Basic Story
Taken from Wikipedia:
“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!”
There’s actually a little more to the story than this: one of the Sket-Dan’s more recent friends, Momoka, is a reformed juvenile delinquent, who’s had a previous run-in with the group (Especially with the lone girl of the group, Himeko). However, she & her own little group have had trouble trying to make friends, with the Sket-Dan being the only people to consider them such. So in addition to keeping the club around, there’s another story of forgiveness, acceptance, and friendship. Simple stories like this aren’t quite as popular in more mainstream series, that’s for sure.
Overall Mood
Sket Dance is an anomaly among the sea that is Shonen: the show constantly balances serious, funny, charming, tragic, etc. It does this perfectly without any screwups, and the transition between these various moods is flawless. Even Onihime Has Tears in Her Eyes is a perfect example of this: there are plenty of moods going on, but it doesn’t feel overwhelming in any way because of this. There are plenty of moments where the cast is gut-busting hilarious, but there’s many other scenes where they’re quite serious, and without getting into detail, the final 2 ½ to 4 minutes managed to get me to cry, and was one of my favorite bits in the episode.
Characters
Like with this show/episode’s mood, the cast of Sket Dance is an anomaly: everybody is likable. The good guys are fun to watch, the anti-heroes are interesting, and even the villains (Some of them, at least) are sometimes a little more than what is presented. While the villains take a back seat in this episode, the rest of the cast absolutely shines here. In the end (Without going into detail), the good guys are standing on top, and the anti-heroes were quite humbled. Simply good characters all around!
Animation
For a relatively recent show, the animation of Sket Dance (Including this episode) doesn’t quite look so new. It’s not ugly, oh no: this is a very pleasant-looking show. Everybody looks different from one another, the backgrounds are nice, and every once in a while there’s an interesting visual. Apart from that, this show doesn’t look/feel like something from this decade. It seems like it comes from the late 2000s, but only due to it’s physical features. On the inside, you have one of the more clever Shonen anime to be released in recent years, but a full description will have to be done at a later date.
Other
If there was any flaw with this episode, and the show in general, is that there’s no dub. This was put out back in 2011/2012, and considering how new it is, I would expect it to have gotten picked up by somebody. Sket Dance is popular enough over on Crunchroll, and the reviews for it have been highly praised, so I’m surprised that Funimation hasn’t jumped on the chance to dub it.
Final Opinion & Rating
Even Onihime Has Tears in Her Eyes is an example of how a standard formula can twist things around, and become it’s own creature. All other Shonen series should do well to examine this episode: the story was simple, the characters likable, and the overall vibes that were emanating during the near 21 minutes the episode aired were just perfect. I would sincerely put this episode on a potential “Top 10 Anime Episodes” list, if I ever did so. You are doing yourself a big disservice by not watching this episode, so I enthusiastically encourage you to do so!
Even Onihime Has Tears in Her Eyes gets a 9 out of 10.
Well, this was a quick offering. I hope it wasn’t a terrible review, and hopefully it can tide you over. Genericon is coming up in a couple days, so I’ll have a review for that not too long afterwards. See you soon!
***
Here’s a link to the episode. Give this a go, and I promise you’ll have a good time:
Sket-Dance (Episode 6)
No comments:
Post a Comment