Subculture Anime Blog

OP: “Hito toshite Jiku ga Bureteiru (人として軸がぶれている)” by Kenji Ohtsuki – I really like this song. It’s a pretty good rock song, featuring some of the seiyu’s voices as well. If the OP stays true to SHAFT’s way of doing things, there will probably be a lot of changes to it in the future. At least I hope so, because the actual animation to this opening is the most empty one I’ve seen since Ghost Hunt.

Summary:

On a beautiful spring day, a very cheerful girl, Fuura Kafuka, saves a man from hanging himself. This man is none other than Itoshiki Nozomu, a man who believes that the world is filled with despair. Kafuka counters Nozomu’s negative opinions of the world with her own belief that the world is only full of hope, and even believes that Nozomu was only trying to increase his height while he was hanging himself. Kafuka offers Nozomu 50 yen to call him “Momoiro Kakarichou” (peach colored assistant section chief), because of Nozomu’s belief that rights must be bought to name things in this world. This makes Nozomu run away, but Kafuka meets him again when she discovers that he is actually her class’s teacher. Nozomu expresses the unluckiness of his name while introducing himself, which gives Kafuka the idea of trying to write it differently. However, after writing the name horizontally instead of vertically, she finds that his name spells “despair”. This makes her call him “Zetsubou Sensei”.

Later in school, Kafuka expresses her belief that schools would be more fun if they were hot springs to her friend Kitsu Chiri. At the same time, Nozomu tells the school counselor, Arai Chie, of his despair that he cannot look at baseball the same anymore. After feeling better, he returns to class where he is to give out a questionnaire for the students’ future hopes. Of course, because he believes that there is only despair in the world, he decides to change the questionnaire to one for future despairs instead. Nozomu states to many of the students that their dreams are hopeless, when Kafuka rises to say that hopes can definitely be achieved with effort. However, when she is asked if she believes there will be no despair in the future, she replies that even she has despair. Afterwards, one of Nozomu’s fellow teachers expresses how impressed he is with his students’ ambitions, but there is one that is bothering him. When he receives the paper, Nozomu sees that Kafuka’s three choices were: god, time traveler, and pororoca alien.

ED: “Zessei Bijin (絶世美人)” by Ai Nonaka, Marina Inoue, Yu Kobayashi & Ryoko Shintani – Wow. I absolutely love the ending. SHAFT makes use of its creativity to create a wonderfully stylish closing, with a nice song sung by a few of the voice actresses.

Impression:

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is the summer show that I labeled as the best of the season before it even came out. For one, I love most of any SHAFT comedy production, with shows such as Pani Poni Dash! and Negima!? being at the top of my favorites list. Adding to that, this show features some of my favorites seiyu, Nonaka Ai in particular. I also sampled the manga prior to watching this, and I was hooked to the concept. I really have a strange obsession with dark humor, and I can really relate with a lot of this series’ beliefs. Negativity may not be for everyone, but the concept is one reason NHK ni Youkoso! has been one of my favorites for so long. You can bet one hundred percent that I will be watching this show. The only thing that might keep me from blogging the series is its use of cultural references, which can possibly cause me to miss a few things. This is the same reason I didn’t blog Lucky Star. However, I will like this show a lot more, so I will probably have the motivation to do a bit more research than usual. Challenges are good once in awhile, especially since I will probably have a lot to say about this show.