High School of the Dead (Anime)

One day, Zombies break out all over Japan and the rest of the world, causing chaos and deaths everywhere. A high school is one of the first major break out points and one boy, Takashi, survives the first out break with a group of friends, a teacher and a young girl and dog are now stuck in the middle of a zombie (known as 'Them') filled city. Now they have to get through it to find their missing families and get out before they all die, or worse.

(Anime: 1 Season, 12 episodes, Finished. Manga: 7 volumes, stopped)

To review High School of the Dead (HSOTD), I have to try to be fair, but to sum up the series, it yo-yo's from an epic horror action story to a bad porno. Dealing with the latter first, there is an inordinate amount of fan service and echi moments (trying to sum it up, the people who survive are Takashi, his childhood crush, a senior in his school, a classmate who likes him and a teacher with huge boobs....it doesn't have to try hard to become porn). Personally I don't mind saying the occasional touch of fan service is ok, but this goes over the line A LOT.

Once you get past that though, this is a thrilling and terrifying series, with a good deal going for it. It even a good deal of subtly message undertones, an takes a good look at how people hold up under this sort of event and how society and people try to stay sane through it all (it doesn't go well for most of them). This is something which isn't really looked at by most horror/zombie films and it really helps to expand the genre a bit. Also there is constant referencing to old RPG games with the ideas of objectives and character classes, which again is interesting to note. It doesn't do much for the story but it is fun to keep an eye out for.

The rest of HSOTD isn't too bad either. The story is pretty good when you consider the above points, but it does go to some dark places so be prepared for that (although to be honest most of the hard core stuff is dealt with in episode 1), and also the manga stopped running without having a decent conclusion, which is frankly annoying. All the characters (in spite of the harem quality to them) are fun to watch, non more so than the military trained, trigger happy, eccentric lunatic Hirano who is probably the best character of the bunch. The fights and action scenes are fantastic, mixing traditional zombie survivalism with some down right bad-ass-ness. In the end, once you get past the porn aspects and the lack of a decent conclusion, HSOTD, becomes is the ideal companion for any fan of horror movies and a great watch for most anime fans.

Rating - 

8/10