High School of the Dead (Review)
Blood, Zombies and Panty Shots. What More Do You Want in an Anime?
Pop culture is quickly becoming littered with references to the genre created by horror icon George A. Romero. It’ seems to be the case that one can’t even throw a rock with out hitting a zombie reference. From movies to television, zombies have are now a major cultural icon, and to be honest, modern attempts at the genre tend to miss more often than they hit.
However, every once in a while there is a notable contribution to the mythos of the walking dead. High School of the Dead is an anime that, while not really contributing anything to the overdone concept, does take it back to the core values that made it so incredibly popular. In this way, it proves to be one of the most enjoyable zombie stories in a long time.
One day, the world ends. At least, that’s how it seems for the students at Fujimi Academy. While staring off into space, Takashi Komuro (Leraldo Anzaldua) watches the beginning of the end when a zombie attacks one of the teachers at his school. The pandemic of the walking dead quickly rips through the school killing almost everyone inside. Takashi finds himself as one of the sole survivors, joined by a handful of other students, including the captain of the kendo team, Saeko Busujima (Taylor Hannah); a military geek, Kohta Hirano (Mark X. Laskowski); a narcissistic girl genius, Saya Takagi (Maggie Flecknoe); the ditzy school nurse, Shizuka Marikawa (Monica Rial); and the love of his life, Rei Miyamoto (Jessica Boone). This ragtag gang sets out on an attempt to survive the end of days and in doing so learn that they are much more than the sum of their parts.
Based on the manga by Daisuke Satō, this short-lived, 12-episode-long anime does a tremendous job pulling the audience in. While it certainly gets back to the horror roots the zombie genre was once best known for, there is something oddly romantic in its presentation of the end of days. It embraces the idea of comradery and triumphs the ideal of self-sacrifice as the characters not only fight for their very own survival, but more importantly for the survival of the others in the group. That being said, the absolute gratuitousness has to be acknowledged. Not only is High School of the Dead filled to the brim with blood as the group bashes skulls in during their gory road trip, but this gore is also rivaled by the sexualization of the female characters. For every blood splatter, it would seem there is a panty shot, or at least a white shirt getting soaked by water. As overt as it is, though, it seems to fall into place with the horror. It’s an anime about survival, and while fighting for your life is one thing, there is another drive that is just as powerful, especially when it comes to high school students. That being said, it’s still incredibly blatant.
While there really was no way for High School of the Dead to end appropriately, its biggest weakness is that it is so short. After 12 episodes, it’s hard to walk away from the characters that grow so quickly on the audience. It’s not that there is anything extraordinary about them. In fact, they all seem to fall into rather cliché archetypes. But there’s something that makes you care about them, want them to survive. Perhaps it has something to do with the melodrama that holds the group together. Either way, the end of this series is one that truly comes too quickly.
High School of the Dead is pure entertainment. It doesn’t try exploring any sort of social commentary in the dead rising to feed on the living. While this might not exactly be mentally stimulating, sometimes it’s fun to just turn the old brain off and watch some characters fight to stay alive. Of course, it certainly addresses the decay of morals and the idea that the young protagonists are forced to grow up in this new world they find themselves stranded in, but it would be impossible not to. Instead, though, the series flows over the viewer, leaving an impression but never forcing it.
