I subconsciously compare every school-based comedy anime with Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, so S3 is making more of an impact on me for being more slice of life than comedy, too...nothing competes with SZS in my opinion. Although S1 and S2 definitely had their crowning moments of awesome...the whole time-travel thing was ridiculous. xD
Yeah, it would have been better if they'd gotten that out the way first and then cut to ...or even put the silent part right at the end of the episode. The rest of the episode wasn't quite as good as that first bit. I think that made S3 for me alone, though - it showed the strength of the characterisation (I could pretty much imagine what the characters were saying...except maybe Kyoko, because who knows what she's going to come out with from one minute to the next, haha) and it gave me major childhood flashbacks. If they make a S4, they need to do that again at least once.
I'm finding it a pretty weird experience at the moment...episode 6 of S1 felt like a season finale. I love the humour and the thoroughly bizarre premise though, even if I don't have a clue what is going on sometimes. Requires a bit of willing suspension of disbelief at times, but...eh, it's anime. I rarely watch stuff that is grounded in reality, so it's not that hard for me to just roll with it...especially not when I keep laughing at half of it. They really nailed the voice acting for this show.
Have you seen The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki? I was thinking of picking that up afterwards, since it's also been dubbed.
I haven't seen it yet, no. I was going to watch it a few years ago, but the friend who recommended it to me also recommended I watched Madoka and Hetalia, and that didn't really work out, so I kinda dropped the idea and forgot all about it before starting it, haha. That WAS several years ago though, and I'm a little more open to trying things than I used to be. If it's probably going to disappear into the ether soon (legally, anyway) I might give it a try if it's a similar-ish thing...
