SKET Dance

No Sket Dance reviews? Hold my Pelolin.

(No Spoilers)

Sket Dance is, in short, peak comedy.

This show was made by one of the students of one of the creators of Gintama (there are crossovers). There aren't many flaws I can think of so I'll list them out here:

• Slow warm-up. The beginning episodes are more buildup, whereas the funniest parts are in the middle and end ones.

• Too short. 77 episodes doesn't feel like enough.

Now, to go on the the good things in the show:

There's action. There's character development. There's romance, depth, and.. surprises. But by far the best thing in this show is just the comedy. I haven't seen anything so hilarious yet. There is also a maid costume, given to males and females alike. There's lots of fourth-wall breaking, deadpan humor, irony, romantic comedy, parody, etc, all kinds. It's ridiculous and well-crafted comedy.

A few arcs also stand out to me as some of the best comedy anime arcs of all time (Genesis Tournament Arc, Saaya's romance, etc).

And as the second best aspect of the show: aside from the comedy, I don't know if I've seen a show in my life as wholesome as this. The bonds created; the friendships; the romances; the characters and their dreams; all of it leaves you with a feeling of Sakura blossoms falling around you. This is probably the biggest difference between this show's and Gintama's humor.

Again (in terms of wholesome arcs this time) this show gives some of the best in anime (Field Trip Arc, etc).

It is also worth mention that this show isn't exclusively comedy, though. When it wants to have something, like action, it does those kinds of scenes very well. It even has a short, sad arc that made me cry for a minute (I don't even cry at anime). But aside from that mini arc, it never gets too serious to the point of pausing the comedic aspect.

We have our main trio, Bossun, Himeko, and Switch. Bossun is the "main character" of the show, but he never gets quite as much screen time as he'd like. Himeko is absolutely adorable: a 'demon princess' with a soft side for anything 'cute'. And Switch is a silly little 'cool, smart guy' with a mysterious past, and the tech expert.

And then there are dozens and dozens more characters, who are all equally well-written. We have:

• the Student Council, a group to rival the Sket Dan (the main trio's group)

• Shinzou, a Samurai in the wrong era

• Yuuki, a ghost-obsessed girl to contrast Switch's technical skills and beliefs

• Momoka, another 'demon princess' who hasn't found her soft side yet, to contrast Himeko

• Tsubaki, a duty-bound Student Council member to contrast our lax main character, Bossun

• Roman, a deredere girl who knows everything that's going on as if it's a manga she writes

• Dante, a melodramatic 'visual kei' style dude, voiced by an actual visual kei band member

• and far too many more to list here.

10/10. Besides the very catchy ost, it is worth note that the OPs and EDs actually parody the ones of some other genre, whether that's Shounen, Music, Drama, or Ecchi (don't worry tho there is almost no Ecchi in the show).

If you're looking for an amazing, decent length comedy anime, I highly recommend this show. I have never wanted a show to go on longer once it ended than Sket Dance.

Edit: I'm reading farther in the manga now, and I will say that the anime is a 10/10 adaption: toning down an extreme scene (body swap arc), improving the atmosphere of some scenes (window neko Tsubaki), keeping the feel of the manga jokes when translating them to anime jokes, and of course, the added music that matches the scenes perfectly.