Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei - Episode 7

After quite the absence (with a week of in Japanese airing terms, but longer for us poor English-speaking saps), Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is back - Although it appears that the pthey calacid and air-headed Oora has been sat at her blood-stained desk the entire time; a suitably hilarious revelation with which to start this episode.

From here, the first subject for discussion is the "loss leader" selling something at a loss for the producer just so that they can hook you in to spending lots of money elsewhere, something which happens everywhere from printers through to (and I'm surprised this one didn't get a prominent mention) game consoles. A similar technique is also deployed by those annoying multi-part magazines that allow you to build or collect certain things, and somehow from here we're introduced to a prt-by-part magazine that lets you build your own Zetsubou Sensei. Naturally, hilarity ensues.

Next up, Nozomu and company find General Frost passed out in the middle of the street, whereby he refuses to make the winter cold any more. It's time for a new job then, but just what jobs are out there for a General these days? After struggling to find anything suitable, Kafuka suggests that everyone can be a General in this day and age, and before we know it everyone is a General, with some potentially disastrous consequences.


Finally comes my favourite segment of this particular episode - A surprise birthday party for Nozomu! Of course, to make it a surprise, the class haven't actually thrown this party on his birthday itself, that would just be silly. So begins a discussion of what does and doesn't constitute a surprise in this day and age, before Chiri made me laugh until I cried with the most surreally surprising entrance fathomable - Pure genius.

As per usual then there are plenty of laughs here, from random references on blackboards to Basquash! through to the obvious glee the writers are having in lampooning the Japanese general election (which finished today) at every possible opportunity. Once again I just can't get enough of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and my week somehow just seems that little brighter for a new episode. This is General Normal, signing out until next time.