SKET Dance

At Kaimei High School there is a special club dedicated to helping others known as the SKET Brigade. The brains of the group is Kazuyoshi "Switch" Usui, a tech-savvy otaku who speaks through speech synthesis software, while the brawn is provided by Hime "Himeko" Onizuka, the hockey stick-wielding girl once known as "Onihime." And last but not least, their leader is Yuusuke "Bossun" Fujisaki, whose latent ability is evoked by his goggles, allowing him to summon the awesome power of extraordinary concentration.

However, most of the school only know them as the club that handles odd jobs. Many of their days are spent in the clubroom slacking off, but when there is something to be done, they give their all to help others—usually in sincere, but unintentionally hilarious, ways. The SKET Brigade do all they can to provide support, kindness, encouragement, and troubleshooting to any students crazy enough to ask for their services.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Fujisaki, Yuusuke Main

Yoshino, Hiroyuki Japanese

Usui, Kazuyoshi Main

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Onizuka, Hime Main

Shiraishi, Ryouko Japanese

Sakata, Gintoki Supporting

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Kagura Supporting

Kugimiya, Rie Japanese

Shimura, Shinpachi Supporting

Sakaguchi, Daisuke Japanese

Nabeshin Supporting

Watanabe, Shinichi Japanese

Tsubaki, Sasuke Supporting

Shimono, Hiro Japanese

Agata, Soujirou Supporting

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Saotome, Roman Supporting

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Imai, Yousuke Producer

Hijikata, Makoto Producer

Kawaguchi, Keiichirou Director, Sound Director

Yoshihara, Tatsuya Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation, In-Between Animation, Animation Director, Assistant Animation Director

Reviews

Apr 21, 2013

Ranthir

Recommended

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 you ... think 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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Ranthir (8)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Nov 9, 2016

ktulu007

Mixed Feelings

SKET Dance is a slice of life comedy manga written and illustrated by Shinohara Kenta. In 2011, Tatsunoko, the same studio behind Kyatto Ninden Teyandee & C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control, started airing an anime adaptation. The anime lasted for nearly eighty episodes and ran for over a year, ending in late 2012.It was introduced to me as like Gintama, but done well. So how true is that and is it worth watching?

Story:

Kaimei High School has an unusual student organisation. This is the titular SKET Dan, a support club that helps students or other clubs who need them. It has three members, ... Himeko, Bossun & Switch. The series basically covers their misadventures and the quirky people they encounter. This is one of those series where there's a general order to the episodes, but where most of them have little connection with one another aside from starring the same cast. So, let's cover the important aspect, how well the humour works.

The comedy in this is very hit or miss. There are times when it works nicely and others where it just falls flat. Generally speaking, the points where they try something really outlandish are the points where the comedy just fails. Mainly because these moments rely on randomness and characters shouting to be funny. The stuff with their teacher's bizarre science experiments. The stuff with their other teacher's obsessions with overly convoluted nonsense. The episode that crosses over with Gintama, and so on. Those are the moments that are just tired and stupid. Whereas the comedy that uses more exaggerated realism tends to work pretty well.

Here's the thing, a series like Galaxy Angel can get by with overblown absurdity. Not only is the execution better, but the series is never tied with any real semblance of reality, except in that serious episode that was out of place and terrible. But with this series, so much of its humour is tied to realistic situations being slightly exaggerated. Which means that when they do put something in that's completely absurd, it doesn't really fit. This series tries to be a cross between the everyday school life comedy and the absurdist zany comedy but it's only good at the former and its attempts to mesh the two just don't work particularly well.

Comedy aside, there is a huge flaw with the series as a whole. It sucks at incorporating romance. Every single scene where they try to throw in some high school crush or to force chemistry between two characters, ends up being just banal and poorly done. Its like they took scenes from a shite romantic comedy and just threw them in whenever they wanted to develop their characters but couldn't think of a good way to do it.

I will give the series credit for having some pretty solid serious scenes. There are quite a few moments where they focus on the characters, without the lousy romance angle, and they show something tragic, dramatic, heart-warming or a blend of the three. And those scenes are largely pretty solid and do their job well. Truth be told, they're also a big part of why the absurdist elements don't work. The contrast between a stupid plot where Himeko & Bossun switch bodies and a semi-serious story about Himeko's tragic past is simply too glaring. In that sense, it is a bit like Gintama, except in Gintama the attempts at drama were out of place with the usual absurdity whereas in Sket Dance the absurd moments are rarer and they come across as out of place while the more dramatic moments work.

Characters:

The cast in this varies quite a bit. The major characters tend to be nicely fleshed out and have some level of depth to them beyond comedic quirks. The secondary and side characters, on the other hand, are their comedic quirks. Usually that's two things to them, which makes them better than those comedic characters with one joke, but it can still get old and repetitive. There's also the issue with the character dynamics. Mainly, the aforementioned way the series fails at romance. Those relationships that are supposed to read as having romantic chemistry are either badly done in general or inconsistent, with the romance dynamic being bad but with the characters also having a more friendship-oriented dynamic that works.

Art:

The artwork is decent enough. There are times during the more absurd scenes where things get hectic and difficult to see. On the positive side, the series does have some good visual gags. Aside from that, it all looks fine.

Sound:

The acting in this is competent overall but, like most elements of this series, inconsistent. Yoshino Hiroyuki, Sugita Tomokazu & Shiraishi Ryoko all do quite well and demonstrate some nice emotional range but a lot of the side actors only have to do one or two jokes and, consequently, don't need range. Although, to be fair, the actors still generally do fine and it gives you the chance to hear Gackt do some voice acting. There are a few performances that are annoyingly exaggerated though and times when those actors who are generally fine have their over-acting bombastic moments.

Ho-yay:

Momoka's dynamic with Himeko frequently comes across as her having a crush on Himeko. It's probably the best semi-romantic dynamic you get in the series just because it's actually natural for the characters and never feels contrived or forced. But it's also pretty clear that they're not going for a romantic dynamic, but an adoring disciple-master thing. There are some other homo-erotic moments interspersed throughout, but nothing major.

Final Thoughts:

I can see where the comparisons to Gintama come in. And not just because there's a crossover episode. Both series try to blend absurd comedy with more down to earth comedy and drama. Both also have massive casts of largely boring characters who are mainly there for a few reoccurring japes. I would agree that Sket Dance is better at the whole juggling act than Gintama was. That being said, I wouldn't say that Sket Dance is particularly successful at it either. If the series had dispensed with the more outlandish elements and not bothered with teenage romance elements, it might have been really good. However, as it stands, those highly absurd comedic moment are its biggest flaw. They aren't funny, clever or a good fit. In the end, my rating for Sket Dance is a 6/10. It's okay, not good. Next week I'll take a look at Toradora.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by ktulu007 (661)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Jun 15, 2022

Huskkay

Not Recommended

Preliminary (40/77 eps)

Ok, first of all, let's get the elephant out of the room. As many have done before me, I must compare it to Gintama.
The show is about a trio doing odd jobs. The cast of SKET Dance is almost an identical copy of Gintama's, just painted a bit differently and lacking the effort. SKET Dance is like the 4kids version.
The humor feels tame and fails to land most of the time. For me, it was the weird constant change of tone in a single episode, the bad comedic timing and the voice acting that ruined most scenes. I mention the voice acting but I rather ... blame the directions the voice actors were given and the bland dialogue for its lacklusterness.

Yet, the two worst offenders, that really drag down the show, are its predictability and mediocrity. Nothing stands out, everything goes from A to B with nothing in between that spices things up or surprises you.
When SKET Dance tries to do parodies, it always falls flat on its nose. They don't take risks and play it safe with the jokes. It's like someone setting up a decent punchline but then it all crumbles because they are too afraid to upset someone.

Next, I would like to talk a bit about the visuals. School settings, which is fair, and it does have a bit of color here and there. Character design is on an acceptable level, but nothing you haven't seen before. The show also likes to use visual comedy but, as with most other comedic elements, it fails to add any sort of value or is peak averageness.

I could try and fish for some positive things to mention but nothing popped into my mind when I started to write this review. All in all, the show lacks a unique selling point and simply plays it too safe while also lacking finesse in its jokes.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Huskkay (14)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Anime Onegai's Latin Dubs (Part 2)

by Shakitonu31

50 Entries · 17 Restacks

Anime Onegai Latin American Dubs (Part 2)

by saintseba

49 Entries · 1 Restacks

Animax & Hero TV

by sstnrs

43 Entries · 2 Restacks

	Poll: SKET Dance Episode 48 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Sir_Lexa - Mar 8, 2012	97 replies	by jantszztkr »» Aug 12, 6:58 AM
	Poll: SKET Dance Episode 23 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Andromeda - Sep 8, 2011	76 replies	by paternoaka44403 »» Jul 29, 2:12 AM
	Poll: SKET Dance Episode 17 Discussion ( 1 2 ) gregthemaniac - Jul 28, 2011	75 replies	by zenithnadir »» May 24, 10:05 AM
	Really underated Ilhan391 - Jul 5, 2022	12 replies	by vSca »» May 1, 11:47 AM
	Poll: SKET Dance Episode 77 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Mr_DaftPunk - Sep 27, 2012	133 replies	by DarkBossun »» Feb 19, 12:30 PM

In Numbers: The Best Anime of the Decade

What's the #1 anime of the 2010s? Which year was the best? What studio had the most hits? We have the answers to all these questions and more!

by Shymander

646,915 views

18 of the Funniest Anime Faces Ever

Some characters are funny because of all the crazy antics they get up to. But others just have the right kind of physiognomy, which make them prone to pulling off some funny anime faces - intentionally or unintentionally.

by MisterD98

836,549 views

CollectionFunny