Subculture Anime Blog

I want to gattai!

Summary:

With summer break just around the corner, Nozomu does not believe the students should begin getting comfortable all of a sudden. Giving examples of marathoners cooling down when finishing races, Nozomu describes the dangers of hard landings. The students’ spirits are brightened, however, when Nozomu suggests more days off before school is left out. Only Chiri finds this idea ridiculous, as even Chie agrees that this is a good idea. Nozomu begins giving even more examples of hard landings, putting Chiri up to a flight simulator to create a soft landing. She is unable to do well, but when Kafuka attempts the simulator, she is amazingly able to complete the mission successfully. The conversation moves to hard and soft landings when dealing with swimsuits, resulting in some very revealing situations. More hard and soft landing situations are revealed by the class, all with their own ridiculous end results.

Nozomu attempts to get a ride to the station, but he learns that this will be the taxi driver’s last job. Because of this, Nozomu has the driver take him all the way to the sea. Going to a restaurant later, he is used for another person’s birthday party. Nozomu is also left in the dark while helping a hotel perform a small show. When Nozomu is used to bring a couple back together, Kafuka makes him realize that he is like a supporting character that is cast aside. Nozomu even faces trouble when returning to his house, so he attempts to travel far to escape. He still cannot escape after doing this, even getting involved in a couple’s suicide attempt.

Harumi sees that Jinroku-sensei is reading manga at school. She wonders about this, so he tells her about the interest appearing after playing at the pachinko parlor. Because there were manga characters on the machines, he began developing interests in the manga itself. Nozomu appears to describe how common this phenomenon is, going through several examples. This type of thing has also happened with students in Nozomu’s class, and even with Ikkyu. Kafuka appears to describe her own thoughts on this subject, causing even more chaos. Many men begin describing their duties as men in various situations, but the atmosphere becomes even more awkward when Usui attempts to describe his beliefs. When some of the girls attempt to buy shirts with popular images on them, Chiri is forced to discipline them.

Impression:

Kimochi~! Besides the blatant Eva references, this episode was full of parodies around every corner. There were several Gundam ones, and some particularly funny Haruhi ones (I still like to think of Shaft as the polar opposite of Kyoani). I love seeing the Apple computers as usual, and even Che showed up again. There was also a familiar noise after the hotel light show if you’re a fan of Hidamari.

This being the second to last episode of the second season, it certainly didn’t disappoint. If not only full of fanservice, the first part of the episode was a riot. I still love how they can take such odd concepts, such as hard and soft landings, and turn them into such sociological pieces of work. I’m sure everyone has had experience with what they described, though it’s not something that I would usually think about. The second part of the episode dealt with getting involved in others’ problems, another common event in the world. It’s pretty funny looking for the line between anime and real life situations in this show sometimes. I think quite a few people have also experienced what was presented in the third part of the episode. Like, if someone saw a reference in Zetsubou Sensei, maybe they would get interested in what was referenced…

Next week is the last for Zoku, but for some reason, I don’t even feel like it’s the end.