Highschool of the Dead

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.

I'm not very good at reviews, so you'll have to forgive me. I'm sure someone else will write a better review soon though. First off, I used to love anime when I was much, much younger, but seem to have outgrown it unfortunately. When I saw the title of this though, I figured I would give it a try. I thought it was really good. Good, or good enough, story & dialogue Great animation. Good direction (was kinda like watching a non anime movie). Lots of blood & violence, and of course a lot of shake'n titties & panties shots. Japanese artist love some tits and ass. Any way, Great show. Can't wait to watch the second episode.

While the outbreak part of this and the zombie killings are great, the rest of it is strictly for hormonal teens. The girls all have their breasts heaving all over the place, and they're always in their little sailor suits. Worth a view but not much more.

I'm currently watching the HOTD series which has truly grabbed hold of my attention this season. The artistry's great. The characters are developing nicely. After ten episodes, I've stopped worrying about how a series will continue on people surviving a zombie influx; I'm rather impressed how the producers have kept the whole thing entertaining. But they don't need to keep injecting cleavage (or, bouncing breasts), and the roll-in-the-hay (or bathtub) scenes they seem to relish pushing. Just when I'm getting into a twist in the plot, here comes some up-skirt shot. I've been training myself to ignore those shots - but perhaps many people like that kind of thing. I, at 47, don't need to see it constantly. But the plots and artistry keep me wanting to see what happens. If you're easily offended or put off by the PG-13 (and really pushing R-rated) snippets, please try to watch a few episodes from the beginning. For those who don't care, watch the series from episode one! Great entertainment!

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.