Zetsubo-Sensei? Say Goodbye to School Days…

I was thinking about School Days. As of episode 5 things were coming to a point where it actually fits the mold of a naive school story about stupid teenagers boning each other for whatever it’s worth. It’s so rare to see an anime about something that’s probably not at all rare in this day and age. Depends on how ghetto your high schools are, I suppose.

The funny thing is, while some people I talked with online say that Makoto (or Sekai or Kotonoha, for that matter) may be more like an average 16 year-old than we’d like to admit, just how often do we see that? Recalling my own adolescence, I came from a school that’s probably somewhat ghetto for an American suburban fare and I have certainly heard a fair share of these kind of things. But my impression was, like most people, I made my business to not mind these kind of business. I mean, what good does it do? In some ways the preliminary setup for School Days is just, well, setup for the outrageous crash that is yet to come. And it’s because of the crash that School Days is worth watching. The stuff before that is nice because it might be what you’ve experienced, maybe not, but it’s rather better for the dark subtext sewn into the puppy love story.

It’s good to wonder how much weight that appeal to personal experience one should give. Because, after thinking about it, there were more personality disorders that I’ve seen coming out of Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei that matched my own recollection of high school than just guys and girls having sex, and breaking up.

In fact, I recall one classmate who was like Fuura. A few Kaga were to be found. Definitely some Otonashi (boys more so), two Kaere, a Tsunetsuki, a Fujiyoshi, and even a Komori. I’m exaggerating a bit (or maybe Kumeta is rather?) but a lot of these personality flaws are more common than you think.

So nuts to people who had memories of casual, innocent sex in high school. They’re really missing out on the comedy.


2 Responses to “Zetsubo-Sensei? Say Goodbye to School Days…”

  • Totali

    The difference between the two shows is that School Days makes you want to hate the realistic characters, where SZS makes you love the realistic personality flaws. I love Zetsubou Sensei and I love (laughing at) School Days.

  • omo

    I don’t really hate as much as pity and enjoy it. I guess that makes me less of a man but a more feely-touchy metrosexual sort of man? Something like that. I think my Christian worldview demands something along that line–not so much as condemnation as “hey, these kids are doing it wrong…”

    I think laughing at School Days come later when Kotonoha does her thing though. Right now it’s not much of a laughing matter.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.