04 July 2012

Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou ep. 12 review

At the final episode at last. It is a bit sad to have the series end but there is still the movie to look forward to.

Mixed in the usual recap is a scene we did not get in the past episode, Mana showing up at the assembly.

Back with the boys and their fight the group begins to break off to let the others move on. This starts with Maya and Satoshi staying back to let the rest of the group move on.

The next to leave is Shohei, to the surprise of the rest of the group. But they leave things in his hands and while it looks like he may actually do some fighting his true colors come out and he runs, letting himself be chased by the thug that stopped the group.

Back at the assembly Fumie continues to give her speech, talking about what she hates about the school.

We go back to the fight and of course Tetsuya splits off to leave Tatsuya to fight the main baddie alone.

Miyata-sensei actually does something somewhat useful in the drama and holds Saionji back so he cannot interrupt Fumie's speech. 

Fumie continues her speech and reaches the point where she turns it on its head by saying that even though she hates a lot about the school the boys love the school. And because they love the school she does not want to see it be ruined by someone who has used underhanded tricks to do so.

After Fumie is done Saya runs on stage to tell everyone that she also does not want to leave the school.

Lead by Sayuri the other girls and Miyata-sensei give their support for wanting to stay at the school. This of course ticks Saionji off as things are not going as he wanted at all.

Tetsuya manages to defeat his opponent which begins the series of events for the fight that ends up with the Bakada boys winning.

And the two delinquents that Tatsuya and Tetsuya ran into last episode show up to team up with the Bakada boys. Of course they do this because they do not want to see their rivals defeated by anyone else but them, which is a pretty common trope in shounen series.

Saionji pretty much turns into a defeated cartoon villain that snarls at the girls that the school will be closing and that will be the end of it.

With the fight things are wrapping up. On of the big highlights is Shohei actually landing a hit, though on accident with a headbutt.

The end of the fight with Makoto and Yuuki is a fun watch as they argue with each other only to use that momentum to beat their enemies.

The director of the school shows up at the assembly and ends up siding with Fumie. He claims her words and the support of the girls have changed his mind and he will do everything possible to keep the school going. So with that Saionji has been defeated.

Tatsuya is the last to finish off his battle and does that with the power of love (for his school).

Tatsuya lets out a cry of victory which all the boys hear and they celebrate the victory. Again I feel like Yuuki and Makoto are the highlight of this with their brofist.

Both sides meet after their separate victories. Tatsuya asks Fumie if she likes the school and she tells him that she hates it.

But Fumie gives her biggest smile yet and that seems to get the message across about how she and the other girls feel as everyone then breaks into smiles.

We jump to a month later and see things are more or less the same as they have been, with the boys being their usual selves and the girls being annoyed that they are not more refined. Also at some point Mana returned to the school and is friends with the rest of the girls again. The boys end up inviting the girls to go out and eat with them, showing that they have begun to get along even though they do not agree with everything.

Not everyone is happy that the boys and girls are getting along better. Yuuki and Makoto decide that the other guys are getting soft and decide to challenge them.

The others take up the challenge. And we end as the fight begins, much like how we entered the series in the middle of a fight.


Overall Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou is a good drama series. Sure it is not the most challenging but for it is it is good. It never takes itself too seriously, comes through with action and has a surprising high quality to its cinematography. That said I do not think I would recommend it to anyone who is not a fan of this kind of drama or the actors in it.

I think the series started strong enough but there were issues with actually making all the episodes actually feel connected. Several of them started a story and ended at a place that it felt it should lead on to something else but instead went nowhere. And I do not think they really had a story to fill the last few episodes properly, which lead to home things being dragged out that probably did not need to be or having stories that just did not feel all that inspired.

But despite this I found myself enjoying it. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they do the tropes they used well and the comedy. I think the comedy is one of the stronger parts of the series and without it Bakaleya would probably be hard to have gotten through.

I would say more but some of it will spill over to talk about the movie, which we get to see a preview of at the end of this episode. I will write up another post about that and address everything else then.

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