SKET Dance – Episode 23

Last time on SKET Dance the SKET-dan taught a young child about the joys of baseball, forever corrupting his young mind.  It’s not a good sport!  80-90% of the players are irrelevant at any given time.  It’s not a team game, it’s a series of individual games that are aggregated together.  And these games are run in series, so you spend most of your time sitting on a bench or standing in a field or fantasizing to yourself about stealing home (but you never actually get the signal), or whatever, and only spend a little bit of the time playing.  Unless you’re a pitcher, pitchers make out like relative bandits.  Let’s hope the SKET-dan gets involved in some better games in episode 23 of SKET Dance; at this point I would settle for Genesis.

…thirty minutes pass…

SKET Dance – Episode 22

The last episode of SKET Dance was all about Switch. And I’m fine with that, Switch is awesome after all, but they keep teasing me with the Bossun/Himeko romance stuff, so I’m hoping that immediately after a Switch-focused episode we’ll get an episode focused on the two of them, where they finally admit their feelings for one another.  They managed to cut through the romantic tension in Hanasaku Iroha, and they’ll probably be cutting through it in BakaTest next episode, so I have high hopes that these successes can be replicated in episode 22 of SKET Dance.

…thirty minutes pass…

SKET Dance – Episode 21

Last time on SKET Dance the members of the SKET-dan went on dates, unfortunately not with each other.  Hanasaku Iroha is finally resolving some of its romantic tension, why can’t SKET Dance?  Because Hanasaku Iroha is much more drama-oriented than SKET Dance, which is pretty much a straight comedy.  Everything has to be played for laughs with the SKET-dan, and romance is Serious Business.  This is why you never see movies and TV shows billed as “romantic comedies”, for example.  Anyway, I’m looking forward to everything being taken lightly and nobody falling too deeply in love in episode 21 of SKET Dance.

…thirty minutes pass…

SKET Dance – Episode 20

Last time on SKET Dance some pretty irrelevant stuff happened.  It’s probably too early for SKET Dance to be starting their season finale story arc, but probably too late for them to start a different story arc and still have time for a season finale arc, so let’s sit back and enjoy more irrelevant stuff happening in episode 20 of SKET Dance.

…thirty minutes pass…

What I Watched On My Summer Vacation

I’m heading back home tomorrow morning, so I hope to be back to my regular somewhat-irregular anime blogging schedule then.  I have watched some episodes of currently airing anime while I’ve been here, so here are some brief thoughts on them, almost twitter-style.

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Episodes 5 +6:  Funny enough.  The jokes about how the girls dominate and beat up the boys for perceived infractions are starting to grow a little repetitive, though.  It was fine when it was just Shouko, that was sort of her gimmick, but it’s getting old.  And I dunno that I’m really looking forward to the rest of this arc, the whole “track down the secret blackmailer” hook never really took with me to begin with.

Hanasaku Iroha Episode 19: Cute!  We got lots of Minchi, and even some Yuina.  I’m always in favor of seeing Ohana’s school life, too.  And it looks like we’re headed toward some sort of resolution on the Tohru/Minchi/Ohana love triangle maybe?  I know I’ve said that before.

Mawaru Penguindrum Episode 5: I still don’t understand what this show is trying to do.  Maybe it’s trying to deconstruct a genre I’ve never watched and so has never been constructed for me in the first place.  I thought Ringo was a murderer from last episode, but she seems unwilling to murder in this one, so I dunno what’s going on.  It’s starting to look like they may eventually tell me?

SKET Dance Episode 19: Quick fun double feature.  I never have anything to say about SKET Dance so I’ll use this as an excuse not to say anything.

Steins;Gate Episodes 19 + 20: Things have gotten serious again, it was almost in the “horror” genre the way everybody was treating poor Moeka.  I’m surprised that recovering the computer wasn’t enough: why can’t they just give it to John Titor and let her do the stuff she was gonna do with it?  You’re so obsessed with returning to the Alpha timeline, why not create a new Gamma timeline where nobody has to die?  Maybe it’s because Makise Kurisu is a CERN spy after all, and we can never be free so long as she lives? BTW I totally called the identity of FB right the first moment his name was mentioned.

Usagi Drop Episode 6: Yep, Rin’s a cute kid.  It’s nice that we have issues of ownership squared away so now Daikichi and Rin can just hang out doing cute slice of life stuff, at least until the next crisis arises.

SKET Dance – Episode 18

I kind of feel like SKET Dance has been in a slump since the Summer season started.  I’m trying to remember the last episode where I thought, “yeah, that was a really good ep!”.  I guess the second episode in the competition arc counts, but that was way back at episode 12, and so not part of summer at all.  I had heard the manga got better in later chapters, but maybe this isn’t late enough.  Let’s see how late episode 18 of SKET Dance is.

…thirty minutes pass…

SKET Dance – Episode 17

Last time on SKET Dance, the various members of the SKET-dan had split up to join various competing student bands to face one another at their high-school music festival.  Can their friendship survive acting as rivals to one another?  Probably.  They seem like pretty good friends.  I’d be more worried about that violinist chick that Bossun was flirting with last episode. He and Onihime are not officially “an item”, but it seems like she still might see it as a betrayal.  Then again, she has her own problems to worry about I guess?  The cliffhanger last ep was, something happened regarding her band.  Let’s find out what happened regarding her band in episode 17 of SKET Dance.

…thirty minutes pass…

SKET Dance – Episode 16

I was excited at the start of Summer to discover that SKET Dance was continuing, but I don’t feel like my excitement has been justified by the quality of episodes that have come out since then.  The show has always been a little inconsistent with regards to quality, so let’s hope they shake themselves out of their slump.  Giving me lots of Switch-centric episodes would help.  Or any sort of character-centric episodes, really.  The show is better when it focuses on its main characters rather than whatever the latest wacky guy with a wacky problem that needs a wacky solution is.  The SKET-dan is the famous school support club, but can they support… each other?  Let’s hope to find out in episode 16 of SKET Dance.

…thirty minutes pass…

SKET Dance – Episode 15

SKET Dance is a show about a school club that helps people. They have wacky adventures and learn valuable lessons in re: friendship. Let’s watch episode 15 of SKET Dance.

…thirty minutes pass…

SKET Dance – Episode 14

The last arc in SKET Dance was the longest continuous arc we’ve had, at  a whopping three episodes.  Feels a little sad to leave it behind and go back to having nothing to say in my episode preambles.  Let’s hope for another titanic battle between good and evil to begin in SKET Dance episode 14.

…thirty minutes pass…