Meanwhile, there is a banal romantic interest in the selfish and whiny Rei, anime's obsession with "cool and mysterious" presences manifested in Saeko, a precocious lolifang in Saya, an overweight and unintelligent otaku in Kohta, an insultingly stupid (and well-endowed) school nurse, and even a creepy and possibly pedophilic teacher, none of whose personalities are ever given the space to expand and hardly any of whom appear to be anything besides a means through which the show extracts basic drama and, in the case of the females, fan service galore.
Once again, we get an angsty and troubled lead in Takashi, and this time one whose pettiness, stupidity, and bigotry make him entirely impossible to cheer for as the series progresses. Indeed, once you get past the spectacle of the gunfights and over-enlarged mammaries, there is precious little to love in this series, its unlikable cast failing to bring any joy to an ultimately bleak and unsatisfying story and thus making the show feel like wasted time.Īs said, the cast of Highschool of the Dead is made of the most stereotypical possible archetypes, and while I felt occasional affection for some of them, it was the kind that will never transcend the series itself, the characters being utterly dull when compared to those from some better-developed series. Exploitative from start to finish and entirely unapologetic about its own raunchiness, Highschool of the Dead at least has the good grace to maintain an enjoyable if derivative plot, rarely becoming boring and always managing to keep the viewer curious, and yet its tone makes it difficult to like and, at times, nearly impossible to watch. Highschool of the Dead is essentially what Japanese animators make when they feel inclined to produce something that screams "trash!" from the very onset, complete with a well-worn story of zombie apocalypses, a never-ending stream of gun violence, and, in between the various battles, scenes that approach pornography, seemingly placed precisely to placate impulsive sexual urges when the desire to see zombies have their heads blown off is exhausted.
Along with his friends and the school nurse, he fights his way out and begins a journey to find out what exactly has happened to the world. Takashi Komuro is a normal high school boy (as are many anime leads), but one day, an infection breaks out that turns people into zombie-like creatures. This OAV consists of nothing but fan service, essentially, and its content is considered to be part of the main series for the purposes of this review. The anime covers the first segment of the manga's story, while a subsequent OAV was released with the Blu-Ray version as a "bonus" episode. Notes: Based on a manga by the Sato brothers, which has been on hiatus since 2011. Length: Television series, 13 episodes, 24 minutes eachĭistributor: R1 DVD from Sentai FilmworksĬontent Rating: 17+ (borderline-pornographic fanservice, graphic violence, vulgarity, profanity)Īlso Recommended: Elfen Lied, GANTZ, Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne, Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (for a better and very different disaster anime), (Non-Anime) Return of the Living Dead Genre: Apocalyptic drama / ecchi action (with survival horror elements) I'm Standing On A Million Lives (Season One, part 2)