Acting and manga dominates the latest episode of Sket Dance.
What They Say:
Momoka is the lead actress of a stage play, but she’s having trouble with the bland script. Can the Sket-dan teach her how to spice it up?! And then another Sket friend has a success story: Roman, who’s just made her manga debut! She shows her story to the Sket members, but will Himeko be able to keep from trashing it?!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sket Dance goes back to the half episode stories for this episode and that’s definitely a plus for it, especially after the previous episode that was essentially a rerun of a story done several episodes prior just with different characters involved. When the show works with its half length stories it’s often able to work its magic a bit better since it doesn’t force the story quite as much. And with Momoka being one of the characters involved here, it’s just going to be plain fun because of her personality and what she’s involved in.
Her time with the gang is generally fun at this point since they all get along and have achieved a fair bit through each others help. That makes things like just going and doing karaoke not seem forced, or just hanging out. But as the gang learns, Momoka’s struggling with a new stage play she’s involved with because of the script, not realizing that the writer/director prefers basic dialogue so that the actors can do their improvisation and interpretation of it in a way that lets them make it their own. That leads to the group doing a lot of ad-lib stuff together, some fun wordplay and other bits of banter between the four of them in an effort to help her figure out the right approach to the role. It’s something that you can see friends like this doing easily and it’s definitely more of that than the Sket Club itself taking on a job.
The second storyline is a cute one that goes back to the character of the aspiring manga author, Roman, as she’s finally achieved the first level of real success by having a story appear in a magazine. She is, of course, just as outgoing and goofy as always with how she interacts with people but it’s the actual manga story itself that’s hilarious. It’s the kind of terribly awful piece that uses some elements of her real life, such as the Sket Club, and injects it with her very poor drawings, panel layout and dialogue. Amd the gang has to read it with her there while holding back their real opinions at the same time. It’s a challenge that’s just hilarious to watch since it is just so, so awful. Not that the Sket gang can make good manga themselves, but seeing what got printed just makes you wonder what kind of prank was being played.
In Summary:
While Sket Dance gets to do things on the cheap a bit with the second episode with all the awful manga panels that are shown, the episode overall is a good bit of fun and left me smiling through the majority of it. Momoka is a fun recurring character that gets another chance to shine here and again works her way in as a friend of the group rather than just another person needing the clubs help. Roman’s story is the weaker of the two but not by all that much, simply because of its art style that’s needed to showcase her manga which always feels a bit off. You want to see how bad it is but at the same time it changes the flow of the episode. It’s a cute and fun story that works well though and leaves you wondering more about the magazine staff than anything else. Sket Dance continues to generally work well, though it does have its off episodes, but this is a good mid range one that will please most.
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.
I love Roman and Momoka’s story in this episode. I felt the Roman’s story did not spotlight her and instead just show her manga. I find her crying scene cute, but it felt out of place with the humor.