By Koji Kumeta. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Del Rey.

For my ongoing war with Del Rey’s lack of an editorial department, see the reviews of Volumes 5 and 6. Again, endnotes are chosen almost at random, with many relevant things left unexplained. This is especially noteworthy in the chapter on inappropriate names of books, as the chapter clearly depends on knowing the books in question (that they’re parodying) for the gag. Also, saying that Dice-K pitches for the Yankees? You fail forever, Del Rey.

This is, however, a very strong volume of Zetsubou-sensei, featuring a greater than usual amount of topics that make sense to both Eastern and Western readers. And, to be fair to David Ury, translator/adaptor since Vol. 5, some of the adaptation is excellent. My favorite story in the volume, which features Nozomu going on about how people say ‘half-‘ something when they don’t mean exactly half, is a great example, as it works in both straight translation of the original (when relevant) and adaptations of hard-to-translate gags (when needed). In particular, Chiri is at her scary best here. My favorite is when she confronts the student about being half asleep, and just says “No.” over and over as he tries. She actually said “No.” in English for the anime, making it even creepier.

There’s a lot of disturbing, weird and creepy in this volume, as you’d expect from a gag manga. I was expecting the naked guy’s full-frontal nudity, sketched and indistinct as it was, to be censored – very happy that it was not. Even if it’s the exact opposite of fanservice. Chiri’s half-crying makes even Meru gibber, and justifiably so. However, the prize has to go to the giant 50-foot Nozomu made entirely of people, which just makes my flesh crawl. Naturally, Chiri loves it.

There are a couple of things in this volume that will become important later, or at least as important as it will ever get here. We discover that Harumi is skilled at far more than just manga, but how she uses her God-given talent is somewhat questionable. We meet the one character whose punny name might actually be recognizable to Western readers, Jun Kutou’s rival Kino Kuniya. He doesn’t actually do much, but then few of the male classmates do. We also meet another main female character here in the girl who’s the library aide, though she’s been around silently since Volume 1, and we won’t get her name and quirk till Volume 8. She’s funnier with her quirk. :)

And of course there are the gags. Which are hit-and-miss, as you’d expect, but with far more hits than misses. Some of my favorites are Nozomu’s red strings of fate (shades of Ataru in the 3rd UY movie), all of the Matoi robots stalking the Nozomu robots, “I was only half-joking”, Harumi’s reaction to the soccer ball being kicked at her head, and using before and after pictures of Michael Jackson to show things deviating from the original idea. My favorite gag, though, as to be Chiri’s ‘authentic witch’ costume. Koji Kumeta has mocked Ghibli before, and he will again, but this is one of his subtler and better timed jokes.

If you can get past some questionable editorial practices (one more example: Chiri saying “Goodbye, Zetsubou-sensei” at the climax of Chapter 69. Come on, Del Rey, you even begged Kodansha to let you keep the original title! If you’re going to tell a joke using your title, TELL THE JOKE), but is still a strong comedy manga with striking art, laughable mocking of various habits, and the biggest set of sociopathic classmates you’ll see this side of a horror manga. Recommended.

By Koji Kumeta. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Del Rey.

First off, lest this review turn into another giant rant, let me point you to my review of Volume 5, here. Pretty much everything I said there still applies to this volume, which looks badly edited and slapdash. The contents page still lists the stories as coming from the chapters from Vol. 4 (and no, it’s not a gag, the original Japanese has the correct listing), the continuity is still different from 1-4 (I’ve lost all faith vs. I’m in despair, etc.), and the endnotes, while more accurate this time, are chosen almost at random, with many, many references left simply unexplained. Del Rey, you knew it was going to be a hard manga to translate when you licensed it. Stop cutting corners. And list your editors, dammit!

Now that that’s over with, let me sing in praise of this volume of Zetsubou, which is excellent and defies all attempts to mess it up. In particular, there’s fewer chapters that require immersion in Japanese culture to understand them, and a lot more things that are universal.

Kumeta has found a basic template he uses for each chapter (excusable as this is at heart a gag comic, and plot and characterization are irrelevant): start with the class doing some activity, Zetsubou-sensei comes in to rant about the Topic Of The Chapter, and provide examples of it, culminating in a long list. There then proceeds a discussion among the class, usually giving some examples among themselves. Kafuka then comes in and twists or reverses the topic, which leads to a second set of examples and list on the reversal. And then things spiral into a chaotic ending, usually finishing with a quick one-liner by Maria. It works.

There’s not quite as much of the character’s quirks in this volume as compared to others, with the exception, of course, of Matoi, who is still visible behind Zetsubou-sensei in at least one panel per chapter. (Later volumes will show Kumeta tiring of this, and she’ll become a more developed character. But for now, it’s fun to try to track her down.) Nami only says “Don’t call me ordinary!” once, and even Chiri only goes insane and murderous twice here. With one exception, the chapters focus on the cultural gags rather than the people in the cast.

That one exception is Chapter 55, which introduces one of my favorite characters, Ai Kaga. Unlike Mayo from Volume 5, who is fun but will remain a minor one-note character, Ai becomes a regular pretty quickly. Her quirk is also both very Japanese and yet also easily understandable elsewhere: she thinks everything is her fault, and is constantly apologizing. She even notes that she hasn’t appeared in the manga before now as she knew if she did readers would lose interest. (She’s right, she wasn’t even in the background before, unlike characters such as Mayo or Manami.) In among all the class’s attention hogs and egotists, she’s very refreshing. And of course, matches up well with Zetsubou-sensei, who’s also very negative about himself.

The main reason to read the manga, of course, is the humor. Not only are the observations dead-on, but there are little throw-away gags that also work great. When Zetsubou “dies” at the end of Chapter 55, we see him in his coffin, and note that Matoi is lying in state right next to him. The exam results that we see in Chapter 56’s title page are actually in character, with Meru at the very bottom as she tried to text her answers, and Maria and Matoi right above her as they both “cheated” by leaving their seats (no doubt Maria was hanging on the ceiling and Matoi was under her teacher’s podium).

And, to give Del Rey some credit, the dialogue that doesn’t depend on references to 1980s video games or Japanese idol singers is rendered very well. It’s a very smooth translation. The one thing that made me raise an eyebrow is in Chapter 54, where the original Japanese pun is untranslatable. The joke is that one girl’s name is Kanako, and Nami jokes that if she married a man named Oba she’d be “Oba Kanako”, which can be read as “big idiot.” Del Rey give an endnote explaining this, which is awesome. But in the joke they used instead, Nami says if she married a man named “Lingus”, she’d be “Kana Lingus”. Now, I know this is rated for Older Teen, but seriously.

I do still recommend this manga as being a great example of what makes Japanese gag manga fun, as it’s insane but not totally Bobobo-esque obnoxious. The characters are silly, the art is striking and gives you some great expressions (particularly Chiri’s), and if you don’t mind looking a lot of things up on Wikipedia as they aren’t in the endnotes, it’s a great example of Japan circa 2006. Watch for a lot of World Cup references.

By Koji Kumeta. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Del Rey.

This volume of Zetsubou is a particular favorite of mine, containing two of the best early chapters, and perhaps the iconic image of one of the characters. It also introduces three new minor characters. There’s a lot going on here.

In one chapter, Itoshiki goes to a hot springs only to find (of course) all his students there. Unfortunately, this hot spring advertises that it removes toxins from the body, and this proves to have an adverse effect on everyone. This is the sort of story that could only work playing off of the broad stereotypes of the cast, and we now know them well enough to be amused by Abiru without her injuries, or Harumi reading a nice clean kids’ manga.

Another excellent story plays off the idea of the dream ending. Ever since Tezuka said in an interview he hated the cheapness of ‘it was all a dream’ endings, they’d been unofficially banned in Japan. Of course, Kumeta goes all out with this, and we see the various characters becoming the opposite of themselves (because it’s all a dream). Again, it’s taken five volumes to really appreciate Usui being greeted by everyone, or Komori playing outside as a gag.

We see three new minor characters introduced in this volume. Itoshiki’s brother Kei and Ikkyu, an “old friend” of Itoshiki’s (in another chapter that’s essentially based around an untranslatable pun). And Mayo Mitama is a new student, even though we’ve seen her in the background since the very first chapter. She has mean-looking eyes, and everyone misunderstands her. Unfortunately, it’s hard to work her quirks into the story, so she mostly stays a minor student in future volumes.

This is also the volume where Chiri Kitsu pretty much completes her evolution. Starting out as a ‘precise’ anal retentive girl, we started to see bits of psychosis in Volume 3, where she beat Itoshiki into a coma with a gravestone. But by Chapter 48, Kumeta has realized that Chiri is funniest when she’s completely flipped her lid and gone ax crazy. Page 116 has the perfect example of what Chiri has become. All it’s missing is the shovel that becomes her weapon of choice in the future.

So, it’s a great volume in terms of content. Unfortunately, I found myself dissatisfied with Del Rey’s handling of the volume. The translator of the first 4 volumes has moved on, and they brought in someone new. I’m not sure if he just didn’t have time to go over everything before the deadline, or if it simply never went through a final editing stage (Del Rey does not credit their editors the way Viz or CMX do), but there are many examples of simple sloppy translation choice and editing.

For some examples, there is the footnote noting the reference to the character “Bejiita” from the manga “Dragon Ballz”. Now, at first I thought this was simply the typical Japanese policy of not referring to a manga from another company, but they’ve mentioned One Piece in earlier volumes, and talk about Shonen Jump here. It reads more like the translator didn’t recognize Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z. An entire chapter talks about measuring a person’s ‘minotake’… without a single end note noting the origin of the word. Yes, he defined it in the text as “Measuring one’s value as a human being”, but usually if you’re going to use a Japanese word (rather than a translation) throughout a story, you should say something about its background, especially as I believe this is a Japanese pun based around measuring one’s height.

And some other problems are purely the fault of the editor. The contents page has the “these chapters were printed in Shonen Magazine Volumes 1-13” blurb at the bottom… which is the same as Volume 4. (In reality, they were Volumes 14-26). And consistency is also something lacking. When you have the same character saying the same thing in four straight volumes (“Don’t open it”), you don’t change it to “Shut the door!” in Volume 5 if it’s the same Japanese wording. This is not the new translator’s fault, but it’s something an editor not only should have caught, but it’s his job to look for!

(Del Rey is not alone in this problem. Almost every manga series, when it changes translators, finds itself reading slightly differently. Manga editors in general should be better at keeping the feel of the book consistent across all volumes, regardless of who is translating.)

These may look small, but they added up for me, especially since the previous four volumes were so well-done. And I admit, your mileage may vary, as Johanna Draper Carlson felt that the new translator, with fewer end notes, made things simplified and easier to read. But for me, it damages what is overall a great volume of Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei. I’m hoping that the quick 2-month turnaround time between volumes might have meant this was simply rushed, and that Volume 6 will see a more consistent approach.