Well, recess was a bit longer than anticipated, but I feel bad about keeping my avid reader(s) in suspense (sorry, Mum!), plus it seems I also have a whole bunch of homework to catch up on, seeing as the winter season is finally winding down and there’s a couple of completed series I still want to ramble on about, so I guess I’d better get my a into g and finish this part of School Daze.
Still, I think there’s time to sneak a ciggy behind the bike shed, before next period starts…
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
(さよなら絶望先生)
I have a nasty feeling I’m setting myself up for a fall by trying to sum up this little bit of comic (and manic) genius in a few paragraphs. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (Goodbye Mr. Despair) is one of those shows that bombards you with so much during the course of an episode that afterwards I invariably have to retire with a stiff drink to absorb it all (sometimes it requires a couple of stiff drinks, but I try to avoid that, as I generally end up forgetting what I’d just watched… or had for breakfast, for that matter…). To try and sum up one and a half series of frenetic insanity in a couple of paragraphs isn’t going to do it justice, but I’ll try my best. (And to prove once again that I’m a lying filth, it turned into a couple of very long paragraphs *sigh* Part 3 coming up soon…)
It’s probably fairly safe to say that SZS is a show you’ll either love or hate, based on what kind of comedy you like. If you’re like me and cut your comedy teeth on acts such as Monty Python, The Young Ones, Ben Elton, Blackadder, The League of Gentlemen, et al (and more importantly loved them and still do) then you’ll find a distinct resonance in the mixture of wild humour and (sometimes savage) social commentary. If those leave you cold, then this probably isn’t the show for you. In addition to the verbal barbs and a cast of characters that is as delightful as it is deranged, it fires a stream of background jokes (such as the ever-changing blackboard messages), parodies of other anime, puns and sometimes bizarre animation techniques, at machine gun pace and lazer accuracy – blink and you’ll miss something. Just to keep things fresh (and bizarre) they’re not afraid to do things like have a segment where all of the characters are suddenly played by entirely different seiyuu.
In its very simplest form, SZS is about a teacher and life with his class of students. Except the teacher in question has an incredibly pessimistic outlook on life. In the opening scene we meet him as he tries to hang himself from a tree in the park, and he frequently cries out “I am in despair!” when confronted with some or other perceived injustice in the world. His students are… well… a troubled bunch, ranging in derangement from the love-stuck serial stalker, the social recluse, the uptight perfectionist (and latent psychopath, especially when things aren’t nicely ordered), the returnee with bilingual personalities and so on – it’s a bit like having DSM-IV in a room. Luckily, he also has the super-positive girl, Kafuka-chan (a play on Franz Kafka’s name), in his class, who acts as the perfect foil to his pessimism, although often with equally insane (and sometimes terrifying) results. It is this mixture of strange individuals and their twisted outlook on life that allows the writers, in true Pythonesque style, to take everyday situations and wind up the spring until it pops. Conversely, they’ll occasionally do something completely out of the ordinary, such as the episode in which the usual insanity can be heard coming from the radio, as we watch one of the students potter around her bedroom.
Another mark of brilliance (and for this and all their other efforts in translating a fairly text-heavy show, I am eternally grateful to the subbers) lies in the characters’ names. In each, a subtle change to the kanji or kana characters in their name gives rise to a word or phrase that betrays their true character (For example, in a series where nothing appears to be taboo – well, within reason – all the female characters are named after rather controversial social issues in Japan). Let me try an example: The teacher’s name is Itoshiki Nozomu, for which the kanji is: 糸色望. However, when his name is written horizontally, rather than vertically, the first two characters resemble 絶, which together with the 望 form 絶望 = Zetsubou = Despair. (His brother, Mikoto, who’s a doctor, actually has it worse – his kanji 糸色命 resembles 絶命, which is “zetsumei”, or “death”. No wonder his surgery stands empty of patients!) This shows us (well, me) two things – firstly, the amount of thought that’s gone into every level of this show (and the manga from whence it’s derived) and secondly, us gaijin have a snowball’s chance in hell of learning the language. There’s a good write up on the character’ names and their hidden meanings here, by the way.
Now busy with its second season, the manic humour continues unabated. If anything, the success of the first season has prompted the producers and writers to push the envelope still further – as I said on another forum, “I can see the weekly planning meetings starting with, ‘Ok, so what did we get away with last week?’” However, if there is a downside to the series, it lies in its very Japanese-ness – many of the references and social norms are intrinsically Japanese, which can make some of the set-ups seem a bit odd at times to our Western eyes. Unfortunately, this, plus the fact that I very much doubt one of the large Western animation studios is going to take nearly the same amount of time, trouble and dedication when it comes to translating the puns and scores of messages flashing across your screen, as the fansubbers do (but that’s a debate for another day), probably means that you won’t be seeing this in a local store (for local people, there’s nothing for you here…) anytime soon (and Kami-sama forbid that they should dub it!), so the fansubs will be your best bet to watch this very clever, very funny, very wrong series.
Despite their collective bizarreness, the characters are enjoyable and fun (if only because you want to see just what they could possibly get up to next), the artwork ranges from the pretty to the surreal and the two seasons’ opening themes are simply brilliant, especially when taken in the context of the show they’re introducing. All together now, “Bure bure bure bure...”
