You'd think a psychic would have seen this coming.

What They Say:
When Yuuki falls under the influence of a seemingly scamming celebrity psychic, it's the Sket-dan to the rescue! But to take down the fraudulent fortune teller, they'll have to head to her home turf, at a seminar in front of hundreds of true believers.

The Review:
Sket Dance had some cute moments in the previous episode but it's the kind where once it introduced Dante, my interest went down a fair bit. Combine his nature with someone almost as shy as him in a way and it just makes it all worse, even as the new character was kind of an interesting change to things. With this episode, Sket Dance works off in a different direction which is welcome as Himeko gets caught up in some phone based horoscope things that are going on. Such things aren't a surprise as they've been in manga and anime for years, especially since Japan adopted a cell phone culture far more quickly than elsewhere in the world, so seeing them bring things like this as a part of it was never a surprise, nor that it would shift up in use over the years as well.

Amusingly, that's the launching point here but there's also a group within the school that is operating its own fortune telling gig and the groups friend Yuuki has been drawn into it in a big way. You pretty much just have to think brainwashing at first when you see what's happened to Yuuki and how into it she's gotten, completely with crystal ball. When they discover that she's actually being manipulated by someone further up the food chain, a "celebrity" level psychic named Himiko, the gang works to try and take her down by getting her to stop forcing Yuuki to do these things. Of course, an older woman with a powerful business under her doesn't cave so easily and that pushes things into a different kind of confrontation between the two groups.

The push to discover the fraud that Himiko is causing with her job as a celebrity psychic is one that has its moments but it all goes too big because, well, it has to. With her being a person of fame, something the group has not had to deal with, they end up having to show her up in public in front of a good number of admirers and supporters in order to expose her. And of course they do so in pretty standard form because of their tenacity and Switch's intelligence, but the whole thing just feels terribly, terribly weak. They do bring in more of the cast for the bigger reveals towards the end, which are patently obvious since the show has set out with an agenda, but this is the kind of story that feels like it just shouldn't have been made or used an adult in this way as it shifts the tone of the show.

In Summary:
While the idea of Yuuki going into the world of fortune telling makes sense based on her personality and interests, the episode goes in an unwanted direction and puts the kids on a path that feels very out of place for them. Their interactions over the course of the series has had very little to do with adults and especially those in any real power. Not that Himiko has "power" in the larger sense, but the area she operates out of certainly has influence and she uses it to her advantage. Pitting the kids against the adult is a standard gimmick but here the whole thing just feels so after school gimmicky and simplistic that you just zone out because it was obvious from very early on where it was going to go once it made its way out of the school setting.

Grade: C