zan sayonara zetsubou sensei 1

In despair. And loving it.

The Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei franchise is like a fine wine– it gets better with age, yet you really can’t remember the previous bottle all that well. I would be hard pressed to remember three despairs from Zoku or Goku let alone the original season, yet SZS is always good for 24 minutes of mayham. Zan is no different. You know what you’re getting. Maybe it’s not a front line starter like Justin Verlander or Josh Beckett, but it’s definitely a solid end-of-the-rotation guy like Cliff Lee or Tim Wakefield.

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Hey, it wouldn’t be Shaft it weren’t self-referential in ways it shouldn’t be self-referential. There was also a veiled reference to Maria+Holic during this episode as well.

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When you see Chiri with a shovel, only good things will happen. Loved the bloodbath. I hope this is a re-enactment of the slaughter that’s going on in Umineko.

(I love the Marina Inoue bloodbath voice. I hope I get to hear it often here, in Umineko, and in Valkyria. Often.)

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Rin! How I missed you– my favorite SZS character, right above Chie-sensei (unconscionably missing from this episode) and Kiri. She definitely deserved an honorable mention in my anime waifu post if anything because of her, uh, prowess.

(The tour conductor outfit– totally underrated. Why couldn’t Mikuru be a tour conductor in one of the 15,513 reboots?)

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Loved the ED, Zetsubou Restaurant, which featured the various characters doing things before they retire for the night. It’s always fun to be voyeurs for dysfunctional anime characters. This could be a great Minami-ke episode premise as well. However…

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… didn’t enjoy the OP, Ringo Mogire BEAMU!, anywhere as much. It’s just recycled title cards from the previous episodes… andohbytheway, three minutes into the episode, Shaft animated exactly 2 new frames. Not scenes– frames. Out of a possible 5,400 frames, they animated exactly 2 new ones.

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That being said, the animation is getting better. But then again, saying that the animation of a Shaft show is getting better is like saying that the Kansas City Royals is getting better.

(But if I watch Umineko right before this, it’ll be like watching a Tori Spelling scene on 90210 and then seeing Valerie walk in. Just completely recalibrates the scale.)

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I think one reason why I’m watch this series is that I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop for Kafuka. It has to be epic. Just has to. I’m willing to believe anything– she’s really a 24 year old guy, she’s the future daughter of Itoshiki and Meru, she’s Satan, she’s a robot piloted by tiny aliens, she’s a scriptwriter for Sunrise– anything. I just want to be here when it’s revealed.

8 Responses to “zan sayonara zetsubou sensei 1”

  1. Even though it hasn’t been that long, I’ve missed this show.

    Pic #6 – Chiri calling out “objection!”?

    Is it wrong for me to put Kafuka on my waifu list?
    I don’t know if she’d love me or carve me up in my sleep… probably both, but I like the excitement.
    Kinda like my hot latina neighbor.

    What?!

  2. Pshhh, Kotonon is obviously the best waifu material. What if after episode 2, they reanimated and aired the same episode over again, but continued to change the previews at the end?

  3. >>http://img44.imageshack.us/img.....181452.jpg

    This whole scene struck me as a visual representation of the average broken comment from the perspective of a normal human being.

  4. Most likely they will actually animate a good opening in an episode or two.
    I’d personally love to see a sequel to the magical girl opening of Zoku

  5. “I think one reason why I’m watch this series is that I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop for Kafuka. It has to be epic. Just has to. I’m willing to believe anything–”

    She’s actually a starfish loving, brain damaged magical girl?

  6. I loved every second of it. And despite the fact that there’s no new animation in it (yet) I liked the new OP too. The bloodbath scene was great, although I think I enjoyed Matoi wanting sensei to run before the other women get there. Especially given that she’s voiced by the same woman who does Kanako in M+H. God I’ve missed this show.

  7. Fantastic, the return of one of my favourites. Quality mayhem and consistently inconsistent. This series has generated my wallpapers for my desktop in the last few years than all the rest combined.

    As for the OP, I normally love the music for the OP/ED’s in this show but the OP this time is the worst SZS so far but I’m not worried as historically Shaft have changed the music & artwork every few episodes.

  8. That being said, the animation is getting better. But then again, saying that the animation of a Shaft show is getting better is like saying that the Kansas City Royals is getting better.

    The thing is, Shaft’s imagery, even if mostly stationary (or, with Bakemonogatari, stationery), is so often so interesting — indeed, Shaft shows are the ones I pause and single-frame through, just to catch all the stuff on the screen.

    I guess it’s space-wise animation instead of time-wise.

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