Sket Dance, meaning "helpers club" ("助人団"; "Suketto Dan") follows the highschool lives of a trio of friends with what could be described as depressing backgrounds that form the club "Sket Dance" which aims to help any academy member in need. They grow strong bonds with a good bunch of the town that they live in as they go through their daily lives. Sket Dance is a comedy that follows the "recipe" of fellow comedy Gin Tama along with quite a few voice actors, they even did a crossover episode!
Plot 8/10:
Nice little story going on here, the anime itself doesn't actually start and finish with the manga as it is ongoing, though I do feel like it stopped at a good time. We have our group in the "Skettu Dan" working towards the problems brought to them by fellow members of the school, some sort of contest against the notorious members of the school counsil, and interactions with recurring classmates and teachers as thus. Even though Sket Dance follows this episodic formula, it doesn't leave us without character and story progression, it may be slow but there is things going on in the background to leave you a little teary from either sadness or laughing a little too hard.
Animation 7/10
We do see a newer form of artwork in place with some unique character design. Fan service is minimal but certainly still there as you would expect from a school setting anime. The artwork put in place does a fairly good job to enhance situations going on to set the mood of what could be very funny or very gloomy.
We also see some pretty cool action themes!
Sound 6/10:
As the students actually partake in forms of music from time to time we do see quite the variation in sound used, jRock is seen at times along with some heart-warming ballads during the OT's, ET's and throughout what were some very gloomy scenes. There was also no shortage of OST's to get us through the more important themes, a little jig to get through the humorous content or a low-key piano piece as a character gets through a sudden heart felt realisation.
Character 9/10:
The characters themselves progress at a very alarming rate, that is, all except for our main characters in the Sket Dan. Through helping others out they sure do define themselves as above saving so to speak, though this is not without conquest... they sure have their own hearts.
These students all have their own lovable stories, some of them will surely bring anyone with a soul to tears and some will have you just about punching through your tv screen (and a few walls), we see strong relationships which will seemingly last to the grave and others which are surely temporary for the comedic intent.
Overall 8/10:
If comedy is something that is up your alley and you did enjoy Gintama then surely give this one a shot, not without some tears Sket Dance is to be taken seriously as a fully fledged Shonen!
