well and add to the generally very serious atmosphere of the supermarkets during the fights and take things into lighter territory when the show takes a break and tries to do something more lighthearted or needs to change the tone. The voice actors are pretty decent and ham up the shounen style of this show when needed and dont detract from the experience in general. In fact they do such as good job with things that they essentially sell us on the premise of brawling for discount lunchboxes. This deserves some praise as it couldnt have been easy to do this given the subject matter. The basic plot synopsis of Bentou is that a high schooler stumbles his way into what is basically a fight club of sorts to grab these marked down meals. These knock down dragged out fights for halfpriced food are ridiculous when viewed objectively but the participants take everything so seriously that we rarely find ourselves questioning why theyre expending so many calories just to win a cheap dinner. Because of the tone and the discount bentou is serious business vibe its incredibly entertaining in spite of the somewhat silly premise. Theres even a lingo and etiquette system that was developed by the participants of these knock down brawls that they treat seriously and as such we do as well. The main characters who are successful even get their own aliases and are treated with a large measure of respect as well. The whole thing reminds me of how seriously children can take a game that theyve made up or how a fandom itself ends up with its own system of customs and rules even if whats ultimately being followed or participated in doesnt really deserve the same level of input. Another thing that ties Bentou together into a coherent system is that it feels like a real neighborhood with recurring people stores staff gods of discount school club activities etc. This is a world we can easily envision being real because of all the attention to detail and recurring characters put into it. While its a bit absurd to take bentous so seriously we can believe that they are serious business in this particular town based on the great city building theyve done. Beyond the basic premise and execution is there any great social commentary or deep message to all this? Any Evangelion tier philosophical wankery to be had? Not particularly Id say. Anything can be serious business if we all believe that its serious business. Ive seen people trample each other for cheap televisions on black Friday before. Is a 100dollar television worth taking that seriously? Well enough people believed it to injure each other. People arent always reasonable in their behavior. There may be some greater point about life at the edge where people struggle to make ends meet but I dont get much of that from this show honestly. The closest we get to any deeper message is a quick conversation about how people should be thankful for the food theyre able to eat. Its a good message Id say but doesnt become any kind of grand focus. The protagonist struggles with his budget and these discount bentous really help him out but not everyone seems to be motivated this way. Some major antagonists and participants are actually quite wealthy and appear to be doing this merely for kicks. Honestly its best to just enjoy the fights and the world here I would say. A bentou is just a bentou here. Any social commentary or deeper meaning is likely incidental or selfinterpreted here and I think we can safely move along. So what about the characters? Well theyre a bit of a mixed bag ranging from generally good to occasionally substandard. The main character goes on a bit of a journey from newbie to contender as the show progresses and we learn through him and his participation in these fights. Theres nothing much to praise or complain about personality wise with him hes the typical young male anime protagonist with dreams of bentou and an adolescent hormonal focus on his female classmates figures. He also likes games. He could be tossed into any suburban high school in Japan or the West and basically blend in. His club members are generally ok. The cool collected senpai leader of the club who happens to be a powerhouse and seems to enjoy these fights purely for the joy and struggle of it. His other club member who is softspoken and has a strategy of avoiding confrontation and an adolescent fascination with boys love stories make up the school club that he belongs to the halfprice bentou club more or less. The other main recurring character would be the protags blonde haired blue eyed genki halfItalian cousin who also likes games and playfully teasing the protag with her body to get what she wants. As the protag is an adolescent ball of hormones this generally works for her. While theyre related at least theyre not brother and sister as is par for the course these days. Shes interesting as she represents a different section of the city and technically should be antagonistic to the protags club but works as a go between of sorts. There is a little missed opportunity in the writing here with their relationship and different turfs but it still ends up working out decently with how they took the story. These characters I would say are pretty good if cliched. The timid bentou club girls childhood friend who is on the school council is not a great character as she is violent towards people for silly reasons and has a habit of uncomfortably sexually harassing other females in ways that are frankly a bit difficult to watch in their overzealousness. She also does not participate in the bentou fighting in the anime which makes her character rather superfluous. Id rather not spoiler tag much of this so its up to the viewer to decide how comfortable they are with all that. Because of the 12episode nature of the show there also isnt much time to flesh out a lot of the minor characters and antagonists so some of them arent as strong as they could be. This is especially noticeable as one set of antagonists takes up almost 4 episodes to the detriment of other potentially interesting storylines. These characters could be done better and are written a bit better in the light novel. This is a show that doesnt shy away from the fan service either. As it is apparently from the protags viewpoint a majority of the time we see closeup shots of legs bouncing bosoms and such during fights. One recurring female side character becomes somewhat of a running joke as we hardly ever see her face until a meaningful scene later on where the protagonist levels himself up so to speak we find out shes cute but we do see her assets bouncing around during the fights as she acrobatically kicks and punches everyone in her way. Theres the obligatory beach episode and onsen scene too which has all the fan service cliches as well. Although even though the beach episode follows the fan service formula theres still a rather interesting and comical fight for bentous as well which adds a bit of balance to it so its not just eye candy. One episode where the show takes itself a bit more lightheartedly makes sense and high schoolers in clubs are going to do something fun on occasion like that anyhow. However the fan service with the creepy student council member is generally unnecessary and uncomfortable as its hard to justify her acting the way that she does. As mentioned she a pretty terrible character in the animated version. Sensitive types may take issue with some of the service here but its not the point of the show and all the characters male and female have their service moments and are shown to kick ass command proper respect as fighters and not just be around for decoration so there are worse offenders of modern western sensibilities out there. Beyond those basics my feeling is that the show is an entertaining romp through surburban Japanese discount bentou shopping done in a shounen style. That feels weird to type and even stranger to say that I found it enjoyable. However while watching I always felt compelled to see what was going on in the next episode and found myself genuinely having a lot of fun with this. Not many shows do this for me even some of the major shounen that I also like so the formula struck the right chords here. I think that those who enjoy shounen style battle royale shows will find entertainment here. Its also a novel enough spin on the genre to stand out a bit. If it was done a bit better at the time and had a bit more fleshing out it would have made for a decent recurring show in my opinion but while it was fun it didnt strike lightening like Food Wars did and we have to enjoy what we got. I think there could have been an interesting subtext done where life at the edge of poverty could have made for some interesting story telling here but that likely is too great a reach in the modern industry and things were kept much simpler to sell books. Thats understandable if a bit of a missed world building opportunity. I hope that studios and writers continue to do interesting takes on wellrun genres like this and maybe we can get something great. Making the same cookie cutter romcom or isekai may be safer for studios but it is tiresome even if you enjoy the genres. Getting out of the comfort zone once in a while is a good thing in my opinion. Still I recommend this one for most fans of the shounen genre looking for a different spin on things as its a great way to fill an afternoon or evening. I also recommend the light novel if the premise of the show leaves you interested and you can read Japanese. Have fun and be sure to watch your back if youre out there bentou shopping.