High School of the Dead

When I learned about this title on Amazon, I just had to get it in my collection, so I did order it and sat through it almost immediately as it arrived.

What is not to like here? Manga. Zombies. And I like both, especially zombies, so I was very excited to see this series.

Now having seen the 12 episodes on the DVD, I can say that I am honestly very glad that I did buy this DVD, because "High School of the Dead" was awesome.

The story is pretty much as in most other zombie movies. There is an outbreak of something causing dead people to rise up, look for living people to bite and devour, and they in turn rise as zombies as well, spreading the infection. And in the midst of this chaotic outbreak is a small group of unlikely survivors who teams up and have to struggle to stay alive in a world gone to Hell.

Being a Manga, you will, of course, be in for some outrageous turns and twists in the storyline. And trust me, there are just that in wait.

I must admit that I am conflicted whether to rate "High School of the Dead" an 8 or a 7. I went with the 8 because it was a nicely animated movie, had a great story, and best of all; lots of zombies! What was causing me to have gone for a lower grade was the excessive urge to constantly show jiggling breasts in almost every scene. It was ridiculous and it was seriously too much. It just brought too much juvenile humor to the series. And it was a shame.

What irritated me about this series was episode 6. It was over the top, too much nudity, too much stupidity, and it was not working in the series at all. I was at the brink of turning it off and not finish off the last 6 episodes. However, I did, and luckily they did tone down the nudity (and just kept it at an excessive showing of over-sized, jiggling breasts everywhere). They should have opted not to have episode 6 turn out like that, or just cut it out of the series entirely.

One thing puzzled me was that this series was set in Japan, right? Fair enough. But did you notice the breast size of the women in here? Come on? It was ridiculous. I know it is a Manga and is an animated movie, but seriously? Those sizes were bordering on being inhuman!

Now, with all Japanese Manga, you need to watch it with the original language track, of course. I got the dual language (Japanese and English) DVD version, and I also gave the English version a go. And I must say that the voice cast (and voice acting) in the English version wasn't too bad.

"High School of the Dead" is a must have in any collection if you like Manga and zombies.

With Highschool of the Dead I expect nothing than a fun ecchi anime to waste time and I got more than that in the end not because the plot intriguing me or the anime done something new to the genre it parody but because it got some of the most outrageous fan-service sequence that blew my mind away about how down right insane it is. The group of main characters are just a bunch of walking and living zombie genre cliché so naturally I don't care about them at all so the most of my enjoyment come from the zombie action and the fan-service which I mention before pretty insane to the point that if this anime got more balls that it already have it will be a full-fledged hentai. Sadly the manga author Daisuke Sato passes away 2 years ago so the anime still remain unfinished but the main attraction of this anime in my opinion is the fan-service so it not gonna bother anyone so check this one out

A small band of students escape the post-zombiefication of their school to discover their families fates while battling some unsavoury survivors and zombie hordes.

The teen focus for the most part works, although it plays a little awkward for viewers given the abundance of up-skirt and cleavage shots. Still it's an interesting perspective. Some of the scenes granted are childish and overly comedic but these are few and those familiar with the anime style wont bat an eyelid. The interplay between the teenagers and adult protagonists are handled well and the highschoolers especially Psycho and Takashi come across older than they are.

There's cursing, violence, action and gore aplenty, the slow moving zombies are perfectly realised, gruesome and scary which gives the show the required edginess to hold its own. High School of the Dead is designed and drawn skilfully with the sound design and soundtrack as equally pleasing.

Yes, it suffers from the all zombie genres clichés and stereotypes but it's fulfilling, exciting and fun.

I should clarify from the off - I am male, I love the female form, and I love anime. I even find myself defending most things that are deemed to have 'gratuitous' sex and nudity. But HOTD really scores an own goal with the frequency of ludicrously overdone shots of melons and buttocks jiggling. I know this is a staple of anime, but not to this extent usually, and it genuinely does distract from the story and induced a lot of eye rolling and sighing from me.

It's a shame because, despite not really bringing anything new to the table for zombie flicks, nor being especially thought-provoking, this is a genuinely well made work. The use of music, sound in general, and above all some excellent animation, as well as the way the story moves and the generally quite dark atmosphere...all makes for a show that is fun to sit down and watch if you're into zombie stories. To the extent that I did want there to be a second season and a completed story. Anime also seems to tackle zombies less often than it has the potential to, which does bring a uniqueness to what is happening here - so why ruin all that and the potential for a great product by injecting something so mundane and puerile over and over again?

If it had been scaled down to more standard anime amounts, fine. There is always going to be a certain amount of sexual tension in a post apocalyptic world, and there was nothing wrong with it being used to a lesser degree for the romantic subplots. There are moments where it is employed to genuinely humorous effect. If it had been restricted to those two things, I think this anime could have developed a far larger following.

It's just a pity they ruined that because they decided that, instead, the whole show should grind to halt on occasion because they have nothing more interesting to offer than foisting breasts on you. It isn't that this is a perfect show aside from this - there are some logical inconsistencies, particularly pertaining to the zombies being driven by hearing alone, and the doctor is infuriatingly vapid for a...well, doctor! But there's certainly enough entertainment and a compelling enough atmosphere to wish the show hadn't ended as prematurely as some of its more base viewers doubtless did.

Let's start by saying that this receives a 10 based on entertainment value. This is in no way a masterful piece of art, or a thought-provoking series. However, what it does, it does extremely well - violence, gore, keeping with what you expect from horror and anime (breasts, short skirts, profanity, etc).

The story is a very simple one to follow - it's the zombie apocalypse and a group of high school students and the school nurse are trying to survive. The characters are surprisingly deeper than you'd expect and the interactions are intriguing.

The show is completely over the top as you'd expect; chock-full of scantily clad young women, tons of f-bombs, an exorbitant amount of blood, dismemberment and did I mention a lot of fanservice and nearly naked animated girls? That much may be hard for some to take, but when you can look at this show as an over-the-top tribute to horror, mostly traditional zombies and anime targeted at young men, you can really enjoy it.

Let me go back to my mention of "mostly traditional" zombies - the zombies here are what Romero fans WANT to see. No running or smarts here; just slow walkers, flesh eaters and the undead. It's wonderful to see. There is one small twist in their zombie, but it's acceptable and helps with the pacing of the story.

If you're a fan of zombies, Romero or Horror and have never watched an anime series before, this is where to start. I would highly recommend this to horror fans that aren't into anime, anime fans that like zombies, or anyone into zombies for that matter.