Highschool of the Dead is a twelve-episode anime that was produced by Madhouse (Tenjo Tenge, Death Note) which was based on the manga written by Daisuke Sato and illustrated by Shoji Sato of the same name. It is about a bunch of students and their school nurse stuck in a zombie apocalypse in modern Japan.
It was an ordinary day in an ordinary high school when Takashi Komuro noticed something on the gate that bit one of the school employees. After being bitten and died, he became a zombie and started attacking his fellow employees.
Takashi knew that something is not right. Because a horde of zombies attacked their school, Takashi along with Rei Miyamoto and her boyfriend, Hisashi tried to look for cover and escaped the zombies that ended up Hisashi being bitten by one of “them” and later on, transformed into “them” that caused Takashi to kill him.
While trying to escape at their school, fellow students in the likes of Kohta Hirano (Who uses a modified nail gun to escape while protecting Takagi), Saeko Busujima (Who is an expert in kendo that uses a wooden sword to defend herself) and Saya Takagi are trying to escape which later met up with Komuro. Aside from that, they met with their school nurse, Shizuka who helped the students escape using her driving skills.
After a couple of episodes, we met Alice, whose father was killed in front of her because they can't accommodate her and her father in their refuge. She supports the group in her own way along the stray dog that they called, Zeke.
As the series progressed, we saw certain changes on some of the characters as they tried to survive in this zombie apocalypse. We saw some of them unveil their true selves, while some of them discovered more about themselves while some, remained constant while trying to survive and later, found refuge in this zombie apocalypse.
The series ends with their last refuge, the Takagi estate being attacked by zombies and our heroes has just escaped from another zombie attack in which later, ended up discovering a shopping mall, hinting that this series is only just the beginning of their true adventure.
On to the review, one of the reasons that I don’t watch zombie flicks is the following: they all have the same plot. To those who are not familiar with the plot, here it goes. A bunch of adults learned a pandemic that caused the victims to turn into zombies and so, the surviving adults tried their best to survive in this zombie-filled world by using various weapons found in various areas. It would end up with an open ending that have all viewers think on how it will end.
The reason I got interested in HOTD aside from the amounts of service (Admit it, you watched HOTD because of the boo… never mind.), is that the series used a different set of characters, in a form of adolescence with running hormones who are just undergoing the age of acne along with their air headed school nurse! What makes it interesting is that teenagers are those characters you would love to mold because they are a group who is still growing in a stage of raging hormones. Since this is a zombie apocalypse, we are talking about and if we put on an equation, we will have this: teens + raging hormones + zombies + fanservice = something interesting.
Since the series has a recurring zombie plot, I will skip my comments on that since you already have the idea about my thoughts on it. On to the character growth of the characters, first is the main man of this series, Takashi Komuro. He was at first, inexperienced that he relied too much on his skills in smashing the zombies with his might and he tends to be brash in some situations. He was clearly not the leader type character but as we saw the various turn of the events that happened in their city, he grew up into one. Aside from that, we saw his development from a mild mannered high school student who doesn’t care much into a boy who enjoys killing zombies and in my personal opinion, finds it later more as something fun rather than a task for them to survive.
Rei was one character that you might hate due to her personality. After Hisashi died, her feelings for Komuro returned that in later parts of the series, she is willing to give everything to him even if she will love another girl. She, in regular human standards, you might consider a bitch and one of the characters I am not rooting for. She was a character who wants to act like a damsel in distress even if she is not really a damsel in distress.
Saeko is one of my favorite characters. The reason that I liked her aside from her calm personality is the fact that from the main cast, she is one of the characters that never changed after the zombie apocalypse started. Heck, it even unleashed her true self!
Kohta to start with is a gun otaku who is now living in wonderland because he can now use his interest and skills in using guns in this zombie-filled environment. One of the reasons why I like this guy is his facial expressions while seeing different types of guns or when he is faced in various situations.
Takagi is clearly the only static character in the series. She stayed calmed when the zombies attack, she is clearly one of the few characters that thinks before she leaps into action. Because of this, they were able to leave the school safely.
Since I never saw any significant change in Shizuka and Alice, I will skip them.
One of the things that I liked about the series is the decay of morality. This is one of the questions the struck me while watching this series. If we are in a very hostile environment with the undead wanting to kill, you and you have the knowledge that they were just victims of a pandemic, will you kill them for your survival, or try your best to escape from them even if you know that wherever you go, you will still see the sight of them. This is what we saw in the teens in this series, and this is what the adults in the Takagi estate debated along if there is possible cure with this pandemic.
As for the animation, Madhouse, once again, did it. The blood splatter coming from the zombies is nice and the physics in the shots are realistic. Heck, the service scenes are nicely animated especially a certain service scene in which Takashi uses Rei’s… chest in using a heavy gun!
I have read some chapters of the original manga, and all I can say is, they tried there best to stay true with the source material that they ended the series for twelve episodes so that the source material can have some time to give them more material if there are any plans for a sequel.
Overall, HOTD is one zombie title that you might have mixed feelings with. Along with the recurring basic zombie plot, the only thing that drives the series around, aside from the amounts of service for the male fans (He, he) is the fact that we have a different age group facing the zombies. If you are into blood splatter, this series has tons of those. If you are into fanservice, this series has loads of that. Other than that, you might skip this title if you find zombies not interesting. But if you are one of the minorities who can’t stand another vampire flick or series, you might as well give this series a shot.