High School of the Dead #01 — BOOOOOOOOOBS

July 5th, 2010

 

Japanese zombies apparently don’t like brains.

Impressions:

This show certainly wears its budget on its shoulder. It never misses a chance to have thighs writhing together, showing off lacey panties, or boobs strange alien fluids attached to women’s chests bouncing all over the place. Whatever fabric Japan has invented that conforms so perfectly without stretching or moving the rest of their clothes is amazing. In fact, I think we might even have perpetual motion machines going here, judging by how much energy is created around their chests by the smallest of motions. *ahem* When the show looked good, it looked great. When the show decided to eschew animation and spend a minute or two of nothing but stills while they shook the camera, it… did not. There was more of the former than the latter, but the sheer number of times they resorted to stills or shots of the scenery was kind of staggering for a first episode.

If you’re here for the writing, you’re in the wrong place. I did find it funny how after witnessing a couple deaths, whosits (I so do not bother to remember names until at least episode 3) walks into a classroom, slaps a girl, runs out, and then class just keeps going on like normal. Shortly after that, everybody listens to the PA announcer be murdered, then sits around for a few dramatic moments before the attack of the shakey cam and stills envelops them. A tight and sensical narrative is not this show’s strong point. It has T&A and hitting zombies. That plus the elongated art style brought back fond memories of Tokyo Majin personally. Of course, TM also had about 99% less irritating screaming, but I expect that to trail off now that everybody’s dead. The music in general could also have been a lot better if they were going for any kind of tension. Also, whoever sings the OP should be dragged into the street and beaten with a tuning fork.

So anyway, when it was fun, it was fun. When it was not, it was ugly and boring. I’d give it about a 80/20 share of the two so far. Even that 80% was at least partially made up of shots that were so ridiculously corny that they were amusing. Given that the budget is always blown on the first couple weeks, I can see that balance shifting pretty quickly, so we’ll have to see how it goes. I appreciate breasts, asses, and zombies as much as the next guy, but this much budget saving this early is not usually a promising sign. It’s not like this show has any other competition for my attention in the vaunted Sunday night (Monday morning in Japan!) timeslot anyway.

Preview:

 

Collecting more survivors.

Posted in High School of the Dead | 23 Comments »

23 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Myssa Rei says:

    I do hope that the anime production goes in a different direction than the manga this time around, as the latter volumes focus less and less on the zombies and more and more on the fanservice. Though I wouldn’t be too surprised if many preferred the latter to the former…

    • Pozzy says:

      ha! ecchi will win of course. im still wondering how the orgy bus is gonna turn out… but seeing as much as seikon no quasar has done in the past few months… i guess i wouldnt be too surprised if they had that fully animated.

      anyways, that sounds like a really slow start… if its only 13 episodes… sounds like they wont get very far compared to manga.

      • SOSAnimeBoy says:

        ‘Orgy bus’? Whatever are you talking about? Is there a chapter(s) in this manga worth skipping ahead to? :D

      • SOSAnimeBoy says:

        Nevermind, I just rediscovered google as my best friend on teh intarwebz…

  • Aex says:

    Well, at least Hisashi died in one episode, so I’ll call that a promising start for the pacing. Then again, the chapters are pretty long in the manga, so I doubt they’ll get much further then getting to Saya’s house in 13 episodes, otherwise there’s gonna be a lot missing. I’m not one for zombies, but the manga is awesome and the first episode didn’t suck, so I’ll ride this one out for at least a few episodes. The OP also made me laugh with how they didn’t even think of hiding the fan-services.

  • Sterling01 says:

    Wow, I’m amazed at how little this episode covered.

    • Aroduc says:

      When you have about 3-4 minutes worth of stills, it’s amazing how much time you can fill without going very far.

  • TOKWA says:

    I wonder if it’s part of “of the dead” series by George A. Romero. If it’s not, wouldn’t that be copyright infridgement?

  • Yue says:

    “You got an Ink Ribbon.” oh hell no…….

  • Jack Damn says:

    The manga is actually quite good in spots and I wouldn’t mind if they took their time with this series … though the use of stills is disheartening …

  • cutemi2 says:

    this is worst than Tokyo Majin at glance

  • zalkor says:

    Boobs are awesome but they don’t need to shove them in my face every second, give me some room to appreciate god’s given gifts (more like the mangaka’s gifts).

    Also Japanese school uniform is blood repellent.

  • MisaoFan says:

    The anime was apparently shown uncensored on AT-X.

  • PGratian says:

    I’m just glad that I did see more gore action than ecchi elements. It’s a promising episode and hopefully the producers won’t ruin it like many other shows by putting the accent on the lingerie rather than character evolution and plot.

  • amyable says:

    Is this a 2cour series? They basically covered only one chapter in this episode, so at this rate it looks like things’ll end without any resolution (chapter 26 of the manga is set to come out this month).

  • hat says:

    Oh lol, they used a bgm from 28 Days Later.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST2H8FWDvEA

  • chad001 says:

    …This probably is going to pick up real fast… after all, there’s a couple chapters devoted to:

    SPOILER

    some setting-details, some zombie info, and watching the U.S. President and first lady get eaten and turn into bloody brain-eaters… basically, nothing new.

  • Anonylol says:

    Watching this because my favorite erodoujin artist got his designs animated.

    Inazuma makes wonderful fap material.

  • o.o says:

    I actually kinda like the OP. =\

  • The Phantom says:

    They could have spend more time showing the zombies eating the rest of the students, it was nowhere near as violent as I tought it was going to be, they added a lot of cheap drama on top of the action too.

    I’m also hating screaming-girl already what a bitch she is, and seriously that dude should not have died he was much better than that loser that cant handle beign turned down by girl.

    Overall I was expecting far more from this, for an action show is lacking a lot, and for a drama is bad bad joke. I just hope that this improves with more action and less of that idiot looking far away.

  • Nobody says:

    This was pretty insane first episode.

    **SPOILER**

    I found it disturbing and at the same time funny when that one poor girl gets raped/bitten and screaming out IT HURTS!!!! ETAIII!!! DX and then the scene with the “two best friends” that was just facked up but serves that “so called best friend” right.

    Epic ending with that “28 Days Later” like soundtrack, and Ending theme song is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard in JapRock music.

  • rincewind says:

    Great first episode.
    I cant wait to see for Saeko and Kouta in action.