Nozomu Itoshiki is depressed. Very depressed. He’s certifiably suicidal, but he’s also the beloved schoolteacher of a class of unique students, each charming in her own way: The stalker. The shut-in. The obsessive-compulsive. The girl who comes to class every day with strange bruises. And Kafuka, the most optimistic girl in the world, who knows that every cloud has a silver lining. For all of them, it’s a special time, when the right teacher can have a lasting positive effect on their lives. But is that teacher Itoshiki, a.k.a. Zetsubou-sensei, who just wants to find the perfect place to die?
Chapter 27: Evening Primroses on Mt. Fuji Are a Mistake
Previous chapter: Be mindful of first-timers; please use spoiler text for any spoilers. __________
>Evening Primroses on Mt. Fuji Are a Mistake This title is a reference to Osamu Dazai’s 1939 short story collection Fugaku Hyakkei (“One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji”), which includes the line “Evening primroses are suited to Mt. Fuji.”
>Assorted references Zetsubou-sensei’s quote (“There are no right answers in life”) is a combination of quotes from the French aviator/author Antoine de Saint Exupéry (“There are no solutions in life. There is only the energy to advance forward”) and Japanese anatomist/philosopher Takeshi Yoro (“For the problems we face in our lives, there are no right answers. But in the meantime, there are answers”). Abiru’s quote (“There are no mistakes”) is possibly a reference to a book of the same name by Japanese entertainer Hidekazu Nagai (1970-), who has been embroiled in various scandals involving women.
>Assorted references July 1999 was the month in which, according to the prophecies of Nostradamus, the “King of Terror” was supposed to appear, ushering in the end of the world. “Paying for NHK” refers to the Japanese law that each household with a working television must pay monthly fees to NHK, Japan’s national public broadcasting system. However, there is no penalty for not paying, so many (possibly most) people don’t pay anything, and the system is sort of a national joke. VHD (“Video High Density”) was a failed Japanese videodisc format launched in 1978.
>Heisei When Nozomu declares, “It’s the Heisei war of mistakes!” it’s a play on words. The Heisei Era is the name of the current Japanese era, which began in 1989, but the name Heisei also means “peace everywhere,” so it’s an ironic name for a war.
>Assorted references Hidetoshi Nakata (1977- ) is a former Japanese professional soccer player. His soccer playing started to go downhill when he joined Fiorentina, an Italian soccer club, in 2004, and he retired in 2006. J-pop star Sayaka Kanda (1986- ), also known as simply Sayake, is the daughter of Japanese singer-songwriter Seiko Matsuda (1962- ). In 2005, the mother and daughter had a much-publicized falling-out, and Seiko’s management agency “retired” Sayaka from show business, reportedly due to Seiko’s disapproval of Sayaka’s boyfriends. In Japanese, “nucleic acid and your wife” is a pun (kakusan and okusan). Kaoru Sugita (1964-) is a Japanese actress who was supposed to appear in an NHK TV drama, but they couldn’t agree to her scheduling and pay demands so she was bumped off the series. Makiko Tanaka (1944- ) is a Japanese politician who was kicked out of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party after she made remarks critical of then-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi. She later successfully ran as an independent. MF (midfielder) and FW (winger) are soccer terms. Akechi Mitsuhide (1528-1582) was a samurai and general under the great daimyo Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), who later betrayed Nobunaga and forced him to commit seppuku. Fuji TV and Livedoor are Japanese media corporations that fought a highly publicized battle for control of the radio station NBS (Nippon Broadcasting System) in 2005. Reinhard von Lohengramm and Oskar von Reuenthal are characters in the classic science fiction manga/anime/novel series Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
>OP Note: While alive at the time of publication, Sayaka Kanda (apparently) committed suicide on December 18, 2021.
>Assorted references All the people depicted are Japanese (or global) celebrities. The guy with the video camera is Masashi Tashiro (1956- ), a former Japanese TV performer and musician who was arrested in 2000 for filming up women’s skirts. The guy with the hand mirror is Kazuhide Uekusa, a former professor at Waseda University who was arrested in 2004 for using a mirror to peep under girls’ skirts at a train station. The guy on the TV is Katsuji Ebisawa, president of NHK TV, who stepped down from his post and publicly apologized following a series of embezzlement scandals in 2005. The “flat three” refers to the three-man backline defensive strategy used by French soccer coach Philip Troussier when he was coaching the Japanese national team from 1998 to 2002. (It wasn’t successful.) The guy with the mushroom is Hideaki Ito (1975-), a Japanese actor who was hospitalized in 2001 after eating a magic mushroom. (His T-shirt advertises his 2006 film Limit of Love: Umizaru.) The man in the corner reading a book is Taku Yamasaki (1936- ), a Japanese politician who was publicly humiliated in 2003 when his ex-mistress wrote a sexually explicit book about their ten-year-long affair. The text on the poster of Michael Jackson reads “Lawsuit won!”
>Assorted references Yutori Kyoiku (“relaxed education”) is a 2002 education initiative aimed at reducing stress in students and giving them more outlets for self-expression by reducing the Japanese school week from six days to five days (see page 113), reducing workload, and offering more electives. Some people blame it for a decline in Japanese academic abilities. The Chubu Centrair International Airport was opened in Japan in 2005. Fifty-six-year-old Masaaki Matsubayashi became infamous for embezzling more than 1.9 billion yen to pay for his extravagant lifestyle which included seventeen mistresses. The “lottery ticket” line refers to the lottery that, except for a brief period from 2002 to 2005, was used to determine the draft of Japanese high school students into professional baseball. Koji Nakata (1979-) is a Japanese soccer player who accidentally passed to the opposing team in a 2005 match against Latvia. Kei Igawa (see ) is a Japanese baseball player whose performance declined in 2004-2005. Noma Neko is a cat mascot character created in 2005 by Avex for a music video. When Noma Neko first appeared, users of the Japanese community site 2channel noticed a strong similarity to the fan-created 2channel cat mascot, Mona, and cried foul, prompting massive criticism of Avex. Avex eventually released an apology on the networking site Mixi, and canceled plans to obtain a trademark on the character. Ken Hirai (1972-) is a singer who releases work fairly infrequently. Uniqlo is Japan’s leading clothing retail chain, who at one point attempted selling groceries (vegetables, etc.) through a subsidiary. The attempt was a failure and the subsidiary was dissolved in 2004. Chogin Bank, aka LTCB, was one of Japan’s top-ranked long-term credit banks, until it collapsed under bad-loan losses in 2000.
>Assorted references (cont.) The Isahaya Bay land reclamation project, which began in 1997 in an attempt to drain wetlands and convert them into agricultural land, was an environmental fiasco which devastated the local fishing industry. DigiCube was a subsidiary of Square founded in 1996 for the purpose of selling entertainment software in convenient stores. It filed for bankruptcy in 2003.
And that's all for today. Can you come up with some mistakes in your life? I'm not as picky as Nozomu, so just three would be fine. Feel free to think up seven or ten though, if you like. See you tomorrow.
this chapter has 2 Tsunetsuki, 1 pantyshot, 1 Uropen, 1 Amakudari sama, and 0 eye of darkness.
John Perry
Thanks for dumping OP. I know these threads don't get a ton of attention but I'm enjoying the manga.
Brandon Edwards
Thank you OP, I'm glad to see the thread this early because I'm usually asleep when the thread is up so I am happy to finally participate. I'd say that the three mistakes of my life were discovering Any Forums, discovering Any Forums and living in the wrong timezone.
Zachary Cooper
>Can you come up with some mistakes in your life? you're not fooling anyone, that's a ploy to get me to fall in despair and I ain't having it
