Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei Season 1 Episode 1 Goodbye, Zetsubo Sensei

Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei is a Japanese anime show that focuses on the life of a high school teacher, Nozomu Itoshiki. He is a man with an utterly pessimistic view of life and has a tragic past that has contributed to his current mindset. The show takes a comedic approach to showcasing this pessimism, and the first episode, titled "Goodbye, Zetsubo Sensei," does just that.

The episode starts with Itoshiki attempting to hang himself, only to be interrupted by his excited student, Kafuka Fuura. She is an unrelentingly cheerful girl who seems to find joy in everything. As Itoshiki tries to resume his hanging, he is interrupted again, this time by a group of his students, who are more concerned with his safety than his despair. In this moment, it becomes clear that Itoshiki feels like a burden on his students and is struggling to find a meaningful existence.

As Itoshiki arrives at school to begin the new semester, he notices that a group of his students is wearing name tags with different variations of his name, including "Zetsubo Sensei," meaning "The Despair Teacher." While this may seem like a sign of admiration, Itoshiki takes it as a sign of his students belittling him, which only serves to worsen his already pessimistic mood.

Throughout the episode, Itoshiki attempts to teach his students, but his dark views on life overshadow everything he says. He comments on how everything is futile and that there is no point in anything. However, his enraptured students seem to miss these underlying messages, occupied in their own laughter or awe at his bleakness. No matter what Itoshiki says, his students always seem to find a way to spin it into a positive light.

Kafuka, in particular, worships Itoshiki and sees something extraordinary in him even when he's hanging himself. Her strange reaction to trouble or despair is always to get excited about it and find ways to enjoy it - an automatic antidote to Itoshiki's overwhelming sense of hopelessness. Itoshiki believes that Kafuka is the most irritating of all his students, relating to her almost childlike enthusiasm with annoyance. Still, as the episode progresses, there is a hint of hope that begins to emerge.

Toward the end of the episode, Itoshiki meets with a new transfer student, Chiri Kitsu, who is rigidly fixated on perfection and order. Chiri is a character who takes everything quite literally, as Itoshiki soon finds out when she interprets his suggestion to look out the window as a desire to jump from the window instead. Chiri often corrects Itoshiki's pessimism but in a blunt, controlling way that grates on him as well.

Itoshiki's persistence to teach his students about Despair and their persistence to not give up on him in the face of his gloom is the central theme of the show Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei. What's so unusual about this show is how it approaches the topic of pessimism and despair with humor as a means of addressing serious issues, such as anxiety, depression, and societal pressures in an engaging and relatable way. The first episode sets up the unique dynamics between the teacher and his students that serve as a launching pad for the rest of the series.