Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei

Information of Anime

Nozomu Itoshiki is a teacher & very negative person.  His name, when rearranged in Kanji, means despair.  Seeing the world as hopeless, he tries to kill himself many times even though he escapes them due to fear.  However, one of his students, Kafuka Fura, is a very positive person & tries to help him see things differently.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

The show focuses on Itoshiki & his students.  A majority of them focuses on Itoshiki & some of his students.  Each of the characters have their own unique personalities.  We have a stalker, a girl would likes to sue, & a girl that only communicates by text messaging, etc.  Itoshiki usually thinks negative of the situations while Fura makes it positive.

The show mainly looks at the culture & lifestyle of Japan & turn it into something extreme such as humans hibernating in winter to spring or hyping everything little thing out there.  Other than that, there is no storyline or plot.

My Personal Review

Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei was something that I decided to pick up mindlessly.  I actually had no idea about the series is about.  I grabbed it at random as I didn't have much other shows to watch.

Animation

The character designs are a bit plain & normal.  They aren't very appealling to me personally, but they are okay.  The clothing is pretty plain as well, but they are kind of stylish.  They aren't really fancy, just normal.

The colours are very dull with very little to none brightness.  It creates a manga feel to the show.  Also, they sort of make the characters look flat as in one dimensional.

The backgrounds are very interesting.  In fact, some of the jokes are on the background.  One good example is the classroom where there are jokes written on the blackboards & the posters & signs on the walls.  Problem with this is that there is too much there & the transitions move pretty fast.  So, unless you pause the show, it can be very hard to get most of the jokes.  Plus, I think the series creator's head appears a lot in the show in an attempt to put some humour to the show.

The animation flow is pretty smooth.  It's got a mixture of realistic & silly stuff for comedy.  It was hard to spot out any missing frames or noticeable cycles in the show.  This may be because of the way the show is actually animated as it tends to do a lot of jump around.

Sound       

The sound effects are pretty good & clean.  Lots of silly sounds for those funny moments.

The seiyuus are pretty good.  They portray their characters very well.

The music is a mixture of pop & rock music.  I didn't like them much, but they set the show's mood very well to give it some life.

Story

Nothing but laughs.  Basically, it's all about Itoshiki & his students in different situations & at times their relationship with him.  He looks down at things from a negative point of view while others either join in or make the situation positive.  Although he interacts with the female students, there are male students as well.  But, they barely get any screen time.  While the show lacks a plotline, what makes it interesting is the characters.  The wide varieties of characters & their personalities are unique which avoids the show looking like a harem which it isn't.  It makes the show unique.  However, some of them are a bit bizarre & annoying.  You got a girl insulting people like crazy by texting on her cell, a girl who talks about suing when you look at her panties, etc.  I admit it's funny, but it can get old fast from over usage.  Also, the jokes come from the Japanese knowledge & culture.  Rearranging the names in Kanji gives off a proper description of the character.  These are funny if you can get them.  Plus, more jokes come from the onscreen texts.

Overall Conclusion

Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei is pretty funny, but it's not for everyone.  It's strongly based on the Japanese culture & language.  If you don't have some Japanese background, the show may not be enjoyable.  For me, it's an ok show.  I only watch it at times when I got nothing coming down the pipeline.  If you got some Japanese background, this show is worth to watch.

Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei gets a grade of seven out of ten.  It's a funny show & the characters are unique.  There may some you may like & some you don't.  Lacking a storyline, the jokes are funny enough to make up for it.  That is if you have some Japanese background.

Last updated on January 29, 2008