Zoku Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei

Episode 12

Nozomu Itoshiki teaches his students to get themselves used to summer vacation gradually as he believes that a sudden change of state is unhealthy for everyone. Suddenly, Nozomu is in despair, because there are too many instances of 'hard landings' in current society. In order to teach how to do a proper 'soft landing', he prepares a flight simulator for the students. In the second part of the episode, Nozomu meets a taxi driver, who is about to do the last driving before his retirement. However, he ends up paying ridiculous amount of taxi fee as he was unwillingly drawn to taxi driver's dramatic situation. Subsequently, Nozomu is constantly drawn to many other dramatic situations despite his desperate attempts of scape. In the third part of the episode, Nozomu discusses various instances of 'backward flow', where people are drawn to various interests in reverse way. While Nozomu considers phenomena of 'backward flow' quite embrassing, Kafuka argues that it is a manly thing to do like a wild salmon climbing the flowing river. Meanwhile, Chiri forces other people to approach their interests in proper way instead of the usual 'backward' way.