Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: Anime Review

Title: Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Author: Koji Kumeta
Studio: Shaft
Released: July 7, 2007

Genre: Satire

The Plot

Itoshiki Nozomu is a pessimist of epic proportions whose very name even spells out ‘Zetsubou Sensei’ (Mr Despair) when written a certain way. He immediately eases us into this show by attempting to hang himself and is immediately rescued though by a strangely optimistic girl who insists that he was merely trying to make himself taller. She then launches into a rambling monologue informing Itoshiki and the viewer that her parents may well have been trying to get ‘taller’ as well, among other things.

After fleeing this terrifyingly happy young lady Itoshiki proceeds to go to the local high school to take up his new role as teacher, only to be immediately greeted by his saviour, and she’s just an appetiser compared to the rest of his class.

What's Good

Right from the get go Zetsubou-sensei seeks to poke fun at anything and everything it can and construct the most surreal scenes possible at the same time. Each show addresses another of Itoshiki’s dramatic problems with the world, and results in a long, rambling lecture to his students (who are just as strange, if not more so than Itoshiki himself) usually explaining why he is “in despair”. The entertaining thing about Zetsubou-sensei is that the characters seem to be intentionally as strange as possible and while this may seem like something that can damage a show's attempt at being funny, it works. Each of the increasingly strange students Itoshiki has to teach are amusing and interesting in their own way with their dramatic personality traits and hobbies. The opening and ending songs are, in this reviewer’s opinion, fantastic; the opening is a nice little rock number (performed by the wondrous Kenji Ohstuki) and the numerous endings are all such strange numbers that are pleasing to the ears. As is typical with Shaft the artwork is incredible and unique in that strange way that only they seem to be able to manage.

What's bad

As I have mentioned in a previous review (Bakemonogatari) the studio behind Zetsubou Sensei absolutely love sticking in as much background text and flashing images as they can manage without melting people’s eyes and this show is no different. If you’re the type to get annoyed by this then you might not be fussed with Zetsubou Sensei. If you’re looking for a series with a meaningful end or even a coherent plot from episode to episode then Zetsubou Sensei definitely isn’t for you; each episode is split in two parts and they rarely connect with each other, or even other episodes and the only common theme between them is Itoshiki’s depressed rambling and his students' differing opinions.

Conclusion

Zetsubou-sensei is a series that absolutely loves to laugh at the faults of Japanese society and loves to be as ridiculous and surreal as possible. It is worth checking out purely thanks to that but even more so because it does all these things well without hamming it up by over exaggerating these points. If you prefer a coherent story or even a show that has some semblance of sense then you’ll hate Zetsubou Sensei, but if you like seeing satire and surrealism done well then look no further.