SKET Dance

So, who's watching this show? At first I was a little sceptical; I heard 'Group of odd teenagers who've formed their own club to help people' and immediately thought of the show as a poor man's SOS-Dan, but that's thankfully not the case. So far it's made a very good impression on me.

How about you, fellow tropers? What do you all think?

Ehh... seemed kind of a typical "promote good values in the youth" type first episode.

It has the potential to Grow the Beard , but right now it's B- to C+ material.

The first episode was not at all interesting.

I liked it well enough. It's probably going to end up in the "It was okay" category of this season's shows, but it's good enough that I'm planning on watching another couple episodes at least...

I certainly started to like the first episode a lot better when it became clear that the newbie point-of-view character would be a lot less prominent in the future. I just loathed the dude.

The show itself isn't much special yet, although it does have the awesomeness of Switch.

I liked the first episode. I'm still doubtful I'll end up watching it all the way through, though.

I kinda figured that the transfer student... what was his name, Teppei?... would join, since I didn't remember him from any of the promotional material. Anyway, I have to say that this show's certainly given me the best first impression of the Spring shows I've seen so far, with Nichijou close behind. The bit with Switch sending mail to Yuusuke had me literally laughing out loud.

I'm surprised this group didn't mention where the name of the show comes from. 'ssu' is a contraction of 'desu', so 'SKET-Dan 'ssu' becomes 'SKET Dance', it seems.

The Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe in the next episode is going to be painful, though. I can already tell.

edited 10th Apr '11 12:23:49 PM by RedSavant

Didn't like the character designs or the writing much. Overall it felt very average, and the set-up is a pretty common one too. I mean the whole "club that helps people with their personal problems one at a time" set-up. None of the characters seem to have much depth beyond their gimmicks, and it's not that funny either.

I'll give it a few episodes, but I'm not expecting much.

edited 11th Apr '11 2:49:50 AM by Clarste

Yeah, doesn't look too great. The protagonists are annoying and talk way too fast, and they are too perfect in carrying out the club's goals to be identifiable. They are nearly superhuman. And what's with the blaring rock music in the score?

It has the potential to become better the more it airs, but my hopes for an anime season doing that is usually met with epically failed results.

I used to read some of the manga, but I couldn't bring myself to like it. It's like this weird mixture of light-heartedness and hard drama, and they kind of cancel each other out? For example, you eventually find out that all of the three main character's trademark shticks actually originate in some deep rooted psychological trauma, and those do not get a resolution anywhere in the story either. In your average set-up the weird antics would serve that the heroic group of misfits eventually grow on the reader and that you learn to see past them and see how they balance out with the better parts of their personality, but here when a character's acting weird you are not sure if you shouldn't be feeling sorry for them instead. Switch's silent act and Bossun's eccentricity come accross as actual brokenness that just scream for therapeutic help after a while, and that kinda ruined things for me.(If the story had explored that angle deeper it would have been a different case, but it killed any chance of the light hearted tone it is pushing elsewhere succeeding for me.)

I understand that this manga is dubbed by fans and critics alike as a poor man's Gintama, and in many ways I agree. However, that can sometimes be an unfair comparison given that they both tackle the deconstruction theme quite differently. Gintama is straight up lampshading/lampooning and is more appreciated by hardcore otaku, while Sket Dance is straight up Shonen Action Comedy that just happens to have a similar gimmick. However, it is exactly the latter's tendency to stray into conventional Shonen Action Comedy waters that makes it accessible to younger otaku. Sket Dance is confident in it's ability to tell a story on it's own without having to rely on too much parody, hence the regular drama and shonen romance story threads.

It should be noted, however, that many of the gags can be repetitive, hence predictable. The storyline arcs also tend to fall into the genre traps that it so proudly makes fun, leading to tragically unintentional genre blindness for both the Sket Trio and even the mangaka.

But for all its flaws, taken as a stand alone manga, it is VERY entertaining and even the used gags can still induce laughs. The abrupt drama breaks, taken in context, also give this otherwise lighthearted sketch story an unexpected depth, and makes the characters more relate-able to its readers.

I chuckled a few times during episode 2, but I dunno if I will continue watching. One more episode, and then I'll see. I think the whole "random hijinks and over the top crazy stuff" isn't quite enough to make me really like this series.

Has everyone dropped this...?

I'm actually thinking I will also...though it's not outright bad or anything, I've just been having trouble getting interested in this show, plus I'm trying to watch too many other shows at the same time.

Switch is the best character, although that's partially because of Tomokazu Sugita.

The jokes are really good, and the fourth wall breaking is pretty funny, but the thing is that it's main story isn't that entertaining, and I have a hard time getting any interest in the characters, and since this isn't a pure comedy show, the funny parts aren't enough.

Still, I'll keep with it until the end, but I know it isn't something that will be memorable.

I just caught up. I don't see why people don't like this; I think it's pretty hilarious.

It relies a bit too much on the "people shouting all the time = instant funny !" shounen humour trope (the second episode was particularly annoying in that regard), and there are some running jokes that just aren't funny (like Bossun barfing repeatedly from Himeko's lollipops).

Also, it doesn't seem to have any actual plot so far, so it's fairly easy to drop if you get bored of it.

"Jeez, the characters in this series are so old school."

• snerch*

Best episode yet.

At least the fist part, yeah.

True. The second part was still good, but the first part was mostly what I was thinking of when I said that.

Episode 3 was quite good. Nothing spectacular, but entertaining enough to justify half an hour of time. =) Episode 4's first half was also good; the second one was a little 'meh', but overall SKET Dance remains worth watching. Nichijou had a bit of a slump this week too, oddly.

Though, it is telling that there's been an average of five posts per week for this thread, I suppose...

A new challenger appears! The Student Council seem too likeable to really count as villains, but I imagine they'll be our primary antagonists in any case.

Roman continues to make everything better.

Ah, the manga is great, but it starts kinda slow. The anime has yet to reach the really awesome chapters, and unfortunately, ten billions people have dropped it already. Well, it's their loss, imho.

So i started watching this series. Just finished episode 9.

Now, it's rare that i lol nowadays. Occasionally, you'll get a chuckle out of me. Usually a a couple of smirks is the best a Gag Series can get. Laughing out loud is usually only something i'll do when the funniest part of a full-length comedy film comes around. It's very comforting when i laugh like that, really. Makes me feel warm. But it almost never happens.

All throughout episode 9 of SKET Dance i was laughing. Not just mild ha-has. I was teary eyed, my sides hurt and it was all i could do to stop myself from falling off my chair and rolling on the floor.

I really like this show.