Geekatana Anime Review: Highschool of the Dead

It's Halloween month and I decided to make a review of a horror theme anime to fit the occasion. Sure I could probably have gone for anime with ghouls, vampires and all the other horror monster but decided to do Highschool of the Dead since well I'm a big fan of zombie games since back when I first had my first PC.

Not to be confused with Highschool DxD although fan service wise DxD and HotD aren't that much different. If I have more time I'll probably do another one of this horror anime review before the Halloween month ends.

Also known in Japan as Apocalyptic Academy: Highschool of the Dead is a Japanese manga series written by Daisuke Satō and illustrated by Shōji Satō which follows the tale of a bunch of highschool student that are caught in a zombie apocalypse. The anime series follows the manga story up to Volume 4 of the 7 Volume manga series released.

Sadly the series was left unfinished following Daisuke Satō's death on March 22, 2017. No one has picked up to continue the story and the anime only had a 12 episode run and one OVA. The series popularity did garnered a cult following among fans and the high school uniform in the series was also an unlockable costume in the Lollipop Chainsaw game.

Highschool of the Dead was a basic plot for a zombie apocalypse and sadly no explanation on what is the cause of the zombie infection and with only one season theres really nothing much to go on. But it does have a lot of fan service which isn't surprising since the artist does do some H works before this. The plot is mostly about survival and finding their family which is simple yet effective. 

But to be fair for this anime series I did read the manga as well and there's a lot in those manga story wise that I would have loved to see included in the anime should  this series miraculously get a second season. One being having an actual character development at least for the otaku/gun nerd Hirano Kouta. Also a bunch of new characters not in the anime.

The series has a nice way of telling the story through the main characters narration and awesome use of visuals but due to a lack of an actual protagonist and that zombie stories and themes have become over abundant lately a lot of folks find nothing new in this series that hasnt been done before and to a lot of audience this drops the appeal of the series to a great extent.  It also doesn't help that a lot of the scenes in the manga and anime series itself are pretty much things you find in an H title.  

Character wise most of the characters are pretty generic and most of the girls sadly could easily pass for an H title due to gravity defying chest. Not to mention a lot of the scenes defy the laws of physics or science but hey if you got an anime with talking dragon girls I guess anything goes at this point.

Overly abundant fan service visuals aside this show does an extremely good job at zombie fight scenes and is one of the best in zombie when it comes to stomping fights in anime. Gore, body parts, blood it has all of these in good service and executed beautifully in each of the zombie encounters even with the fan service sprinkled in them. It has one of the best cgi scene I've seen in an anime and those things are hard to come by.

I can't deny the fact that this show has way too many fan service but it's a good show if you look deeper like Takashi who started out as a dull lead character but slowly develop into a more effective leader to the group. The group encounters situations that make them question their morality as they find strength in each other to survive. 

This show also expresses the darker aspect of humanity and its weaknesses, something even games like Resident Evil rarely shows.

Sadly also due to the visual and fan service this anime is clearly not for kids and definitely not something you'd want to watch with your parents since Highschool of the Dead does go borderline H in a lot of its 12 episode and the amount of gore is definitely at the very least the Walking Dead level.

If fan service and zombies are your favorite kind of mix then you're probably right at home here just don't expect an actual deep story or engaging characters as this anime is one of those series that was rushed out as an anime before the manga actually develop a story

Overall Highschool of the Dead is a mixture of zombie apocalypse and your typical japanese fan service with excellent cgi and visuals. What it does lack in plot and character development it more than cover up for it in great visual and cgi effects. Pass the fan service its still an entertaining zombie anime at its core. If you're a fan of zombie theme games or shows you might want to give this one a try. You'll your kicks from the visual effects alone.