30 Days of Anime, Day 2: Boku wa Romeo, Kimi wa Juliet

[plasmoids]

30 Days of Anime: Favorite Anime You've Watched So Far



Yeah, thus far, my favorite anime is Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, which probably says a lot about how seriously I take this stuff. At it's core, SZS is the story of a suicidal teacher who is stuck with a class of a crazies and weirdos. In a broader sense, it's a lot of social commentary, anime spoofs, obscure references and puns. Oh, the puns. And I don't get any of them, because I don't speak Japanese.

There's very little consistency in this series. The entire first season I was waiting for a plot to emerge after all the characters were introduced, and when Sensei was hit by a bus in the second to last episode I was like "Oh, HERE we go." And then the last episode was just more of the same classroom antics. And that's when I think I finally got it.

What I particularly like about this show is that all the characters really are weird/insane/crazy/whatever, but don't come off as the usual "weird" anime stereotypes. And because of that, the characters are much more interesting than anime characters from normal series where people are supposed to have personalities and there's a plot and not just running jokes and puns. I like to think of it as a very dark Lucky Star, with less food and more attempted murder.

The other thing I really love about this series is the music. There is so much of it, and so many kinds. For those of you who haven't watched this show and probably won't, at least treat yourself to the opening and ending songs. Which ones? ALL OF THEM. They are excellent and the accompanying animation is some serious eye candy. But if I had to pick, I'd tell you to watch these:

But really? They're all good.