Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei episode 7

Harumi, the crazed yaoi fangirl, collides with Itoshiki-sensei on the way to the copy store to publish her doujinshi. She discusses her doujinshi hobby with Itoshiki and he reveals that he too used to be into doujins in his youth. Of course the two are talking about totally different subjects as Itoshiki writes self-published poetry while Harumi is into fan comics. She invites Itoshiki to sell his works at Comiket.

At Comiket, Itoshiki is mistaken for a Rurouni Kenshin cosplayer and has his picture taken by quite a few girls. His stalker also garners some attention from the cosplay photographers as well. His poetry ends up being a big flop.

Harumi’s manga is critiqued by Chiri-chan who explains the proper story setup and demands that the doujinshi be rewritten on the spot into a 4-koma comic. After Comiket is over, Kafuka and Chiri-chan tell Harumi to aim for Manga Koshien to sell her new, improved 4-panel comics. The next day at school Harumi, Chiri, and Maria are in the classroom talking about 4-panel manga. Itoshiki hears them and introduces them to concept of the forbidden fifth panel which he names “Darkness”. This fifth panel adds very dark subject matter to the comics and depresses the girls.

We are now taken to a summer festival where all of the girls are having fun doing stereotypical festival activites. A moving shrine passes by and everyone becomes excited at the spectacle. Itoshiki then tells them that they should think before jumping onto the bandwagon so easily. He goes into a huge rant about the evils of marketing and putting everything on a pedestal through undeserved hype. The men hauling the shrine soon begin to hype everything they see from stalkers to hikkikomoris. They even hype Nami for being very normal.

All in all, a fair episode. The Comiket segment was fairly funny and had some nice moments. The popsicle stick puppet act was well done. The second half’s social commentary joke really started to wear thin after a while and ruined the satire. Here’s to hoping the comedy returns back to normal in episode 8.

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