Ben-To brings up an interesting and somewhat common case in anime, being a show with a unique and pretty hilarious frame to a wholly unnoteworthy and mediocre comedy. It's really a shame that this is a common thing to see in anime, and it puts me in a spot I don't enjoy being in, namely of not being able to recommend it past the first couple episodes. For a moment at the start there's more time given to the ridiculous nightly fights that take place in convenience stores around Japan over the bento marked down by half price near closing time, which is strangely close to the truth about the planning and effort that goes into living the student life in its purest (read: cheapest) form. And to its credit Ben-To doesn't let the nightly fights wane as the series goes on, giving its heart and soul over to the bushido culture that developed around these struggles. But even if the heart and screentime are there, it's all wrapped in a package of comedy that can really only be enjoyed by otakus full of the Stockholm Syndrome that comes out of the endless seasonal stream of anime comedies, making us believe that this perverted gag style of telling jokes is actually funny.
In some sense, the show is completely recognizable as a battle shounen of the same type as any serious show would be. There are rules to the fights, such as waiting for the clerk to fully leave the bento area before making a break for it, or not attacking someone who's already gotten their hands fully on a meal. Of course rules means that one arc will be able dealing with rulebreakers, and putting aside old antagonism to defend the honor of their venerable sport. There are ranks, basically divided into the lowly dogs and the legendary wolves, and stories of hunters of old. There are antagonists with their own specialized ways of fighting, with varying degrees of honor and ingenuity. And our protagonist, a newcomer named Satou, must have the latent potential of the greatest wolves in history, a raw potential only noticed by his benefactor, the “ice queen” Yarizui. The formula is all there, and the twist of being fought over something ridiculous like half priced meals close to the expiration date can make an already fun formula feel witty and relatable on top of that, covering up for the formulaic and arbitrary progression of the fights themselves.
I just wish it was less recognizable as another anime harem comedy. Satou has hints of being honest about his perversions, walking the line between the usual oblivious protagonists in vogue now and the straight-up pervert protagonists of the 1980s, but neither of those character types were a particularly good idea on their own, and putting them together doesn't really count to add depth or cover each others' flaws. The closeted fujoshi perversion of his teammate Oshiroi is a bit more tolerable, another recurring type of the 2010's, but maybe that's only because she got to make the sex jokes rather than be the target of them herself. No such luck for Yarizui, nor Satou's cousin Shaga or even his oppresive and violent classmate Shiraume. No such luck for the sister duo they all fight in the story's final arc, nor the girls run into at the pool. A convoluted backstory in Ben-To's middle arc seems to try elevating the drama and the tension a bit, but it's rarely more than the usual way of forcing the side characters' stories to intersect without building them up as characters in the present, especially when a number of perverted scenes and jokes at their expense have shot down most chances of taking them seriously anyway.