Ranthir

SKET Dance. Just the title itself say's alot about the anime. SKET stands for Support, Kindness, Encouragement, Troubleshoot. The second (助団), which instead uses kanji, derives from the verb tasukeru (助ける), meaning to help or save. So just from the title you can in some sorts understand that this series is about, well.. Helping. Judged by many as Gintama set in a school life setting, the series have had a tendency of being flooded by "hate war" comments. I agree with the Gintama fans that the series is very similar. But at the same time it really shines on it's own at times. But if youthink about the fact that author Kenta Shinohara worked as the assistant of Hideaki Sorachi (creator of Gintama), it's really not that weird for him to be influenced. --- Story ---- 8/10 Story wise I have to deduct some points due to it being too heavily influenced by Gintama. So if you can picture a scene where Gintama didn't exist, I would have given it a 10/10. Basically the story is as simple as 3 people, get to know them, see them interact with other people. Easy huh? But it doesn't have to be more complicated. What I really enjoyed about Sket Dance, is how the story progresses. You get introduced to many supporting characters, but not so fast that you feel that it affects the relationship with the main cast. And this way you get to know the characters in a perfect pace. Both past, present and "future" gets depicted in a decent way.But as said, even if it's really well made, it's kinda too similar too Gintama to give it a full score. ---Art-- 10/10 Sket Dance is just a really good looking anime. It's very typical shounen art. They have a very tyipcal shounen trait in the fact that they give the main cast something special, like an item, special hair color or something similar to recognize them by. In this case, you have Bossun's hat for example. What I love about the art in SKET Dance, is how they play with different ways of drawing. Take for example one of the characters, called Saotome Roman, who turns everything around her into a manga. This playfulness really got to me, and I loved it so much. --Sound--- 10/10 I really, really, really, enjoyed the music in SKET Dance. I have a tendency of skipping openings and/or endings, but SKET Dance, really just got me hooked on both how well made the openings were made to fit the music, and how good the music was. The Sketchbook really fits the anime, and I struggle to decide which opening of 2 and 4 I love most. The youtube part in opening 4 was absolutely awesome. --Character-- 10/10 The maincast is made up off: Yuusuke Fujisaki (Bossun) , Hime Onizuka (Himeko) and Kazuyoshi Usui (Switch). Mostly all of the fun about the series is based on interactions between the main cast themselves, or between the main cast and supporting characters. Like how Bossun and Himeko make the perfect boke and tsukommi pair for example. Or how you have Switch and a girl called Yuuki Reiko have epic arguments about science vs occult. But what I find most fascinating about the character maincast, is how the protagonist is in terms, the weakest character, which is very uncharacteristic for a shounen anime. He gets picked on alot for having this kinda role, and I love it. But I can't withold the fact that the main cast, do have kinda, sad backstories, but this is what I enjoyed most of this anime. There is two different types of characters (in some sense). The ones you look up to, and the ones you wanna support, give a hug and so on. The main cast have tendencies of both. Very nice. The supporting characters are hilarious and extremely well made. Almost all of them are super weird, like overly tsundere girl, a fatty thinkining she is really hot, student council sadist and so on. My favorite supporting character is probably Dante, who only speaks in Visual Kei mode. It's just so funny. --Enjoyment-- 10/10 This is probably one of the anime's I've enjoyed most in quite sometime. It's not as funny in the start, but just takes off after a little while. My favorite epsiode probably has to be an episode, where the protagonist Bossun, drinks a fluid which mixes up all his facial expressions, or the episode where they play Hyperion. Just watch it ok? Come on. Go go. --Overall-- 9/10 Overall. It's just great. I really hope it will return like Gintama has done so many times. If you have seen Gintama, give it a chance. If you wanna watch a series that just makes you laugh and laugh, but can also hit that soft spot inside, check out SKET Dance. You won't be dissapointed.

karlstein12

SKET Dance became my instant favorite the moment I got into it, and it has valid reasons for so. It's one of the very few anime's which execute both the Slice of Life and Comedic elements perfectly well. 77 episodes is not a very huge number considering the vast amount of entertainment it provides. So the story revolves around the fictional Kaimei High School, with our three members of the 'SKET Club' who aid the people in need of help, whatever their issue maybe. You may think at first the number of episodes for this show is too much, considering that it revolves around thevery same concept of the SKET Club supporting the people and getting rid of their troubles, but there's more to it. SKET Dance has an extremely funny and a humorous nature that goes hand in hand with its plotline. With each episode there's a great amount of witty and comical jokes cracked and at times sticks to making parodies of other anime as well although that in comparison is very less than the original humor the show provides. Adding to the uniqueness of SKET Dance. Making a show with a school setting but at the same time the genre comedy being its core is not a very easy task to accomplish as it tends to have a lot of clichéd objects but this is where SKET Dance truly shines. While being humorous most of the time, SKET Dance also achieves what its actually about, helping others in need. Whatever their request maybe, with each and every episode our SKET Club manage to complete the task given and end that certain episode on a high note, while also being true and original every time. However if you are thinking that with each episode, no matter how humorous it may be or how good a finish it provides, it's inevitable that with the mixture of comedic situations and solving the problems of those in trouble and sticking with the same concept, it's bound to get boring at some point. But this is where the character development comes in to play. SKET Dance gives a great amount of devotion and concentration to its characters. Each of our three protagonists of the SKET Club, Bossun aka Fujisaki, Himeko aka Onizuka Hime (Also known as the legendary 'Onihime' in her past) and Switch aka Usui Kazuyoshi. Talking about characters, these are our trio of the SKET Club who support the ones in need. Bossun is the leader of the club, the one created the club and helped both Himeko and Switch join the club. For starters, Bossun is depicted as quite an unconventional character. He's not your typical cool-guy who overwhelms everyone else on talent on other things, but in fact the exact opposite of it. I don't mean to say that he's no help to the people and the club itself, it's just that he's never taken seriously. Compared to Himeko's brute strength and Switch's power of information, Bossun doesn't have anything you'd call a special talent. Or there's probably one, "The concentration mode" as he calls it. With the glasses he doesn't always wear and keeps it at the top of his red hat, when he does use it though it helps to go over the tiniest details and always help him solve them a case. Bossun is always overlooked at, and I don't mean in a bad way but in a funny way. As I said before he's not your typical cool character or some lazy ass guy who them goes on become a hero later in the show. However this does not in any way degrade Bossun's character and I'd say he's one of the most likeable protagonist around. Next is Himeko. Once known as the legendary delinquent Onihime, Himeko's past is quite irritating. Always feared by local thugs and students alike, Himeko is unable to make a friend for herself but that's when she encounters Bossun and things began to change for Himeko. Personally I love Himeko's accent, where she speaks in a different dialect than the usual. Himeko is a very crucial member to the club and they always rely on her strength which is her power in the time of need. Switch is our next character and he's a bit weird. He's a guy who likes crappy video games and always hangs around with his Laptop and so much so that he speaks with people using it too. Switch also is a hardcore otaku and has all the information stored about the students and teachers alike from Kaimei in his laptop which is always an helpful accessory to the club. I'd love to talk about Himeko and Switch in detail but I'm afraid I couldn't by giving away some spoilers. A couple of episodes are dedicated to both Himeko and Switch later in the show which tells the backstory of the two and it's very sad which will leave you teary-eyed. One of SKET Dance's trademarks is definitely its epic voice acting. Most of the jokes and humor is greatly accompanied by the way our characters react to the scenario, and in that aspect SKET Dance does it better than almost any other. There's a variety of opening and ending themes for SKET Dance both meant to be fun and dramatic varying from episodes to episodes. Many of the special episodes thrown between the show which focuses solely own its character has its own theme as well. The artwork is well synchronized with all the other elements as well giving birth to a highly entertaining and at times sad piece of work. SKET Dance does not follow a single pattern and thus is mostly episodic. In other words there are no separate arcs and it simply continues to follow it storyline. From the start till the end SKET Dance does not dissapoint you in any way. With light-hearted humor, sad moments accompanied by shocking plot twists, all play a very pivotal role in this anime. The inclusion of the Student Council Academy and its characters is important too, as they serve as a rival to the SKET Club but in a rather friendly manner. For the ones who are having a thoughts or two considering the length of this anime, I'd advice you to overlook it immediately as the fun it provides makes you forget about how long it is. In fact once I finished it I was left with hopes of watching more episodes. Make no mistake, SKET Dance ends perfectly well and does not leave the viewer any questions unanswered, but just as I finished SKET Dance I was beginning to miss the antics our SKET Club provided us. At the start of this show, I had planned on finishing this quick with atleast finishing three episodes a day. Considering how good this is and the laugh it provides you, I can tell you there are certainly some dull moments in this show when I stopped watching it for a while. Yes, the fact that is 77 episodes long does come to light at some point, but that's all the more reason to take this slow and steady as the enjoyment in the coming episodes is endless as is the same for the entire series. SKET Dance is an anime that will definitely go down as one of the best within its genre and is highly recommended by me to anyone who likes anime with some fun and humor.