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Like I said, the show is visually impressive and uniquely humorous. How does it achieve this? Well, let's start with the story. Nozomu Itoshiki is extremely suicidal. In fact, we start the show off by him trying to hang himself, only to be rescued by a girl, who he later finds out is in the homeroom he's started teaching. This is certainly going to cause some tension between the two.
The conflict, really, comes from the characters. Itoshiki-sensei only sees the world in a negative light, and tries to be as depressing as possible -- both for himself, and the rest of his class. Kafuka Fuura (I wonder if there's any connection to Kafka meant here) is the girl who found him, and she can only see things in a positive light. She's so positive, she thought Itoshiki was "just trying to get taller." From the sound of it, the conflict between the two in the classroom would seem childish and unimaginative, but these characters, as well as the several supporting members of the cast, really create a fun and interesting environment. The title of the show actually comes from Kafuka trying to cheer up Itoshiki-sensei by writing his name horizontially. Basically, because of this (it's just a kanji joke, really), his name now appears to be "Zetsubou" -- "despair."
The dialogue and humor in this show is subtle and fast-paced. Itoshiki is well educated and somewhat verbose, but doesn't go into something so bad as a monologue. Combined with random little quips by the director, the humor in the show is shot at you at an incredibly high pace -- for some, it might be a little too much, but for me, I absolutely loved it. While some of the characters seemed to operate off of a few archetypes for the first episode, I have faith that it will develop more as the story goes on.
When discussing the show with Len, he commented that the art style reminded him of Hidamari Sketch, and I can't help but agree with him. There are some times when the art style will get very vector-y (if you can consider that a word), and makes for great wallpapers, if you can find the raw files. The character designs and look of the show, overall, is something that I think is wonderful. There's nothing that really stikes me as sub-par in the animation, and it manages to communicate everything very well, without confusing me as to what is going on in the shot.
With my only complaints being the director's insistance on including his face everywhere, as well as some flat secondary characters (thus far), the show Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei certainly has the makings for a great program to watch. I've heard people want to compare this to Great Teacher Onizuka, but I think it's fundamentally different in its mood and pacing. The show acts as a great compliment to GTO, though, and is going to be a must-watch for those who enjoyed seeing teacher-student interactions as the main focus of a program.
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