Subculture Anime Blog

Wait……what?

Summary:

As animals, Maria and Kaere engage in battle. When Nozomu passes by them without thought, they attack and kill him. With this, the two creatures enjoy a meal while Nozomu floats to the heavens. When the class finds Nozomu not paying any attention while teaching, Kafuka wonders if he is slacking off at the start of the year. This makes Maria knock him over, explaining that she is performing a tsukomi comedy act. Chiri realizes that Maria has been watching this on TV, which is causing her acts against the students. Maria escapes to the city, where she continues to attack people who are not paying much attention.

Trying to stop Maria, Nozomu explains that there are many other reasons that people may be light headed. Chiri becomes irritated at Maria, but only because she is not properly doing things. When Chiri points out a nearby couple, Maria continues her attack. When Kagero crashes into Kaere, another tsukomi act is created. However, this isn’t quite right for everyone. Maria makes her way to a television station after she sees someone on screen that doesn’t seem to be paying attention. She finds that this woman is not what she suspects at all, however, putting her in fear.

When Kafuka finds her, Maria expresses her continuing desire to preform tsukomi. With this, Kafuka introduces Maria to a person who knows where many light headed people are. Under the command of her new leader, Maria heads to the courts. Rin makes a joke with Nozomu while watching this on TV at home, causing Maria to appear again to haunt Nozomu. During the Zetusbou Fight, Nozomu has trouble teaching his distracted students. They begin fighting, when a bull appears. The students attack the bull, but Nozomu is again killed in the process. Harumi later gets in a fight with Chiri after a disagreement, but Nozomu appears to propose a proper fight. Chiri has already died, however, so Nozomu fights instead. With one punch, he defeats Harumi.

At school while the students are playing in class, Nozomu proposes an inspection. Chiri believes that this is a good choice, but she changes her mind when Nozomu shows a picture of her not paying attention in a picture. In response, Chiri takes Maria to find people who are not paying attention all over the city. With this, embarrassing pictures show up all over the school. However, when Maria attempts to get a picture of Jinroku-sensei, she finds that it is impossible.

Kafuka eventually appears to suggest that all of this is only dojikko appeal. This makes Chiri recall that the clumsy kids were more loved than her who did things properly in the past. Kafuka hands Chiri a book with instructions for Chiri to become a dojikko, which Chiri follows quite ridiculously. Chiri accidentally stabs Nozomu, forcing his brother to operate on him. When he screws up, Kafuka calls him a dojikko. While all of this was happening, Meru ran into trouble with a bra saleswoman. During the Zetusbou Fight, Nozomu is left alone. When a strange creature appears, Nozomu attacks it. This changes his speech, as he forces his students to attack the creature. This causes more trouble with everyone, as many of them float to the heavens. In the future, the students continue to battle and live their usual lives.

Impression:

Okay, this episode was just weird. I know this is Shaft, but man, this reminds me of one of those episodes of Pani Poni Dash that people talk about and say “Oh, remember that crazy episode where…” It was just insane, experimental, and out of place. So yea, it was basically awesome. I’m definitely going to have to bring up all the cultural references in this episode too, because it was full of them. I don’t think there is any direct translation for “boke” (kind of like a light headed person), “tsukomi” (a comedy act), “nekeuchi kensa” (the examination that took place when people were not paying attention), or “dojikko” (clumsy person). Ha, and people wonder why it takes people so long to sub this show.

Now, I’m going to be completely honest. This time around, I really couldn’t relate to a lot of the jokes presented. I laughed a lot because of the situations (nandeyanen?), but I’m sure it would have been a much different kind of humor to someone living in Japan and constantly seeing things like tsukomi acts. Not that I feel left out or anything, because I’m pretty sure that most people who are not Japanese and watch this show laugh purely from the ridiculous presentation than looking at the cultural, psychological, or sociological aspects of it. Oh, and I’m also not the biggest Maria fan in the world. She’s okay for a couple of scenes, but this time around was just a bit much. Eh, preference. Chiri fans are definitely in for a treat again though.

Maybe the first half really was just about the influences TV has on people, and it was just a play on the violence factor. The Zetsubou Fight scenes could have gone with that pretty well. The light headed victims just seemed like a joke to make fun of, but it seems like this series typically goes half and half like that. The second half of the episode might have hit base with me just a bit more, because who hasn’t been found in an embarrassing situation before? I can kind of see where the dojikko appeal can come in to, since people just think there’s no helping these types of people. I’m also wondering if they’re planning something big/ridiculous with Kafuka, since they’re constantly showing her in yandere mode or whatever. I guess we’ll find out.