When a manga author arrives at the school, the club could serve as inspiration.
What They Say:
Manga artist Hinohara Enta has come to interview students at Kaimei Academy. Bossun thinks he can get popular if he becomes the model for the main character of a manga, but everything he says ends up being way too “boring” and “plain”. Then, something completely out-of-the-blue happens!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sometimes a show and manga be self referential enough to make you laugh and not be too altogether blunt or pandering to the audience. Sket Dance works that pretty well here as the school is visited by a very renowned manga author named Hinohara Enta, a man who has written many of the most popular works out there in this world. Their first impression of him, a young man that he is, is that of Tezuka himself which is just beautiful as they turn everyone into Tezuka like characters for a brief moment. The homage paid there is perfect and it really sets the tone well. He’s come to the school to interview various clubs to get ideas and reference material for some new work that he hasn’t decided upon yet.
Naturally, Bossun sees this as his chance to get who he is turned into a manga star but he’s just ridiculed over and over for his quirks and what he uses as his “weapon” of choice. Enta is calm and polite in how brutal he is but he finds himself drawn in by the other two in the group as Himeko has her charms to be certain and Switch is definitely a different kind of character from the norm. It’s a very enjoyable sequence up until he leaves, at which point Bossun gets caught up in one of Chu-san’s latest scientific experiments and is reduced in age to about three years old. It’s a goofy sequence to be sure as it plays out, but you have Himeko going completely maternal on him and it’s hilarious seeing the kinds of gags she works with it, including a family portrait picture.
Bossun in this form takes up a good chunk of this episode and it’s an amusing diversion from the generally real world kinds of stories that they work through. There’s some attempts at messing with the student council guy a bit and it does work in essentially breaking him when he encounters Li’l Bossun. We get a few gags that work well as Switch and Himeko basically take him around like proud parents and it has wacky moments that work really well. When you get down to the crux of it though with the way it works and how the manga author figures into it, it’s pretty straightforward but it’s a nice diversion from how the series has worked by stepping into the surreal world a little.
In Summary:
Sket Dance has been fun but I do find that I prefer the episodes like the previous one where it has two stories in one as the show has a hard time maintaining itself for much longer than that. With this episode, they get to do it through a bit of obvious trickery but it does work out in the end because they play up a few things just right and the manga humor that’s brought in certainly made me smile. It’s not bust a gut funny, but I find few anime series to really achieve that kind of humor to begin with. Sket Dance avoids the usual gags that we’ve seen in the series so far and it just has fun without any real restrictions here. Himeko has some of the best lines and reactions but few things in the series will beat Li’l Bossun.
Grade: B
Simulcast By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.