The Academy SKETs

 (学園のSKET達, Gakuen no SKET-tachi) is the 1st episode of the Sket Dance anime.

Summary
When a new student named Teppei transfer to Kaimei High school, Bossun and the gang try their best to recruit Teppei by showing him the ropes. Then, the Sket Dan gets a request to stop a masked man from vandalizing school property.

Will the Sket Dan solve this case?

Plot
A boy watches as a blonde girl with a field hockey stick, a boy with a strange hat and a boy carrying a laptop break down the doors to an equipment storage shed. As the girl fights against a large-set boy who wields an iron pole, the first boy muses on how though spring is meant to bring hope and new encounters, instead what awaited him was the first tempest of the year.

Rewind to a few days earlier, where the same boy stands in school uniform gazing up at a school building. In the 2-C classroom, he is introduced as Teppei Sugihara, a transfer student. When lunchtime comes, he steps outside the classroom and a blonde girl suddenly races down the hallway toward him, shouting for help. She is being chased by a boy wearing a fake mustache and carrying a laptop, who appears soon after, and soon they are also joined by a boy in a strange hat. He and the girl grab Teppei and race him down the nearby stairs and through the hallways, the other boy following while making chase scene sound effects. Ultimately, the group end up at the school store only to find a crowd of students at the sales window, trying to buy lunch. The boy in the hat suggests that Teppei eat lunch with him and the other two in their clubroom, and Teppei narrates that the trio are his classmates and had apparently started a new club recently.

The foursome walk across campus and Teppei learns that the club in question is the "Academy Activity Support Club", called Sket Dan for short. The girl and the boy in the hat proceed to argue back and forth about how and why the rest of the school considers the club a joke, a conversation which the boy with the laptop claims is normal for them. Upon arriving at the Sket Dan Clubroom, the members of the club introduce themselves. The girl is Hime Onizuka, nicknamed Himeko, who claims to be as harmless as a hamster despite having had a "mischievous phase" in the past. This proves completely untrue, as she attacks the other two club members when they comment about her violent nature. The boy with the laptop is Kazuyoshi Usui, nicknamed Switch, who opts to speak using a voice synthesis software and is excellent at digging up information. Finally, the boy with the hat is Yūsuke Fujisaki, nicknamed Bossun, and is the club's founder and leader. Just as Teppei inwardly expresses relief that the trio didn't pressure him into joining their club, they surround him and try just that. He is ultimately saved by Switch receiving an e-mail with a tip about an incident the club has been investigating, and the trio run off to follow up on it.

The next day, the trio approach Teppei during lunchtime again but he quickly brushes them off and flees, leaving Himeko and Switch to blame Bossun for it. Later, Teppei wanders the school grounds looking over information on sports clubs. He overhears two boys grumbling over having to clean up paint-graffiti on the side of the gymnasium, blaming the Sket Dan for having ratted them out. The larger boy spots Teppei peeking at them, and after the latter runs off, learns Teppei's name from his friend and acts as if it were familiar. A short time afterward, the Sket Dan trio lounge around in their clubroom, Bossun complaining about wanting someone to turn up covered in blood asking for help, to relieve the boredom. Just as he says that, the door slides open to reveal Teppei covered in red paint, asking for help. He explains how he had been watching koi fish in the school pond when someone in a mask spilled a bucket of paint on his head from a classroom window. The Sket Dan decide to investigate and begin questioning students in the vicinity of the pond. They learn that a troublemaker named Jōgasaki had been cleaning up paint-graffiti recently, and he becomes their prime suspect. They commence tailing him, unsuccessfully, and Bossun has a run-in with the Paint-Mask culprit, who nearly covers the former in paint. After Switch gathers some information on Jōgasaki, the trio and Teppei regroup at the clubroom to come up with a plan.

Bossun stands alone in the middle of the courtyard and the culprit starts to approach him with a bucket of paint. However, Bossun reveals he is not alone after all - as Himeko leaps from the bushes and immobilizes the culprit, who is revealed to have been Teppei all along. Bossun explains how he had reached that conclusion, and Switch appears to add that he had found out about Teppei having been bullied by Jōgasaki during their grade school years. Teppei breaks down in tears over not being able to stand up to the likes of Jōgasaki, and Bossun snatches up the paint can to dump the contents on his own head. He shouts that he will always help a friend in need, and getting doused in paint is a small price to pay to help someone. Realizing that Jōgasaki has been watching the whole time, they figure out he must be hidden in the nearby equipment storage shed and Himeko races over to kick the door down. What commences is the scene from the very beginning of the episode, though it is revealed that Himeko did all of the fighting. Bossun and Switch merely stood at the doorway making poses and sound effects.

The following day, Bossun grumbles in the clubroom about Teppei having joined the basketball club. Switch mentions having received a new e-mail request to help repair an equipment storage shed. In the gymnasium, Teppei's teammates question him about the odd wristband he's wearing, which sports the Sket Dan's logo. He states that it was given to him as a proof of friendship. Elsewhere, a dark-haired boy slides open a door and addresses the messy-haired boy seated within as "president." The president asks if the former has heard of the Sket Dan, while smiling evilly. Back at the equipment storage shed, Himeko and Bossun realize that the request was to help fix the shed they had destroyed. The elderly man crouched in front of the shed thanks them for coming to help.

Gallery
Check out the episode's image gallery!

Cast & Credits

 * Hiroyuki Yoshino: Yūsuke Fujisaki (Bossun)
 * Ryōko Shiraishi: Hime Onizuka (Himeko)
 * Tomokazu Sugita: Kazuyoshi Usui (Switch)
 * Jōji Nakata: Tetsuji Chūma
 * Tomokazu Seki: Sōjirō Agata
 * Hiro Shimono: Sasuke Tsubaki
 * Daisuke Sakaguchi: Teppei Sugihara
 * Kentarō Itō: Mitsuru Jōgasaki
 * Kazuyoshi Hosoya: Saburō
 * Yūichi Iguchi: Masatoshi Kosaka
 * Hiro Nakajima: Yumi
 * Daisuke Matsuo: Yoshimura (janitor)

Manga and Anime Differences

 * In the manga, when Teppei is first introduced to the class, he is startled by the evil grins he receives from the Sket Dan members, who all sit in the same row.
 * The Sket Dan's attempted recruitment performance occurs in a full classroom in the manga, but in an empty hallway in the anime.
 * In the manga, Tsubaki and Agata don't appear until chapter 10.
 * In the manga, all three members of the Sket Dan make commentary about Masatoshi's dating habits, whereas in the anime only Switch does.