The mind switch continues but not without Saaya getting far more involved than one might expect.
What They Say:
In the conclusion of the mind-switching school trip arc, will Saaya get answers at last about Bossun and Himeko? Will Bossun and Himeko get their own minds back? And in a bonus story, Bossun and company are recast as loser adventurers in the fantasy game world of… Quest Dance.
The Review:
While it’s a cheap gimmick, I do admit a certain love for mind/body switching stories since they can just be a lot of fun if well executed. Sket Dance has done decently with theirs so far as Bossun and Himeko have gotten switched around and there’s certain issues to be had with how they treat each other in general. With them waiting until things can be resolved, they have to go about the trip as normal. They do skip a lot of the normal fun you can have with things like where they sleep, clothes and so forth and instead just deal with the character issues themselves. And a lot of what we get here is also using Saaya as a viewpoint as she continues to be interested in Bossun but is trying to figure out the relationship between him and Himeko, which is certainly even worse at the moment.
Not that the show wants to deal with this for awhile as it instead lets us focus on Switch and some of the others for awhile, though it does play to some of what Saaya is interested in finding out about. It deals with small gags with the supporting cast and Switch inside the resort where they get into some silly situations but it’s all pretty simplistic and mindless, leaving little in the way of an impact. The real fun comes when Saaya approaches Bossun about things, trying to not be tsundere as she says clearly, and certainly not realizing that it’s Himeko in Bossun’s body. She wants to know the truth of their relationship and this really puts Himeko in an awkward spot in that it gets her to really ask the question as well about how Bossun feels about her.
There’s a lot to like with the way the whole dialogue gets underway in some form here as Bossun and Himeko get to talk things out about Saaya and their relationship, something that has certainly been under the surface for ages. Getting them to actually say something, or for Himeko to at least confront it on some level, is quite welcome. Doing it while in each others bodies is obviously corny and silly, but it’s the only way a conversation like this will happen in a series like this. And as they do discuss it and end up putting things off as they can as the series must go on, it just reinforces that I’m far more in favor of a Bossun/Saaya relationship than anything else. Of course, we also get the body switching issue resolved at the end of the story with a bit of silly fun too, but that’s just a bullet point really.
In Summary:
Sket Dance plays most of the episode, without an opening and ending no less, to give this part of the story the main focus. It’s decently done and sets a few things in motion that can be dealt with later and hopefully are in some form. I liked the discussions that are had throughout and the actual push to reveal things on some level. The show also knows that it can’t end on such a heavy dialogue and emotional note, so we get a few minutes of Quest Dance, an RPG form of the series done for a bit where they all take up typical roles and play out the game. It’s definitely cute and fun and a nice diversion, especially since it puts them all in different costumes for awhile and just intends to be silly. Bossun even makes out with an appropriate hat for the event. It’s fluff, pure and simple, but it’s fun fluff and definitely the way to cap off this arc.
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.