Story- 8
The "SKET-dan" (Support, Kindness, Encouragement, and Troubleshoot club) spends its days lounging around in the club-room, waiting for someone to knock on the door and ask for help.
The show takes an episodic, self-contained, approach to most of its episodes, which does not give it much in the way of an overarching plot. What this does add is a much needed change-of-pace each episode, as the contents are varied and never become stale.
When the show decides to dig deeper, it presents us with story arcs. each arc taking a few episodes and following one plot-line in depth. Here we see the show shine, as the plot in these episodes explores the characters in various ways: back-story, relationships and so on.
Art- 7
The animation and artwork in the show are quite good. With drawn out movement and exaggerated expressions, there is not one a dull moment or lapse in the quality of the animation through the entire series.
That said, there is no moment when the animation truly takes a turn for the breathtaking. It is clean and watchable, but not amazing.
Sound- 6
Like the art, there are no noticeable problems with the sound in the show. It lends itself solidly to the atmosphere, but there was no part in the show when I could say that I stopped and listened to a certain track or theme. It was OK, but not memorable in any specific way.
Character- 9
This is where the show truly shines. Although the show has a very large and assorted cast of characters, the show makes a point to highlight the various quirks of each character. This in turn makes the characters so memorable that even after a character vanishes for a while I was still able to remember them on their return.
Special mention goes to the three main characters. While at first appearing to be just quirks hiding behind the title of main character, over the course of the show they come to life before your eyes. By the end of the show, I really grew attached to them.
Enjoyment- 8
My enjoyment of this series was hampered slightly by the fact that I tend to have trouble coping with shows that do not have a steady plot-line. This happened 3 times over the course of the 77 episodes of SKET dance.
Despite this, every time I came back to the show, I kept wondering: why did I stop in the first place? This was a show that, despite being longer than usual and episodic, managed to welcome me back in every time I tried it again.
Be it the characters or the story, there was something that kept pulling me back to the show. This is a show that draws you in and does its best not to let you go.
