Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

tl;dr: A continuation of the formula from the first season, and though one that is starting to get more random and a bit repetitive, one that still holds up reasonably well. This season continues the despair filled stories of the strange Nozomu Itoshiki and his just as strange class. In many ways its simply a continuation of the previous season, however I feel that it was different in a number of ways. In terms of the structure of the show, just like before its a series of short episodes. However, I feel that in this season they have even less plot to them than the previous season.The first season was used mostly to introduce characters, and though it didn't do much with them beyond that, since it was introducing the large cast of characters it didn't feel like an issue at the time. This season continues using those characters with a few added in, but also doesn't do much with them either. This is further exasperated due to how the show seems to be adapting the manga in a completely random order. I get that the first season did that as well, but it didn't seem as much of an issue then, while in this season it actually felt like there were instances where it felt off having shown something before something else. As a result of these two things, this season is simply gags and pessimistic social commentary without any sort of overarching narrative or character progression. Furthermore, it felt like it was moving through a lot of this too fast and hence I wasn't a fan of the pacing. As for the gags themselves, they were pretty solid just like the first season. The core of dark comedy heavily based on social commentary was still really interesting and worked incredibly well. However, it felt like it veered from that quite a bit into gags that were purely random. Now the first season had a bunch of random gags as well, and I'm not opposed to them in general, in that I actually like them from time to time. But here it felt like it was used too much and often in ways that didn't seem to have any sort of point other than being random for the sake of randomness, which got kind of old as it went on. The art was still really bizarre, but it tried to do a bunch of things to make it more interesting like changing styles and such, which was hit and miss. The OP was fine audio wise, but bizarre visually, though how it changed was pretty cool. EDs were pretty good.

＊My mother tongue is not English, so I use a translator. While gags are fired off one after another, there's a prevalent impression of many Japan-specific jokes. It seems highly regarded overseas as well, and I'm amazed that anime fans are familiar with Japanese culture to such an extent. Right from the start, even the protagonist's name becomes a clever wordplay - Itoshiki Nozomu (糸色望). The characters '糸' means 'thread,' '色' means 'colour,' and '望' means 'hope.' When you place these characters side by side, it forms 糸色望, which reads as '絶望(Zetsubou),' meaning 'hopeless.' Thus, 'Itoshiki Nozomu' translates to 'Hopeless Teacher.' Moreover, the sound '(糸色)Itoshiki' canalso be interpreted as 'beloved,' resulting in 'Beloved Teacher.' Such wordplay appears throughout. By the way, my favourite moment is the reference to Gaban/Gavan in the fourth episode. I couldn't stop laughing. "Jouchaku!" I thought the humor sense of the original author, Kouji Kumeta, is similar to that of the comedy duo "Rahmens," but interestingly, there are panels in the original manga that mock Rahmens. I wonder if this is a form of self-deprecating humor. Either way, the anime is even more crude, and it's all about constant silliness, which is great. However, the unnecessary and excessive insertion of panty shots, as seen in some scenes, would be open to criticism in today's Japan. The Japanese-style and flat screen composition are techniques that were later inherited in the "Monogatari" series. It's a brilliant approach by Akiyuki Shinbo and Shaft, which both reduces animation effort and maintains a stylish presentation. The anime is a delightful mix of logical gags, nonsense, wordplay, and parody. Truly an entertaining work! If it had been on television, it would have been a delight to watch every week. Base score 5/10; add one point to give it a 6/10, as its energetic silliness and outstanding voice-over performances are still present in the second season.

If you’re not Japanese, you’ll enjoy this. If you are, you’ll really enjoy this as a lot of jokes are mainly directed towards Japanese society and culture and a lot of inside knowledge is needed to truly understand and appreciate the jokes. This is among the first anime that directed studio Shaft towards their unique directing, and the unconventional directing styles fits this equally odd anime with a whole bunch of entertaining eccentrics like a glove. This show was also among the few who pioneered the names of characters being their personalities much like Komi-san. The music reflects the absurd nature of the show; selfaware and constant yet never tiring self-deprecation. Overall a really humorous, intellectual and simultaneously stupid (intentionally), and a gag anime that stands out.

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