Teenage drama, in mellow form, plays out as Captain returns to the show for an episode.
What They Say:
Captain comes to the Sket-dan with another request: Search for a can of candy drops that was thrown into the bushes. The Sket-dan does everything they can to help her find it, but what’s so important about some can of candy, anyway?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One of the things that I do find fun with the growing cast of characters in the series is that sometimes they come back in interesting ways, even if just briefly. Such as the start of this episode where the gang finds that their club room has been co-opted as a science room storage location for the moment. With the teacher just telling them to deal with it for the moment, it’s a touch difficult since there’s some pretty dangerous chemicals in there and even he’s ready to cause the whole place to blow without thinking about it. It’s a nice little bit of interaction that changes things up just a little for the moment. What gets the episode really going through is that Captain returns to the main stage as she needs the club’s help with finding something.
And that something is the wonderful visage of a candy tin of fruit drops that instantly brings back memories of Grave of the Fireflies for me. The hunt for the tin that’s been lost is important to her since it was something that belonged to a friend named Akina she made early on in her recent school career and has been part of their relationship ever since as it has various meanings along the way. Their friendship recently went through a tough time because of a boy, something Captain wasn’t even aware of, and it caused her friend to chuck the can out the window. They do a nice job of showing how their relationship went south because of that and how Captain eventually figured that if she could find the tin, she could rebuild the relationship somehow.
When the truth of the matter is revealed to Captain about Akina and her feelings for Misato that went awry because of the complication that Captain threw into the mix without realizing it, it just redoubles her efforts to find the tin and to try and set things right. The show plays to a pretty mellow atmosphere overall which definitely fits for Captain and with a lot of it dealing with heavy rains and an overcast atmosphere, it provides the right mood to deal with a bit of teenage angst that doesn’t go over the top and lets the Sket Club play the right role of being involved and helpful without dominating. They can completely get behind Captain with this and because of her own personality, they’re able to through some big jobs to get it done.
In Summary:
Sket Dance has a pretty good if mellow episode overall here with a problem in a friendship is well dealt with. It’s standard school fare to be sure when dealing with supporting cast members and is definitely more enjoyable than an overdone story involving one of the leads potentially moving away. The earnest nature of the Sket Club is a big selling point but a lot of it is also just watching the story between Captain and Akina as the two show some good friendship in the short time we see them like this and how they’ve dealt with the trouble between them, including plenty of residual feelings as well. It definitely makes both girls as fleshed out as you could in such a short time and you almost want to follow more of them and their simple but heartwarming stories.
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.
