A satire on college life based in part on the earlier comedy, I Graduated But... and delivering the same ironic message: during the Depression, since there are no jobs, the boy who flunks is more secure than the boy who graduates. I Flunked But... follows the fate of Takahashi, who flunks--because the crib notes he wrote on his shirt have been laundered away by a too-thoughtful landlady--and finds himself better off back in school again than his pals are who can't find work. David Owens of the Japan Society writes, "I Flunked But... is a very free-and-easy film, full of that rah-rah spirit and some wonderfully done gags. Michigan and Ohio State pennants and a poster for the American film Charming Sinners adorn the rooming house walls. The more carefree students spend more time practicing their special college shuffle-step than they do studying, which means they have to put in a lot of effort at cheating on exams. And after our hero has failed to graduate, he wistfully asks his landlady's bespectacled son a question which reverberates sadly through all of Ozu's films: 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' Says the lad, barely looking up from a book on American baseball, 'I want to go to college and be a great man like you are. I'll flunk just like you did.'"