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Again we get a clone of Pani Poni Dash with very few changing elements; a watered-down version in terms of story (if PPD had any. . .), a different drawing style, and more chalkboard comments, this time more appealing to the not so Hardcore (because only 80’s Gundam jokes make you awesome!). But don’t let the coincidences fool you that much! Zetsubou Sensei offers you some unique stuff that may be worth your while. Keep reading.

This 12-episode anime was made by studio SHAFT and was released in July 2007.

The Genres are School-Life, Comedy, and if it were official I’d say Nonsense.

STORY

There’s this 20-something person, Nozomu Itoshiki, who has a real emotional problem; most of the things he does cause him despair, from paying the toll on the subway to realizing no one around him can crawl to their dream job. From his point of view, suicide is the only answer. Luckily (or unluckily, rather) for him, his latest job is to teach to High-Schoolers, which to his surprise, also have some very serious mental problems. Then the story (yes, this is the plot) unfolds.

True Neutral here!

GRAPHICS

As you can see in the picture above, character design is simple, coloring is much simpler (we get to see a gradient or to and very few shadowing) and most of the scenes are just “colored storyboards”, that meaning that we won’t see a lot of movement, just stills and lots of dialogue. That’s where the chalkboard messages come to scene! These interesting messages’ purpose is to entertain the reader when nothing’s going on, giving us a sensation of fluidity between scenes when in fact there is very little. Take out these messages and you’ll end up with a very boring scene, believe me.

The OP song’s scenes are awesome, very nice stills.

SOUND & MUSIC

Move along, aside from the OP “Hito Toshite Jiku ga Bureteiru” By Kenji Ootsuke the music is forgettable. Still, if you like some 50’s style music, hear the Ending “Zessei Bijin”, by Ai Nonaka, Marina Inoue, Yu Kobayashi & Ryoko Shintani.

Sound effects are ok.

OVERALL

Mixed feelings here. We have a pretty nice OP sequence, a rather unique-yet-bland plot, cliched characters, chalkboard messages, and a lot of despair. Watch with friends for an incremented fun factor or watch alone if you really patient about the flow of the show, since there’s not gonna be a lot of moving. . .

Also, I cracked on this still.

Is this what they teach you at a monastery?!?!  No wonder. . .

STORY

GRAPHICS

SOUND & MUSIC

OVERALL  8 diamonds. Fun and nonsense, but still lacks some order.