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Lineart is really weak. Tried to cover it with lots of textures and shading, and it shows. Uhh, not sure if I’m actually allowed to sample those patterns. They’re traditional Japanese patterns, so it should be okay, right??
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I like it I guess? Probably bad.
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Turned out better than expected… but still probably bad.
If you know anything about me, you probably know that I really enjoy doujinshi. And considering the limited scope of my Japanese linguistic abilities, I enjoy simple doujinshi. Doujinshi that doesn’t require me actually having to read it.
You know, porno books.
But as the years have gone by, my tastes have grown gradually more specific when it comes to both pornography and anime, so finding stuff that hits my sweet spots is difficult. I mean, I see no problem with getting it off to your run-of-the-mill rape book based on show-of-the-hour. Sometimes I like to do just that. But in the end, those books don’t really do much to hit my really specific kinks. I really enjoy anime–and characters in those anime–that tend not to be popular, and as a result doujinshi produced around those shows and characters are a rarity, and often times what we get is rather poor quality stuff. However, sometimes you find an artist who does exactly what you’ve been wanting, and does it extremely well.
Hitomaron is that kind of artist. As a fan of the beautiful young girls in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (I’ve been meaning to write an article extolling the virtues of their brilliant visual design and why they are just so sexy.) Hitomaron’s renderings of them push all the right buttons, where other doujin artists exploring similar territory fail. I first came across his (Her? Their?) work during my travels in the east, and was immediately taken when I saw his (then) newest release–Kagiana Gekijou Shoujo 5–sitting around in Tora no Ana. Further investigation lead to the purchase of Kagiana Gekijou Shoujo 4, and here I am reviewing them a year later.
Once upon a time, internet maestro Shingo (of the now dead Heisei Democracy) made a beautiful analogy regarding character designers whose specialty is adapting designs for anime versions of original works, such as manga or light novels. He compared them to when bands cover songs, and how sometimes you really like certain covers of certain songs. Sometimes you may even like the cover over the original. A similar thing obviously happens in the doujinshi scene, considering how a lot of it is composed of parody works. There are a lot of Zetsubou Sensei doujin that either try to shoot for the look of the original, or take things in their own direction, but very few artists take what was aesthetically pleasing about Kumeta’s and/or SHAFT’s designs and act upon them in the such a way that the result is unique and creative, but still has the same underlying feel carried by the original work.
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Mostly used SAI for this one. Turned out decent, I suppose.
You need to click if you want to see more! And don’t do it at work!
I’ve been drawing a lot lately mainly for practice. The reason why a lot of the poses are straight on is because I want to nail basic poses before attempting more dynamic poses.
I always like doing deadly serious Zetsubou Sensei art because the openings for the show are just so twisted, and it contrasts nicely with just how goofy the whole show is. As such, this picture is comically emo. I hope you enjoy it!!
At a cursory glance it’s easy to write each Zetsubou Sensei series off as all the same, but they’re actually all quite different in terms of presentation. The first one is slowly paced and eases you into the formula, Zoku then takes that formula and experiments with it, and Goku expands upon that experimentation even further.
Zan is noticeably more streamlined than the others, and the presentation becomes more formulaic. However, it does do some rather interesting things with its episode structure. First of all, each episode opens with one of the phony “story so far” spiels housed in the dust jacket flaps from the original manga, narrated lovingly by Saito Chiwa in a variety of crazy voices. I think these do well to set the tone for the rest of the show, but as someone whose Japanese isn’t the best, following the narration along with subtitles is a touch difficult.
Another thing of note is the visual style of the opening sequence, which is vastly different from the last two seasons’ openings that had a large degree of visual continuity between them. While this opening is decidedly the most normal looking of the bunch, it’s also the most chaotic, crazy, and non-nonsensical. Instead of being bound to certain themes (e.g. bondage, guro, the circus) Zan’s opening is a weird mix of ideas and visual styles, all thrown together in a package that somehow works better than it should.
Probably the most interesting thing that SHAFT did with the show was create continuity between the episodes by having one of the three sketches cutoff half way, then continue in the later part of the following episode. I think this gave them more freedom in allotting time to each sketch, making the pacing tighter. And–as mentioned before–the “to be continued” created continuity where there was at first none, making the viewer wonder how that one sketch would turn out in the next episode. I feel that it worked quite well.
Zan also began using the original manga more as a guide for storyboarding. I have not read the manga beyond the first book, so I can’t tell you how much or how little they copied from it. While I’m not sure this is a direct result of that, the show had a visual style that seemed a lot sharper, and more consistent between episodes than the previous series. I also noticed more in the way of drawn backgrounds as opposed Photoshopped photos. Despite this practice, the show also seemed quite animated. It still had a lot of talking heads–typical for SHAFT–but characters burst out in movement a bit more frequently than usual. In fact think some episodes of Zan were more animated than Bakemonogatari (which I really need to talk about more, by the way)
As far as actual content goes–you know, the stuff people actually care about–the show starts off feeling a bit weak coming on the heels of Goku, but after an episode or two I found myself laughing to the point of losing breath. Even though the show does miss at points–and the points where it misses are simply jokes I can’t connect to–it hits hard a good 90% of the time, and I had a great time watching it. And despite most of the show being less adventurous than Zoku, it does give us this beautifully animated sketch by Gekidan Inu Curry, as well an ending sequence that more or less summarizes what my life will probably be in the next year or so.
Oh, and there’s IKENAI! Kaere-Sensei.
If I was in a more dismissive mood, I’d leave the blog post at that picture. But no–there are things to be said.
It’s been out for a while–I know, don’t get on my case–but having just finished reading the first translated volume of the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei manga a few weeks ago, I have some things to say about it, most of it revolving around its translation into English.
By the time the existence of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei was known to the English-speaking world, those keen in the ways of Japanese (and those not, even) knew the material was difficult to translate well. Further more, a commercial release of such a work would be a disaster if not done properly. However, despite seemingly insurmountable linguistic and cultural barriers, amateur translators managed to put out great, high quality localizations of the franchise’s TV anime counterpart. Why is it, then, that professionals can’t handle the manga part of the deal better?
While I can’t speak entirely for accuracy, Del-Rey’s translation of Zetsubou Sensei generally reads decently. It does feel stiff in places, but on the whole it comes off fine. However, at some point in the book–and this is a very specific point–things go all wrong. Once Kaere’s chapter rolls along, it seems as if the guy in charge of quality control just gives up. “Oh no!” is followed by its romanized Japanese equivalent “yada!”, and the translator for some reason feels “eki-in” (駅員) needs a translation note, when it simply means nothing more than “station attendant.” C’mon, guys. Even the fansubs translated that. I can understand them leaving the joke about Kaere’s name to a translation note, but I honestly expect more creativity and smarts out of professional translators and editors.
Another big issue is the incorrect romanization of character names, and I’m not talking about trivial Shaa/Char shit. That said, this only really effects Sekiutsu, who is first introduced as Sekiuchi, then referred to as Sekiutsu, then is later on in the book referred to as Sekiuchi once more. Guys, I know the 内 in 関内 is typically read as “uchi”, but Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei has furigana for god sakes. This stuff is spelled out for you, quite literally, in conveniently placed bits of hiragana. To add insult to injury, they get her name right not once, but twice after the initial mess up. Then, in the next chapter, our lovable Maria becomes Sekiuchi again. Also, later on in the “Current Charges From This Issue” section–a section detailing the people Kaere sued–Nozomu’s name is rendered as “Noboru”, which is just utterly stupid.
I really feel sorry for any newcomer to the series reading this translation. While it reads decently in other sections, I’m afraid these bits will throw people off and confuse them, if they’re not already confused by all the Japan-specific cultural gags. I do commend Del-Rey for throwing in a glossary at the back, but it’s still missing some painfully obvious things. I haven’t read further volumes, so I don’t know if they improve or not, but this one gets pretty dire.
As for the manga itself, it’s pretty good. Kumeta’s work is still in infant stages here, so these early chapters feel a bit awkwardly paced and somewhat random, but they work well to deliver the franchise’s celebrated dark comedy and social satire. However, I do think the anime did a better job of streamlining these early chapters into something that flowed a bit easier. The art is also still developing, and hasn’t yet reached the point where SHAFT can just trace it panel to panel for their anime adaptation.
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