When the club meets a new first year student, it leads to some interesting paths for their days.
What They Say:
The Sket-dan meets Saaya, a first-year student who’s got tsundere troubles. She wants the Sket-dan to help her stop being so snotty around boys and Bossun becomes the test subject! Then, it’s a real hoot as the Sket-dan and Saaya try raising an owl in the clubroom
The Review:
With Sket Dance being a fun show, I have to admit that it’s one that is sort of on the bubble for me when it comes to continuing it, especially as there are so many shows out there these days. The series is fun and has its moments, and I don’t think it’s one that’ll be licensed anytime soon which makes the simulcasts appealing, but at the same time it’s the kind of show that doesn’t really go anywhere. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The series excels at what it does overall and each week is generally a heck of a lot of fun. And when they do serious material it’s generally with some nice little surprises. We’ve had some good character background episodes so far for these young kids that didn’t feel forced or awkward and some small changes have been put into play as well. But the show just doesn’t demand I keep coming back.
This episode does have some good fun about it though as it deals with a new first year student that has come to the club for some help. Saaya is a cute twin-tailed girl who really does have a bright personality, but she’s the type that’s classified as a tsundere. And that leads to her having a lot of trouble when it comes to boys and she absolutely, positively does not want to be like that. Which is quite nice to see. So what she wants to do is to have the group help her break free of this so she’ll stop being difficult with them. And that puts Bossun to the test as the two have to spend time talking with each other in the club room. Saaya just has a heck of a hard time wit hit since she gets all superior right from the start and it just goes downhill from there. Bossun’s attempts at being bland here are just as comical as it plays out.
Saaya, being a new character, doesn’t get just the first half but also some time in the second half as is the norm for Sket Dance. Upon learning that Captain was the one that suggested the club for Saaya, the pair end up there again but with a twist. Saaya now has in her possession an owl. A very, very cute owl at that. While Switch calls her out for wanting to raise it in the clubroom, noting that she’ll lose interest in a few weeks, things do end up settled in that direction and it makes a kind of cute sense since Bossun’s mask and the groups logo looks like an owl. The fun comes in how they have to work at taking care of the owl, something that Switch keeps making sound like a seriously dangerous situation as he goes on about how owls are, from their attitudes to what they eat.
In Summary:
The introduction of Saaya brings us another cute and fun girl who rubs against people a bit wrong, which is pretty much par for the course for this series. She’s certainly not a bad character but at this stage she doesn’t have all that much personality to her when you get down to it. The first half has its cute moments as it deals with Bossun trying to help her with her personality. The second half is more enjoyable since it’s a bit more out there as the group decides to raise an owl together. An owl that takes to Bossun quite a lot which is utterly adorable to watch, especially after Switch talked up how difficult and dangerous it is to raise owls. It’s a nice episode but there’s not enough here for it to really stand out as a good episode.
Grade: B-
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.
