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さよなら絶望先生
302
30
Finished
Apr 27, 2005 to Jun 13, 2012
9.4/10
Average Review Score
100%
Recommend It
7
Reviews Worldwide
Quite possibly my favorite manga series, SZS is a masterpiece of satire, social commentary, and fiendishly twisted romance. The artwork is done in Kumeta's gorgeous abstract style. Solid darks and whites in flat planes and intricate geometric patterns. Kumeta demonstrates a genius for character design, taking the concept of the silhouette to its most extreme by actually portraying his characters as silhouettes when it suits him. This plays into the fact that they are all references and satires to various manga character tropes, effectively shadows cast by other characters that came before them, yet visually distinct and instantly recognizable, boiled down to a simple geometricconglomerate. SZS's humor is a biting satire of contemporary Japan, everything from rampant commercialism and media sensationalism to the closer to home commentary about manga conventions and life as an artist. SZS is never satisfied with merely referencing these issues, there is always an opinion associated with them, often with an almost Socratic dialogue taking place between Nozomu and his students. SZS relishes in exploring social issues in an unusual light, something done brilliantly with the immigrant character Maria, whose view of everything from commercial waste to lolicons was markedly different and elicited surprise from various characters. Lastly I want to talk about the romance of Fuura Kafuka and Itoshiki Nozomu, and the truly staggering amount of foreshadowing that went into setting up the last two chapters. SZS toys with the conventions of the harem sub-genre of romance manga, but little does the reader know just how insidiously Kumeta has undermined the notion of the harem or the traditional romance. Anyone familiar with the harem manga is familiar with the shipping wars that come with it: who will end up with the MC? Or will it be open-ended without the MC choosing, so as to appease all the fans? Or will it be the legendary, unattainable true harem-end? Kumeta's choice is none of these, instead he opts for a weapons-grade mind fuck that will force you to pour over the manga's earliest chapters to verify that he had indeed been planning this ending from the very beginning. SZS is a manga that has to be read to understand why it is great, I cannot properly put it into words.
High school teacher Nozomu Itoshiki has been waiting for a chance to end his life. He has grown averse to the very idea of toiling every day to make an ordinary living, and he makes no attempt to conceal his crushing despair. Sadly, he is almost always dragged into the bizarre—and sometimes outright suspicious—problems of his quirky students. Every time he gets a little closer to kicking the bucket, he finds himself in an absurd situation, trying to save his students from the same rabbit hole of misery that haunts him. Despite his ever-present existential crisis, Itoshiki attempts to find a new normal in the silliness of his daily adventures—all the while chasing the sweet demise that eludes him. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
Please bear with my english. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is Not a Masterpiece. It's Not even great actually. Basically this manga is not for everyone. It's main genre is comedy and yet it's hard to understand that comedy. This manga's comedy is mostly about present japan i.e you have to know more about the japanese culture and about the famous people living in it. And people like me who knows almost nothing about japan had hard time understanding the comedy in the chapters. There are some chapters where comedy are only focused on the japanese cultures that I even skipped chapters. Yes, I even skipped the chapters.Ofcourse many of them were really funny because i love dark humour but still there are dull moments in the manga. You can get bored really fast because of it. Then why? WHY am I giving this manga a rating as high as 9? It's simple... twist. Almost every popular or critically acclaimed animes/mangas has that one huge moment or that one huge twist that changes the show completely. Onepiece, the highest selling manga has that huge moment. hunter x hunter 2011, with its slow and weak starting had that huge moment in the later episodes which made it one of the best animes of all time. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei has that huge twist that will instantly blow your mind and want to reread the whole manga again. Yes, all 301 chapters of the manga again. Its insane, it's weird, it's mind-fucking-ly brilliant, it is unexpected. It changes the view of the manga completely. Also the moral that this manga, "don't commit suicide" is successfully conveyed. And because of this unexpected event I just couldn't help but praise it. So Story is a 6 because it's quite simple tbh. Art is 10 because I don't know how to draw so idc much. Characters are 8 because some of them you will forget. Enjoyment is 7 because comedy was good but again not that great. Overall- 9 because it will make you reread again.(but if it didn't make you reread again..........)
The easiest way to convey what mind state you should read this manga in is that it is like South Park but for Japan. Every chapter has a new dysfunction of society or psychological disorder that is poked fun at and trivialized in a way that makes people afflicted with these dysfunctions laugh at themselves, a much needed remedy. The first chapter opens up with suicide being the main joke, a huge problem in Japanese society being suicide rates. This joke often comes back to in the form of the main character falling into despair over various aforementioned social or personal dysfunctions. Each volume is sub-titled"The Power of Negative Thinking", negativity being a constant personality trait of the MC's. The twist on it being a straight up social commentary is that the MC is the quirky teacher of a quirky group of curious students, mostly females, all who have something wrong with them to say the least. They are all infatuated with Itoshiki Nozomu their teacher, and time and again are completely thrown off by his sudden outbursts. It is almost as if he intentionally derails their thoughts every episodes with his own "band-aid thought" of the subject. His silly little comforts often drive them crazy or make them unimpressed, but they still pay attention to him. The other MC is a girl who is super positive and often comes around when he is hanging his head in despair. Their dynamic usually leads to her positivity overwhelming the situation, sometimes not to a good end result (each chapter ends with an often whacky punchline, making fun of "explosive ending" or "it was a dream all along" tropes"). I enjoyed the representation by each of the characters of separation anxiety, OCD, dissociative identity disorder, guilt complex, acute social anxiety, manic depression, toxic positivity, truancy, and many others by the characters. For a mangaka these disorders are actually represented surprisingly realistically. A lot of jokes fly over my head being American but I still find the ones I understand hilarious and relatable. You either understand it right away and fall in love, or are confused by the pacing and seeming lack of plot. I fell in love clearly lol 10/10
Zetsubou-sensei fucking rules and if you disagree it is probably because you are intellectually maldeveloped. Koji Kumeta is the most powerful disgruntled middle aged man in existence and it shows in every frame of this. Because the humor actually references things like sports, politics, and literature instead of pornography and video games, the average w**aboo will not be able to appreciate most of the jokes, but this only serves to reinforce that SZS is a thinking man's manga. The way the jokes build upon themselves and upon the central idea of each episode really tickles the brain. The art is idiosyncratic and beautiful. If youlike Zetsubou-sensei, then I like you.
First off, i wont be telling spoilers. so rest easy. second, if you think my rating is off BY A LOT even. do take note that this is MY point of view. but just to clarify, ive watched tons of animes and manga. (and collect them too) and you know what they say about beauty in the eyes right? Third, lets get started: Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (SZS) is about Itoshiki Nozomu, a teacher with ultra negative personality(kinda), very high suicidal tendencies (kinda), and his class of freaks(yep,freaks). In almost the entirety of the manga its about Nozomu complains about something in his life or society causing him to fallinto despair only to have it blows up in his face (sometimes literally) with the not so helpful help of his students. yep, this manga almost always follows this formula. not to mention its episodic,mediocre art and unless youre familiar with japanese or have a translator notes the jokes will almost certainly fly over your head. WAIT! Dont give it a no yet. Let me at least finish. Despite all those flaws sayonara zetsubou sensei has a certain charm to it that made it hard to put down. The characters are all likable, the numerous weird things going on at the background, the unpredictableness of how things will turn out in a chapter and somewhat relatable problem in Nozomu ceaseless rants made this series worth the read. Theres really not much for me to say without spoiling the story so my advice, pick it up read it already! Story:8 Art:5 Chara:9 Enjoy:9 Total:8 p/s: if youre wondering why i rate the story high for a series that seemingly doesnt have a plot well thats just it. it seemingly doesnt have one but if you look hard enough.... p/p/s: to all those who read manga online, SZS have volumes that arent scanlated. it put me off at first but i assure you its not as bad as you (and i once) might think. like i said its mainly episodic and the 3 season anime can cover those missing spots well enough.
