Sankarea (Anime)

Chihiro is an ordinary high schooler who lives at a temple, apart from having a fetish for zombies and only being interested in Zombie girls. When his cat dies, he finds an old book with instructions on how to bring back the dead and tries to bring his cat back to life as a zombie. While he is practicing, he meets the princess of the school, Sanka Rea, who lives a privileged but manipulated lifestyle. Her father is overly possessive of her, but all she wants is to be a normal girl. After an accident, Chihiro revives Rea as a zombie, and so begins his days of observing her whilst trying to keep her body alive.

(Anime: 1 Season, 12 Episodes, Finished (?)

There is a lot about this series which was quite interesting, but unfortunately it lacked a great deal. The story is a very interesting idea, taking the classic zombie horror genre and giving it a minor change (namely that there isn't a huge zombie apocalypse and the 1st zombie girl is basically just a normal girl who is undead). For people who were expecting another High School of the Dead this will either be a welcome break or a let down (although there is enough fan service to certainly challenge HSOTD). There are some interesting edits and the art work is enjoyable to watch, but not all that different from mainstream designs. The characters a bit swing and miss: the main character Chihiro is both irritating and a kind person, so its hard to discern whether to like him or not. There is a great/crazy villain in Rea's father, and the rest of the characters are fun to watch although they don't stand out too well, with the possible exception being Chihiro's mentally weak grandfather and caretaker sister.

Honestly the real trouble of this series is that it spends a lot of time setting everything up. There is not real closure from just these twelve episodes and the whole structure feels like it is meant to lead into a bigger story that is only vaguely touched upon. If there is a second season lined up then it will be greatly received, but thats all season one feels like; a prequel. Overall Sankarea is a good series but leaves you wanting just a little more.

Rating - 

7/10