Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

Nozomu Itoshiki is a high school teacher so pessimistic that even the smallest of misfortunes can send him into a pit of raging despair; some of these "catastrophes" even lead to suicide attempts. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a satirical slice-of-life comedy set in the modern day, covering various aspects of Japanese life and culture through Nozomu and his interactions with his students: Kiri Komori, a recluse who refuses to leave the school; Abiru Kobushi, an enigma who frequently arrives to class with severe and mysterious injuries; the hyper-optimistic Kafuuka Fuura, Nozomu's polar opposite; and several other unusual girls, all of whom are just as eccentric as their teacher.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Itoshiki, Nozomu Main

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Fuura, Kafuka Main

Nonaka, Ai Japanese

Kitsu, Chiri Supporting

Inoue, Marina Japanese

Komori, Kiri Supporting

Tanii, Asuka Japanese

Tsunetsuki, Matoi Supporting

Sanada, Asami Japanese

Hitou, Nami Supporting

Shintani, Ryouko Japanese

Sekiutsu, Tarou Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Fujiyoshi, Harumi Supporting

Matsuki, Miyu Japanese

Otonashi, Meru Supporting

Saitou, Chiwa Japanese

Kobushi, Abiru Supporting

Gotou, Yuuko Japanese

Kubota, Mitsutoshi Producer

Moriyama, Atsushi Producer

Miyamoto, Junnosuke Assistant Producer

Shinbou, Akiyuki Director

Reviews

Mar 29, 2024

AnnihilatorX3000

Recommended

Works from SHAFT, such as their beloved monogatari series, often make me question how to even watch the damn thing. This absolute fever dream of an anime is like watching multiple shows, commercial breaks, fitness shows, drama/sitcom openings (no seriously, the anime contains all of these), or whatever other ADHD-fueled madness they have in store all at the same time. Its constantly changing art style which feature real-life imagery crudely slapped on top of the animation. The quick-paced cuts which force you to hover over the spacebar if you want to catch all of the little texts and gags the show has to offer. Their ... philosophical commentaries which dance between the lines of reason and absolute nonsense. It's all so jarring and yet, much like a fever dream, it all strangely makes sense.

Absolutely no one in this show is normal. The main character, Zetsubou (despair) sensei, is an extreme pessimist who uses every moment of despair as an opportunity to teach hopelessness, what he believes to be the true way of life, to his students. This is countered by one of his students who is so overly optimistic that she somehow manages to twist her teacher's 'wisdom' into something either like that of a sage/cult-leader ("NEETs are just hibernating, preparing for their glorious awakening after a long winter") or something that is just downright delusional ("There's no such thing as a coma. He's surely previewing the afterlife"). These two are probably the most sane out of the rest of the nutcases and it is hugely entertaining to watch how all of the extreme personalities interact with one another.

However, all of this started to grow stale around episode 8 as none of the characters had really developed. In fact, I felt that their unique quirks were slowly being forgotten, which made them feel more like soundboards than characters. None of them were particularly loveable either (well, maybe except for that one pure-hearted illegal immigrant child). To the show's defense, it does pick itself back up with more of its absurdist mayhem on the last two episodes, but I definitely feel that it would have been better suited as a movie, for example, than as a full-on series.

Overall, I have really enjoyed watching Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei and would highly recommend it to anyone who loves a bit of "wtf" in their lives. If you're an absolute weeb, you'll appreciate how the sheer number of references the show contains validates the countless of hours you've spent consuming anime. If you're learning Japanese, or already know the language, you'll appreciate the obsure punny Japanese literred throughout the show. You'll never know what to expect so just sit back and enjoy the ride. Be warned, however, that this is not something you should casually binge watch. To fully enjoy the experience, I'd advise taking your time and allowing yourself to process what on earth just happened; I'm gonna need some time off myself.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 22, 2024

Curlybrace101

Mixed Feelings

If there's anything Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei does well, its presentation.

Firstly, the premise is one that's objectively funny and cute. In this surreal comedy, the main character is a miserable, pessimistic high school teacher, but despite that, he still manages to bond with his eccentric and weird students and be a good teacher to them, aided by the deuteragonist: a teenage girl in his class with all of the world's joy and whimsy in her heart.

That premise lends itself well to an absurdist comedy, and as an absurdist comedy, SZS is certainly successful. Its comedic timing is perfect and a lot of the jokes are genuinely ... quite funny. On top of that, the art style is particularly notable for being clean, stylized, and unique, also lending itself well to the premise.

However, the longer you watch, the more you realize there hardly seem to be any men in this class, and a weirdly large amount of the jokes are about the teenage girls wanting to know their teacher biblically, and the anime's true colors start to show.

I mean, the OP features all of these high school girls strung up in bondage gear and in pretty explicit positions with each other, so it's really a case of "disappointed but not surprised" if anything. The worst part is that the very simplified, flat art style, while gorgeous, gives enough plausible deniability for the "artistic depiction" defense when its pretty clear what's really going on here.

And the odd power fantasy element of the story is just weird and distracting. In my opinion, the comedy would work much better without it, and it leaves me with this unshakable feeling of discomfort as I watch. The ending of the manga really encapsulates this, essentially being the payoff after all of the build up regarding the behavior of the female characters, but I won't spoil it. All I will say is that it was enough to make me not want to continue the series.

There's also a lot of suicide comedy in this show, which I don't find funny, but comedy is subjective so YMMV.

Overall, a disappointment.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 22, 2023

TheCompletionist

Not Recommended

I often have a troubled history with slice of life anime. It is often my least favorite genre of anime but I'm always willing to give the genre a chance just on the off chance I find a slice of life anime that I actually like which can happen albeit not very often. Slice of life anime can often delve into many subcategories such as romance, school life, or the daunting tasks that perpetuate our daily lives. However this anime abandons many of the typical tropes of slice of life anime and focuses on complete and utter zaniness in order to be entertaining. Unfortunately it ... doesn't really work although the anime has given me it's share of laugh out loud moments just based on the most randomized craziness when you least expect it. Sometimes finding something to laugh at with each and every episode isn't enough to make this anime completely enjoyable because it's often bombarded by it's nonsensical approach to trying to tell a story if you can really call it that.

The story of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei focuses on a teacher by the name Nozomu Itoshiki who is constantly depressed and is fixated on despair because he's goes out of his way to find the negative out of each and every situation he is put in and to make matters worse he is responsible for teaching a class with students who the most part exhibit incredibly weird personality quirks that contribute to the randomized craziness that this anime exemplifies. These quirks can range anywhere from a girl who has a sickeningly sweet positive attitude over any scenario, a girl who writes sends toxic demeaning messages to her friends through her phone, a to a girl that lives in isolation such as closets and other lonely spaces. The majority of this anime focuses on his interactions with many of the female students in his class and for the first half of the series we have plot-lines if you can really call it that focuses on each of the girl's weird personality quirks often times two of the female characters in one episode.

The anime in itself doesn't really have a plot per se. It often feels like a grab bag of mixing as many asinine anime tropes and parodies as you can possible fit into a twelve episode anime. I would like to think that if you wanted to be entertaining, a concept like this could work but often times a lot of the jokes fall flat but I don't really blame the anime in of itself on that - I often blame my interpretation of it because often times I kept saying to myself I don't get it. The moments of pure hilarity were pretty much based on random unexpected visual comedic cues rather than funny and sharp witted dialogue. Besides the quirks from many of the female characters in the series, many of the episodes look at aspects of japanese culture from cultural school events, doujinshi, and summer festivals while taking silly aspects and amplifying it to an absurd degree.

The anime has too many cut away gags and I don't find them entertaining but often times I find it aggravating. It seems like there are hidden jokes scattered throughout the entire anime but they blow by so quickly it's hard to even gravitate towards what is being presented to you. We even have scenes where we have pictures of a bald headed gentlemen that randomly show up which I can only assume is the creator of the series or a possible animator but I feel like it's one of those anime where if you don't have any knowledge of the source material then it can be very hard to enjoy.

All the episodes feel incredibly self contained without any natural progression of an overall story and for the most part none of the characters are particularly enjoyable or relatable. The animation is adequate, but the opening and ending songs are not very memorable. I think one of the biggest problems I have with it is that the anime opening and some scenes have a very awkward and unwelcoming perversion to it that comes across as incredibly off putting but thankfully the scenes are incredibly brief and it gets into the zany comedic antics pretty quickly with each episode.

There are some episodes that tend to be enjoyable such as the main character trying to avoid an arranged marriage in which he has to marry the girl that he makes eye to eye contact with and there is an episode where the main male character has to deal with a school girl stalker that won't leave him alone which often leads to hilarious results.

Overall, it's an anime that probably has a much better appeal to teenagers and young adults but to me it's a tired exercise in mediocrity by trying too many random things in order to extract a laugh from the viewer which often leads to mixed results.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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