Himeko’s origin comes full circle as the strong young girl becomes a strong young woman with character.
What They Say:
Hime goes to a high school far away to escape her violent past, but the rumors of “Onihime” have spread like wildfire. When a newfound friend gets into trouble with small-time Yakuza hoods, will Hime step in at the risk of exposing her old identity? Also: the secret origin of Sket Dance!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After the trick that was employed in the previous episode, which had a fifty/fifty shot of being used where the supposed timid friend was actually the one orchestrating everything, Himeko has now found herself completely alone and becoming withdrawn. It’s a fairly expected result at this point after what happened, but it’s the kind of situation that still has her in a position of being sought after. But while she may be withdrawn with her personality in general at the moment, she’s not the type to back down from a fight. There’s a certain calm brutality to her in these opening moments that we see where she goes through her transformation into the “onihime” which defined her for quite awhile.
While this goes on for quite some time and her reputation becomes fully formed and feared, there does come a time when things change. The catalyst, of course, is that of Bossun. He ends up seeing her at school when she had something he knew about from his fanboy side fall out of her bag from a wash and his outgoing and pushy personality made it easy for him to insert himself into her life. It softens her to be sure, but she still has that darker side to her. What it does do though is to show that she can be the kind of happy and outgoing girl she once was, but taken to the next level as well. While she’s befriended Bossun as well, there’s another girl that she’s gotten casually friendly with that herself ends up in trouble, which keeps her from going completely into the fun side that Bossun was offering her.
But this is where we see the true nature of Bossun shine through again as his nature to help people and do right no matter the situation is a draw. While Himeko is intent on handling it all herself, afraid as she might be, Bossun wants to be involved and find another way to settle things. It’s a pretty good piece that lets each of them size each other up when it gets down to it and helps to reinforce their relationship, or at least the kind of relationship that Bossun wants with her. While it’s before the Sket Club, it’s the kind of foundation to it that has made it what it is and why Himeko is a big part of it. It doesn’t play it completely straight, making sure to have some good bits of humor mixed in as well. There’s a nice little twist to it about Himeko as well, since Bossun doesn’t realize until this point who she really was since she didn’t play it up in school since they’re both first years, but it’s the kind of moment that serves as the true catalyst for change for her.
In Summary:
After the fun and twists that were involved with Switch’s origin story, Himeko’s story is a lot more straightforward and predictable. But that’s not a bad thing as the two part story here does things well in laying clear the trouble she went through and then the struggle she faced in being labeled a demon punk girl. While it may seem like it gets a little too emotional towards the end, it’s fairly appropriate in its own way because it’s a time and opportunity for her to change her life completely again and to get away from being labeled what she didn’t want to be. It’s also the start of the formation of the club, talked about in roundabout, which is nice to see. Himeko’s been a fun character in general so getting to see how she was before all of this in both forms, which has lead to her new “third” form that has defined her in the series to date, worked pretty well and left me pleased.
Grade: B
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Streamed 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.
