Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (InstanceTopic, 7)
From Compile Worlds
- Quote: Itoshiki Nozomu, the titular Mr. Despair
I'm in despair! The Internet has left me in despair!
Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (Or So Long, Mr. Despair) is what happens when you put a suicidally depressed teacher in a classroom filled with weirdos and psychos (Though, one's perfectly normal), then chronicle their adventures into a manga. What you get is not an ordinary high school slice-of-life piece, but this dark and surreal beauty of humor and horror (More often the former than not, so it's totally OK). This show is so satirical that every single character with a name is named after something that pertains to their quirks (eg: Itoshiki Nozomu's kanji, 糸色 望, when horizontally written and compressed, spells out 絶望 (zetsubou), or "despair").
Any resemblance of one certain animé by Shaft with this manga IS entirely coincidental, but we'll tell you about it, anyway. It's quite fond of playing with schoolgirl archetypes, matching the satirical tone of the manga. It's also got pretty animation and the more beautiful scenes are rendered with equal beauty. Said animé has three 13-episode seasons and two OVAs... and that's the end of that.
Oh, yeah. Said animé's second season gives you a VOCALOID cameo in the form of Hatsune Miku (Some others were also present, but the staff didn't quite get the colors right) volunteering to dub Meru Meru at the request of the latter's father. It went just as well as the other guy (Which is, not at all) because Meru Meru-chan refused to approve.
