Cheating Craft

In a world where academic success decides your entire future, the exam room becomes a ruthless battlefield. Passing the exams guarantees a successful future. Failing dooms you to live a cruel life, tormented by suffering and despair. Only the most intelligent—or cunning—students make it out alive. These are the two strategies of combat: spend your entire life studying for the test, or perfect your cheating strategy. The students who dedicate themselves to studying are called “Learning Type” students, and they are forced to collaborate with a “Cheating Type” student in order to battle their rivals for the top grades.

The cheater Zhuge Mu Ming and studious academic Qiao Yi Huang decide to team up against the exams. However, the allies are soon divided, becoming bitter rivals. Will they be able to make it on their own? And if so, who will survive the challenge and emerge victorious?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Zhuge, Mu Ming Main

Yamaguchi, Tomohiro Japanese

Huang, Qiao Yi Supporting

Kugimiya, Rie Japanese

Jun Supporting

Ikeda, Junya Japanese

Liu, Bai Jiu Supporting

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Zhou, Lun Yu Supporting

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Xing, Li Supporting

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Wang Supporting

Mitsuishi, Kotono Japanese

Motonaga, Keitarou Director

Iwahata, Gouichi Storyboard

Kusuda, Aina Theme Song Performance

Watanabe, Shio Theme Song Lyrics

Reviews

Dec 21, 2016

3xTripple

Recommended

Cheating Craft is the definition of an absolutely brilliant mediocre anime!

You might be thinking, "How could you give this mediocre series a ten, especially when you only give tens to three percent of anime?!" Well, it's actually a six, but hear me out for a second...

(TL;DR at end)

If you've already watched this show, you probably already know that it's really not THAT great. However, have you ever seen another series like this...? The answer is probably no, and that's where I feel this anime shines the most.

Anime is supposed to be the genre of artistic imagination, yet we're constantly bombarded with the same concepts ... repeatedly. However, Cheating Craft goes against the norm by being a short, 12-minute parody series that makes fun of some popular anime concepts with a fun twist. Every episode contains a comedic and dramatic story, where all you know is that the main character will somehow cheat to prevail over a test in a dramatic way using his family's impossibly diverse Shokatsu techniques. It has a linear plot and moves at a really great pace towards the single end-goal of living a life of luxury by graduating from their prestigious school.

One of the characters in this series really stood out to me, and that's Kou-chan (or Huang, Qiao Yi). Kou-chan is is voiced by Rie Kugimiya, otherwise known as the "Queen of Tsundere Voices". Kou-chan stands out to me because she's: smart and nerdy, but not shy; simplistic, but not average; unusually focused, but laid back; she's confident, rude, sarcastic, perverted, bl-loving--- in other words, she's a very unusual and lovable character. In fact, I think she may have one of the more unique (unrealistic) personalities that I've seen in the anime genre (let me know if you agree). I think she's a worthy favorite if you like her enough.

I strongly believe that Cheating Craft should be praised for its unrealistic and bold concepts, like using supernatural abilities for the sole purpose of cheating to pass exams. It's a stark contrast to most other anime because the teachers are actually the main "villains" of this supernatural school tale. Hell, they might as well have just studied with all the effort that goes into cheating each episode! To add to the humor, you have a disclaimer every episode that says "cheating is a wrongful act, do not imitate." Note that it is physically impossible to imitate almost anything that happens in it, which makes it even funnier! Then, to finish it off, you have the hilariously dramatic episodes and backstories of the main protagonists.

This anime does not even try to take itself seriously, which adds to the mediocre brilliance. It may be extremely mediocre, but it is honestly the most enjoyable mediocre series that I have ever seen.

TL;DR
This series is masterfully mediocre.

Story: 5 - Linear, good pacing, rather average story.
Art: 6 - Fluid, Dramatic, Good Enough.
Sound: 9 - This actually threw me off... There's not usually great music in a mediocre series...
Character: 5 - All are archetypes except Kou-chan
Enjoyment 9 - Surprisingly entertaining, despite having no intellectual value.

I highly recommend that you watch it! If you don't like it by the 3rd episode, then you probably won't like it.

Overall: 10 out of fucking 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Nov 16, 2023

heycoolbook

Mixed Feelings

I hate that i don't hate it
But this doesn't feel like a real anime, it feels more like an anime they watch on the background of an anime, or like an anime writed by someone who doesn't know what anime is, but has like a vague knowledge of some tropes and think like all anime are like this, kind like kappa mikey (?) You know what The entirety of this anime feels like a gag they'll make on Gintama, but as i said at the beginning i don't hate it, it made me laugh a couple of times by the absurdity of the jokes, and ... it's a very short anime the chapters clocking 10/11 minutes so if you watchit and don't like it at least it won't take that much time of your life

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 8, 2022

IgnitedJesus

Not Recommended

I've yet to see any anime like this, with so much yet so little going on at the same time.

This feels like a total waste of what could have potentially been an extremely interesting concept for a story, but I don't really know what Blade Studio was trying to go for here. It quickly became just a ironically funny, mediocre show to watch

Plot: It's basic, in a world where taking tests decides your fate as a member of society, students fall into 1 of 2 categories. Learning Type or "L-Type" and Cheating Type or "C-Type". The L-Types finish the tests and give the answers the ... C-Types, and the C-Types protect the L-Types from other students who don't want them to pass. Everyone has their own unique way of cheating in order to pass these tests, but often times, the school bests the cheaters and has defenses in place to catch them in the act.

There's so many over the top action sequences for relatively no reason, trying to make the show seem a lot more interesting than it actually is. The characters are either super annoying or boring, and there are several episodes which are just completely pointless to watch. The animation isn't too bad, but when its backed by 0 purpose and an all around kind of shitty story execution, it gets overshadowed by the fact. It doesn't help that after episode 6, the series rolls further down hill than it starts at, which is actually kind of impressive, because after that, the whole "Intense test taking" aspect just gets kind of....forgotten about, and it just becomes a jumble of random shit happening to try and show off the unique abilities of the students', which are very very lackluster.

Just a lot of wasted efforts on this series, because it really should have been better. It's ironically funny just because of how bad and stupid it is, that's why it didn't just get a flat 1 rating from me. I guess you can like this series if you don't want something that actually has a good story, or interesting characters, but I wouldn't expect much out of this garbage fire.

Animation: 5/10
Art: 4/10
Story: 2/10
Characters: 2/10
Voice Acting: 4/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Cheating Craft Episode 3 Discussion PhylloNakamura - Oct 19, 2016	35 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Jun 22, 7:08 PM
	Poll: Cheating Craft Episode 2 Discussion Stark700 - Oct 12, 2016	47 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Jun 22, 6:50 PM
	Poll: Cheating Craft Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Oct 5, 2016	93 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Jun 22, 6:41 PM
	Poll: Cheating Craft Episode 12 Discussion Stark700 - Dec 21, 2016	49 replies	by ST63LTH »» May 7, 3:20 AM
	Poll: Cheating Craft Episode 11 Discussion Stark700 - Dec 14, 2016	19 replies	by ST63LTH »» May 7, 3:14 AM