Anime Review: Highschool of the Dead 1-12

            The zombie apocalypse has begun hitting everywhere from Atlanta to Japan, atleast in media that is. Highschool of the Dead began as a Japanese Manga written and drawn by Shouji & Daisuke Satou. It’s just a normal day for Takashi Komuro at school when he notices that something peculiar is happening at the gate of his school. Shocked at seeing a teacher being attacked by someone at the gate, he runs into the classroom of his childhood friend Rei Miyamoto demanding that they both need to leave. That is when they realize that their school-mates are not only being killed, but their bodies are reanimating and attacking the living.  





STORY

            If you watched The Walking Dead or anything else zombie-like recently, you know what to expect. What you may not expect is that this is also a harem anime. The main protagonist Takashi goes from brooding and quite to bad ass zombie slayer. During this time it seems that each one of the females in his party of survivors likes him in one way or another. Also much like The Walking Dead, it’s not the zombies that are they major problem for our band of survivors – It’s the other survivors. Most of the people who have lost family and friends have been driven mad. Some where mad to begin with and now due to the lack of law enforcement are allowed to be the evil that they’ve always been. With a few twists here and there a majority of the series is predicable. Think if the Walking Dead fused with Love Hina or Girl’s Bravo and you’ll get the idea. It’s not as original as one would hope for a zombie related series. 2/5

CHARACTERS

            You have your basic harem anime set-up here: Takashi is the main hero of the story who goes from emo kid to bad-ass leader in just a few episodes, his childhood friends Rei and Saya, the gun-otaku Kohta, the swordswomen Saeko, the ditzy over-busty school nurse Shizuka, and young girl who just lost her father names Alice, and her dog Zero/Zeke. There is your harem ingredients – Main guy, friend who is a tomboy who he will most likely get with, brainy friend, nerd guy friend, samurai girl, large breasted ditz, and a loli with a puppy. Nothing overly original at first, but as the episodes go on you discover each character having a deeper story. Kohta’s weapon obsession allows him to go from nerdy shy kid to absolute bad-ass that even Rambo would avoid, just to have him turn around and be shy again. Saeko is a traditional Japanese women bound by honor and tradition and adept with a katana. She also enjoys using her katana against the dead with a satanic unforgiving killer who let a man think he was raping her just so she would have the excuse to cracker his spine. Sexy, no? My largest gripe here would be the lack of a serious antagonist. Shino starts out as an enemy, but then he gets pushed away. I hope he returns later as he has a lot of potential that I hope does not go unnoticed. 3/5

AUDIO

            The music is awesome. The intro is catchy and psyches you up every time. The ending changes at the end of each episode and it usually flows along with how the current episode ends. The soundtrack during the episode is also very good. You can feel the depth of the situation when times are bad, and you are psyched back up when a fight scene starts. There is a nice mix of bad-ass/emotional to keep you wanting more. 4/5

VISUAL

            Extremely smooth animation and well placed CG makes this anime a visual feast. Well placed bright colors and slick direction make this fun to watch. The blood splatter on the wall seems a little over-done, but really gets you in to how violent you can expect the series. The over abundance of ecchi scenes may turn some away. You’ll have scenes where you’ll have 50 panty shots and a couple of well placed objects to cover chests, but then there is full out nudity in the next episode. For the most part, it seems to be having fun with itself – I mean how many times do you see a boob-giggle/bullet dodge scene? 4/5





OVERALL

            Highschool of the Dead, at it’s core, is still a harem anime stuck in the zombie apocalypse. Tons of scenes that verge on the edge of hentai, mixed with comedy and a good bunch of action and blood. The series does suffer from the over-abundance of panty shots and side-boobs. When you can start to comment on things about how long a certain girl has been wearing her panties, then it’s becoming a little much. Then again, this could also be a way of the anime making fun of itself and anime like it. I don’t recommend it for everyone, but give it a try if you got time for 12 episodes. OVERALL – 3.25/5

If you're interested - Highschool of the Dead can be bought over at RightStuf.com or AnimeCornerStore.com. Both are great places to purchase from. ^^