Nine Spiral: Gackt Played By Gackt

I don’t make it a part of my typical routine to look at Sket Dance, but when I heard Gackt was going to grace the show’s 15th episode with his melodious voice, I made sure to check it out. When reading up on the role that Gackt was to play, I found out that the character is actually an homage to Gackt in his Malice Mizer days.

For those who don’t know Gackt’s history, Malice Mizer was a goth/visual-kei band during the 90s. The image currently associated with Gackt is somewhat far from that gothic period in his career. Although, he is still as eccentric as ever, which is why he was more than happy to voice a parody of himself.

Date is a high schooler who is obsessed with the visual-kei lifestyle, and he comes to the Sket Dan for help with a problem. When we first meet him, he is standing in a very peculiar pose, highlighting his desire to come across as odd to others, and as the Sket Dan try to figure out what his problem is (and what his problem is), things predictably spiral out of control.

If you’ve watched any of Sket Dance, you’re aware that Bossun and Himeko aren’t the brightest bulbs in the box, and because Date refuses to speak in anything but terse and obtuse phrasings straight out of the back of a visual kei CD sleeves, the Sket Dan are forced to play both psychologists and detectives despite their travel-size brains. He even gives his name as “Datenshi” (Fallen Angel) at first. A major breakthrough occurs when they misinterpret a spiral he has drawn as a reference to a horror movie, when in reality the symbol refers to Naruto, which is about as far from goth as you can get. Despite all of their questions, they still fail to understand what his problem really is, though in their obliviousness end up celebrating a well-deserved “victory” anyway.

This is the first episode of Sket Dance I’ve watched since the very beginning, but I enjoyed it just as much. It’s a light-hearted and very silly show that can be enjoyed casually. Even though Gackt’s character doesn’t appear until the second half of this episode, the first half is just as worth watching thanks to an amusing extended reference to Jason from Friday the 13th. My only regret (if I had those) is that the next episode seems to be a battle of the bands, and Gackt’s character doesn’t appear to be in it.