Sket Dance – 37

After defeating Arisa’s gang, Himeko gains reknown and more roughs challenge her. As she wastes them all, fear of her grows, but they keep coming, so she moves to a new school. Even there the rumor exists, but no one knows what Onihime looks like. Here she meets both softball captain Chiaki and Fujisaki, who is interested in her Popman cap. She is loath to make friends after how Arisa betrayed her. When Chiaki is cornered by punks, Fujisaki convinces Himeko to join him to save her. Himeko beats him there, but runs into trouble, Fujisaki saves her, and she is revealed as the Onihime of the rumors. Chiaki and Fujisaki don’t care though; they want to be her friends, and the Fujisaki wants her to join the club he’s starting…

The usual shallow silliness of Sket Dance has periodically been given much-appreciated dramatic heft with serious arcs, and this story of how Himeko and Bossun became friends is one of the best. The birth of said friendship was a rough one, frought by Himeko’s reluctance to form any friends at her new school; preferring lonliness to infamy. Her first impression of Fujisaki isn’t so great; the guy is a Popman otaku and really annoying to boot, but once he shows his true, noble colors to her, Himeko can’t refuse his offer of friendship.

Now, whenever I see the two bickering about some innane thing, I’ll remember the depth of their bond forged in this episode. It’s interesting how neither Bossun or Switch were actually her first friends at school. Chiaki isn’t someone we’ve seen a lot of, but she had a nice supporting role this week, and she exhibited good chemistry with the two Sket-dan members. Switch’s brother has a cameo, and we even return to the present, where Arisa meets Himeko to prostrate herself. Showing how she’s grown, Hime forgives her for her past transgression, terrible though it was.

Rating: 4

Sket Dance 5

This week introduced a whole slew of characters, including acquaintances of Switch neither Bossun nor Orihime knew existed. Obviously to be as good at information gathering as he is, he must have a host of connections amongst a diverse array of student types. Among them include the newspaper editor, Shimada, and a Sadako-lookalike and occult enthusiast, Yuuko. Sket-dan’s mission is to uncover the mystery of a ghost, but they (being Bossun and Switch; Himeko doesn’t really do anything) discover that there is no ghost, only a ploy by Shimada to manufacture a scoop, for which she is repentant.

Bookending this story are the exploits of the Student Council, a very disciplined and well-organized one at that, engineering their own ploy that ends in the successful apprehension of a blackmailing gang preying on students, the council’s charge. While on the surface they don’t seem to be quite as entertaining a group as Sket-dan, they do lend the all-important rival authority to the series, as well as add even more variety to a cast stocked with oddballs. Their inevitable clash with Sket-dan – two thirds of whom flaunt the dress code with impugnity – should be interesting. Rating: 3.5