Himeko and Bossun spend far, far too much time together…
What They Say:
After a bit of horsing around, Himeko accidentally breaks Bossun’s fingers and wrist. To pay him back Bossun makes Himeko sign a contract making her his servant! But having Himeko as a maid isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Meanwhile, Jin is back trying to woo Himeko, but when he comes to observe the Sket-dan’s activities, all he can see is a loving, bickering couple!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
If there’s one thing that teenagers do that invariably get them into trouble, it’s fooling around while trying to show off or have fun. Such is the case at the beginning here when Himeko is showing off to Bossun some of the weird physical tricks she can do with her wrist and fingers that kind of amuses her but leaves him wondering why she’s wasting his time. Of course, things get a bit more physical, not in that way!, and before you know it you have Bossun in a cast with a couple of broken fingers that he can’t use for awhile. It’s cute how Bossun plays it up enough by going on about how someone was fooling around and caused him great pain.
What makes it fun beyond that though is that he ends up getting her to sign a short term contract where she’ll become his servant to help him take care of the things he can’t do because of the injury. Of course, he’s a guy, so he takes it further than might be acceptable in reality by having her wear a maid uniform and be pretty subservient to him. Himeko was certainly feeling bad to begin with when it came to what happened, but he keeps pushing and pushing, especially when he starts to show her off around the school to others in the supporting cast. You know Himeko’s good for only so much before she acts out, which is also expected since there’s only so many ways to deal with Bossun when he acts like a kid, which is fairly often and fun.
The second half of the episode is a bit more understated but it continues to focus on Himeko as the primary character as she’s getting herself into another situation. Considering her overall appeal but also her personality, it’s not a surprise that there are guys interested in her but unable to try and pursue her because of how outgoing she is. That becomes part of the problem as Jin does manage to ask her out and express his interest in her, but he’s stymied by the relationship that Bossun and Himeko has, going so far at one point to call the two of them an old married couple. Which they certainly do seem like with how they act together. There’s some cute and accurate accusations that fly and hit their targets pretty well and it’s a mild but silly kind of spot of fun that unfolds.
In Summary:
Sket Dance has a decent but mildly underwhelming episode here as Himeko and Bossun’s relationship is put to the test in a couple of ways. While there’s plenty of opportunity and potential for a relationship between the two of them that’s more than friends, it’s also very easy to see that they’re likely to be better at being friends more than anything else. It’s usually easy to put people into relationships in various things like anime, manga and comics, but the further along that Sket Dance goes, the more I don’t want to see them pair up as anything more than friends. They’re fun when they play off of each other and there are many times where it feels like they’re better off just playing up the potential for a relationship more than anything else. The two stories here definitely have their fun moments but it’s not as strong as it could be, but also welcome that it’s a bit mellow after some of the recent stories that we’ve had.
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.
