Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is classy, gorgeous, ironic, outrageous, fantastic — all of that at the same time, and whoever disagrees with me obviously lacks good taste. Personally I don’t really think much of the Summer season no thanks to Spring’s prolific QUALITY that ensured anything making its debut now would be overshadowed, but SZS is a good show to debunk that type of thinking.

I’m not sure where exactly to begin, because it’s taken me by the neck and then pinned me against the wall in its strong grip — the art, surely? The colours are of an enchanting, multi-faceted palette, and remind me of Kemonodzume, another series I’ve yet to touch on my backlog. The animation is a noticeable cut above the usual industry standard, with the animators going all out for even the small things, from minute sakura petals to fragments of splintered chalk, and it shows.

Then there’s the jokes. It’s a Lucky Star-sque humour that stems from the idiosyncrasies of the characters themselves, who, as Nozomu-sensei’s oddball students of Class 2-8, embody the subtle pun in their names. There’s an obsessive-compulsive girl who insists on a standard of finnicky proportion. A self-proclaimed “hopeless in love” stalker that goes after the object of her affections. A now-reformed hikikomori. An over-the-top optimist whose outlook on things border on naivete.

the worst part about OCD-chan’s cake dilemma is that I can actually relate to her obsessive need, but in any case this scene had me laughing my head off

Did I mention that this show is chock-full of references? No thanks to a convenient fixture called the Chatter Chalkboard, disembodied, ever-changing text constantly accompanies practically any scene that takes place in the classroom, ensuring that any distractions that come with breaking the fourth wall are kept to a minimum.

How’s this for beating Hayate and Lucky Star? I couldn’t catch all of them, obviously, but notable ones that I managed to pick up were Manabi Straight, Negima, Rozen Maiden, Lucky Star (twice — Konata on a T-shirt, and Lucky Channel on a TV screen), Code Geass (the Orange-kun sketch was particularly awesome), Di Gi Charat, Honey & Clover, 5 Centimetres per Second, and probably one or two others that escape my knowledge at the moment.

Nozomu’s character is a refreshing change from the norm. Forget those teachers with the proverbial heart of gold, who cares when you’ve got one who’s late for classes all because he had to go for counselling in the morning, only to lie to his students that the train line was delayed? You know it’s something great when a teacher offers to commit suicide with a student instead of trying to solve his or her problems.

One thing that struck me about the humour was that it was a fine balance between the different dynamics of Lucky Star and Azumanga Daioh (and yes, I’m still harping over the differences because people are dumb). Lucky Star’s humour, for instance, comes about as an consequence of the emphasis on the character talking; there weren’t many punchlines per se, because the humour isn’t direct or in-your-face like Azumanga is; rather, the focus is on how each character makes a given topic interesting due to her perspective on things, or how she would act in any scenario.

Azumanga on the other hand is more punchline oriented, to the extent that it’s almost like stand-up comedy done by high-school girls. The jokes veer on the surreal, unrealistic even, at times, and there isn’t really much effort to harp on the slice of life factor like Lucky Star does — every scene is designed to wring another laugh out of the viewer, to the point where the characters felt more like vessels for the jokes than anything else.

This is where SZS maintains a healthy balance of both. While there is, again, the slice of life/school/comedy approach present here, it seems to toe a fine line between both the slice of life and comedy aspects, ensuring that there isn’t too much emphasis on the character’s personality (Lucky Star) or saying something funny (Azumanga Daioh), and it’s with respects to that that I think SZS is doing it right.

a pretty fitting description as far as optimists go

Last but not least, the music is something to behold indeed. If you thought Azumanga and Lucky Star were doing fine in the soundtrack department, well, let’s just say that SZS blows the competition out of the water with regards to that matter. Although I’ve never heard of the composer, Tomoki Hasegawa, having seen neither the Genshiken OVA nor NANA, his composing skills are brilliant — never had a proper comedy series a better score than this one. From dramatic orchestral pieces to lighthearted, apt excursions in electronica territory to minimalist filler for the punchlines, everything fits perfectly, to say nothing of the smooth and jazzy ED, which sealed the deal for me.

SZS is scheduled for a brief 12 episodes, but if the first 2 are any hint to go by the remaining 10 are guaranteed awesome. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a “student of the week” affair averaging in at two students per episode, but I’m not complaining. What’s in place here is the snowball effect — as each new student is introduced, the hilarity escalates. It’s apparent right from the second episode where those previously introduced intrude on a given scene for side-splitting consequences, and I’m loving every bit of it. Special mention goes to a.f.k. for high-quality subtitles, as always.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Anime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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