The vice president is on the war path and the Sket Club is directly in his sights.
What They Say:
Tsubaki from the Student Council tells the Sket-dan they’re going to be disbanded. In order to prove the Sket-dan’s effectiveness, Bossun takes on a request to put on a play for a local preschool. But the Student Council also takes on the same request, and the battle is on!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As we saw at the end of the last episode, the student council is on the move within the school and the vice president, Tsubaki, is intending to eliminate all things that don’t actually help improve the school or serve a purpose. With what the Sket Club does, you know they do help and do things, but it’s such a loosely run club that they don’t keep to things like the other clubs do with activity forms and so forth. When Tsubaki lays into Bossun about this, it’s little surprise that he basically explodes on him, though Himeko does her best to try and soothe him down. The whole thing turns into a mess though and the only thing that saves the day is that the Sket Club is asked to help out with something in front of Tsubaki, which just delays the inevitable in Tsubaki’s mind.
What the club gets drawn into is helping out with a preschool play performance which has run into some troubles. They had decided to ask the drama club to help, but they’re deep into their own rehearsals so they can’t join in. Bossun’s keen on doing it though and to help flesh out the cast he brings in several recently characters that we saw them help with their problems recently. What makes this a real problem though is that Tsubaki ends up enlisting the help of the student council to participate in the preschool event as well in order to battle it out with them and to show just how ineffective and useless the Sket Club is. His quest for disbanding them just gets more and more personal as it goes along.
With the Sket Club putting on Snow White and the student council doing Peter Pan, there’s a whole lot of fun had with costumes and setup for it. Tsubaki goes big, talking about lighting rigs and wire settings so they can properly do the aerial work. The Sket side has some fun with cute sets and an approach that is done with humor and excitement. While Bossun may be annoying in some ways, he does make it a fun event. When it comes to the student council, while there is a lot of flash to it with the flying, Tsubaki’s hard nature comes across poorly as Peter Pan himself, though the kids just like the spectacle of it all. Tsubaki is an interesting character to watch because he has that whole sense of right and firm approach to it, but lacks the nuance and compassion to really make it something more. The challenge that forms between the two sides is cutely played out here at the end when both put on their performances, though of course it’s very abridged for the viewer – and for preschool kids.
In Summary:
Sket Dance works through the basics here in a predictable way that shouldn’t surprise anyone as they fight for their clubs life as Tsubaki wants it closed. That it comes down to dealing with a preschool audience isn’t a big deal since it allows for some cute and mildly emotional moments, but it is made clear to Tsubaki why the club thrives as it does as they understand their audience and the people that come to them. Tsubaki is someone that you can see becoming a foil easily in future episodes and an expansion on the school with the student council should offer them up some additional story ideas as it progresses. I’m still entirely sure what to think of Sket Dance as it comes across as enjoyable fun, but mostly fluff. It’s a show that I don’t want to see larger and more involved stories for, but it’s also one that I can’t get hugely enthused about because it is episodic. It’s playing to those strengths, and I can appreciate it and enjoy it, but I can’t get enthusiastic about it. It’s a pleasant show to pass the time with.
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.
