Busou Chuugakusei: Basket Army 1

Y’know, the kind of première episodes I hate the most are those that exist only to introduce the characters (see: Horizon). What kind of posts can you make out of those, other than posts that exist only to introduce the characters (see: Horizon)?

I guess my creativity was sucked out of me by octopuses or something, because I can’t think of any creative things to do than to recap a five-minute-long episode in a post that’ll take you more than five minutes to read. Here’s a guy’s eyebrow. I think it’s the most interesting thing that’s happened this episode.

It’s the summer of 2026, when SUDDENLY, middle school kids wearing SKIRTS decide to, uh, die. It’s pretty sad because they’re dead. Are dead people sad? Or do sad people die? The skirts part matters because apparently, they’re third-year junior high school students in a MILITARY EDUCATION PROGRAMME. Why a military education programme? Because Japanese is BAD COUNTRY and LOW BIRTH RATES and GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION and ECONOMIC COLLAPSE and basically they’re in the same universe as Majikoi/Guilty Crown/UN-GO/Lagrange/Symphogear, except they aren’t because they’re in different universes. But they could be in the same universe as Majikoi/Guilty Crown/UN-GO/Lagrange/Symphogear, because now in the summer of 2026 the GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION has decided to create a MILITARY EDUCATION PROGRAMME (similar to Majikoi’s MARTIAL ARTS EDUCATION PROGRAMME) for middle school kids wearing SKIRTS and also middle school kids wearing PANTS. But mainly skirts, because as everybody knows, infantry operate so much more efficiently while wearing skirts.

Anyways, this is sorta what happens this episode. I say ‘sorta’ because while all of the action stays the same, none of the dialogue happened, seeing as they were speaking in Japanese, and not English, French, Spanish, Russian, Greek, nor Chinese.

It is the summer of 2026, when SUDDENLY, the students of the MILITARY EDUCATION PROGRAMME are just doing their thing. The students of the MILITARY EDUCATION PROGRAMME are just doing their thing when SUDDENLY, their instructor says ‘hey guys let’s do go a field trip’

students: ‘yeahahahaha feild trips we neve rgo on field trips’

instructor: ‘k guys ready?? now get your guns on’

students: ‘you dont have to tell us eveyr time, you know we alwasy have our guns on’

instructor: ‘thats because you are MILITARY EDUCATION PROGRAMME. now lets go’

students: ‘yeahahaha’

instructor: ‘ok kids here is a box. it is the future of japan’

students: ‘yeahaha’

instructor: ‘bye’

students: ‘awww where he do go’

French Private Military Contractors: “Bonjour, étudiants. Pourriez-vous nous donner cette boîte?”

students: ‘non il est l’avenir du japon’

French Private Military Contractors: “Fuck you. Maintenant mourir.’

students: ‘le noooooOoOooO0o’

French Private Military Contractors: “That’s cause we’re in a COPSE of trees! Hahahahaha, je suis bon à faire des calembours…”

Thus, the middle school kids wearing SKIRTS decide to, uh, die. BUT SOME MIDDLE SKIRTS uh SCHOOL KIDS ESCAPE ALIVE!!

touko: ‘hey TSURUMI TAROU, fat guy who looks like hirano from hotd, run fatter’

satoshi: ‘uh NATORI TOUKO, school representative and main female protagonist of this amine voiced by the voice actreses of NYANPIRE, i think you ment ‘faster’ not ‘fatter”

tarou: ‘hey YOSHINO SATOSHI who has the presonality of a shu, she was talkng to me’

touko: ‘yes now stop takling like this is lame intorduction to lame anime’

satoshi: ‘uh touko i think you ment ‘talking’ not ‘tackling”

touko: ‘ok guys because u are guys and i am gril, i make the plans and you guys run’

satoshi: ‘i think you ment ‘girl’ not ‘grill”

tarou: ‘i am fat and we dotn actually talk in the aimen’

touko: ‘first we hijack van’

satoshi: ‘ok lets find van’

tarou: ‘i am fat and we dont acutally talk in thea nime’

touko: ‘hands up we krill you’

satoshi: ‘i think you meant ‘kill’ not ‘krill”

Van Driver: “Ahh!”

touko: ‘maintenant conduire’

Van Driver: “¡Yo no hablo francés! ¡No me mates!”

tarou: ‘hola amigo’

touko: ‘por favor, conduzca de manera responsable’

Van Driver: “¡Yo no estoy borracho! умереть, вы придурки!”

touko: ‘Я не говорить Россия, извините’

Van Driver: “Γαμήσου!”

tarou: ‘Είμαι λίπος’

Van Driver: ” :( “

Thus, the middle school kids wearing SKIRTS decide to, uh, hijack a van and drive out. BUT SOME MIDDLE SCHOOL KIDS are carrying the box filled with Japan’s future.

hikari: ‘hey mr. KUROBE KAZUKI why are we runnign away’

kazuki: ‘deal with it SENAMI HIKARI. you know i am voiced by vioce actor of SHOE form GUILTY CORWN’

hikari: ‘that is why shu have no persnoality. hah ha ah. that was pun. you know i am voiced by voiec actor of YUNAY from CROISAY’

other guy with box filled with Japan’s future: ‘oh no i am shot’

French Private Military Contractors: “Tirez sur lui!”

other guy with box filled with Japan’s future who was shot: ‘nooo i am dying’

French Private Military Contractors: “Mourir lui.”

other guy with box filled with Japan’s future who was dying: ‘votre grammaire est mauvaise. :( alors! je meure’

hikari: ‘oh no he is dead and i am runinng like a girl’

kazuki: ‘you are a grill. now run I will kill them with my GNU.’

hikari: ‘ok, je etre courir aime un fille.’

other guy with box filled with Japan’s future who died: ‘votre grammaire est encore mauvaise. :( alors! je meure encore.’

French Private Military Contractors: “Vous pensez que GNU va nous arrêter? Hah! Vous êtes ridicule!”

kazuki: ‘mais GNU n’est pas unix.’

French Private Military Contractors: “Le noOooO0Oo!”

kazuki: ‘ok now i will pikc up the box filed with Japan’s future and run away with my gun’

Thus, the middle school kids wearing SKIRTS decide to, uh, not die. BUT SOME MIDDLE SCHOOL KIDS are at a school.

ann: ‘my name is MATSUURA ANN and i am pretention and always fan my colar’

youji: ‘we know this alreadyy. i am main charhatcter TAKASU YOUJI and also narroatr and i am more pretention than you’

nanami: ‘i am genki girl KANOU NANAMI and my voice will kill your eardrums’

youji: ‘that is very good. my eardrums nede some killing’

nanami: ‘oh relly? ok thank you i will now scream in your ear’

youji: ‘i was being sarcastic beacuse i am sarcastic narator. read the mod’

nanami: ‘there is no mod we are at a schol and all our friends are ded’

onee-san: ‘hello i am ONEE-SAN i never apper, you never see me, and i talk on the radio’

ann: ‘hi onee-san. why are we the only people at teh school. why nobody come. why?’

onee-san: ‘ur friends are ded’

youji: ‘they’re all stupid’

ann: ‘am i also stupid’

youji: ‘yes because i am pretention.

ann: ‘that was retorical question. i am more pretention than you’

youji: ‘fuck you die you are also incomprehensible, disturbing, and annoying and i am the narraotr’

nanami: ‘but what if the narator changes every episode’

youji: ‘you ar egenki girl you must talk about genki things now go away’

Thus, the middle school kids wearing SKIRTS decide to, uh, do nothing. BUT SOME MIDDLE SCHOOL KIDS come to the school.

touko: ‘hey guys we drive van and we picked up hikari and kazuki’

onee-san: ‘ok very good’

French Private Military Contractors: “Qu’en est-il de nous?”

youji: ‘vous etes morts’

French Private Military Contractors: “Pourquoi?”

youji: ‘parce que je suis le narrateur’

Van Driver: “那我呢？”

touko: ‘我不知道。你怎么了？”

Van Driver: “我也不知道发生了什么。”

touko: ‘那就算你死了吧。’

Van Driver: “不好。你的妈妈是一个臭鸡蛋。你的名字也很笨。听起来像 ‘那头里偷苦’。”

touko: ‘you are dead’

~THE END~

tl;dr: JUST WATCH THE DARNED EPISODE

You can watch Basket Army’s first episode in full 1080p quality streaming on enterbrain’s YouTube channel. It’s completely legal, too, since this is an ONA (Original Net Animation), and this is how Enterbrain releases its episodes. In fact, the only way to legally watch it is online. You don’t think YouTube’s audio-transcribing and Japanese-to-English-translating prowess isn’t good enough? Deal with it.

Apparently, enterbrain is the planning and production (but not animation) studio behind Basket Army, who also created RPG Maker, since the company focuses mainly on video games. I think the company, apart from developing game making software, releases magazines as their main source of income, and develops some tabletop role-playing games as well. But they don’t do much with anime. Enterbrain’s a pretty interesting group to develop this anime, since according to ANN, Kazushige Nojima (a scenario writer for Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy VII, VIII, X, and X-2) wrote the original novel Basket Army is based on. So, will Basket Army be more of a game-like anime, or more of an anime-like game anime? Well, uh, that didn’t really make any sense at all.

Y’know what, fuck Basket Army, this post took too long to make. :(

Cover Rating: 4/10 (Interesting) – Blogging