High School 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.

Ah, what an epic Zombie Apocalypse it was. Since I love Zombie Apocalypse a lot, I planned to watch it. After watching 4-5 episodes, I was like, "Amazing, it's a total must watch." But I had an issue. They don't need to keep injecting cleavage (or bouncing boobies), 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. Many people like those scenes like but I don't. It was truly boring. After watching 8-9 episodes, I started expecting a lot from this Ecchi. And yeah, I was wrong. The ending was not what I wanted. It was kinda incomplete. Still, it's great.

Overall, HOTD is gonna be amazing for you if you like Zombie Apocalypses and those scenes as well. But if you're not interested in those scenes, you'll start feeling bored soon. Anyways this Ecchi gave me an amazing plot but it'll be better if they make a new season.

My ratings: 7.5/10

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.

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!