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Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a comedy manga and anime written by Koji Kumeta and animated by Shaft. It is Kumeta's magnum opus, and (in my opinion) Shaft's best show. It is unlike any other comedic anime/manga out there. SZS is a show about suicide. The main character, Nozomu Itoshiki (a kanji pun on despair) desperately wants to kill himself (but not really). Every episode he tries to hang himself, usually after taking a concept of modern Japanese life to its absurd conclusion. His day job is high school teaching, and he tries to instill his unique viewpoints in his students. These students have their own quirks, from a mysterious girl with evil eyes who can only see the good in things to a girl with an obsession with pulling animals' tails.  If there's one word to describe SZS, it's dense. A lot of the humor in it is based on puns. Everyone's name is a pun. These puns are part of their character, so you have to understand them. There are constant allusions to Japanese pop culture, literature, history and current events of the time. Unless you are a native speaker of Japanese with a good knowledge of Japanese culture, you won't catch everything. It's still funny regardless. I'll give an example. Nozomu's favorite book is No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. It's a semi-autobiographical story about a man who desperately wants to kill himself following a rough childhood, and how he drags all of his friends and loved ones down into a depressed hole of death. However, it seems he's more based on the character, Sensei from Sousemi Natsume's Kokoro, a man who cannot deal with the changing world of Taisho Era Japan. Nozomu himself cannot deal with his own changing world. There are other connections to Natsume, including a chapter entitled I Am a Golden Parachutist, but I Still Do Not Have a Job. The first portion of that sentence is Wagahai wa amakudari de aru, which is a reference to Natsume's most famous work, I Am a Cat (Wagahai wa neko de aru). There are even more references to the Early 20th Century. Nozomu dresses like a teacher would have in the Meiji Era (hakama, glasses), and he creates self-published poetry, something bohemians from the 20s would have done. There are connections to other Early 20th Century writers as well. One of the main cast of students is named Kafka (written in kanji, ka-fu-ka), and she is ironically a hopeless optimist. One of Nozomu's fellow teachers' name is a kanji pun on Nietzsche, and she calms Nozomu down whenever he feels like killing himself outside of the classroom. Even the year is a reference. Calendars in the series state that it takes place in Showa 83, which means that it takes place in an alternate timeline where Emperor Hirohito has not yet died. How does this come together? All of these writers were reacting (negatively) to a rapidly changing world (Natsume to the Meiji Era, Dazai to the Post-war Japan, Nietzsche and Kafka to modernity), and Nozomu cannot function in our contemporary society. Like Dazai, he tries to kill himself, but somehow cannot. That's a lot to think about, but luckily SZS has a ton of fanservice and jokes to keep your brain from exploding. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is pretty good, imo. You should watch and read it
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Jun 28, 2016 00:43
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 07:27 |
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In Training posted:This show is fantastic and I've thought about reading the manga. Has it been translated, official or otherwise? Not officially, but yes
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Jun 29, 2016 18:09
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