What Wikipedia says: "Highschool of the Dead is an anime series adapted from the manga of the same name written by Daisuke Sato and illustrated by Shoji Sato. The series is set in the present day, beginning as the world is struck by a deadly pandemic that turns humans into zombies. The story follows Takashi Komuro, a student at Fujimi High School who survived the initial outbreak along with several of his classmates and the school nurse, and occasionally jumps to the perspective of other characters. As the group tries to survive the zombie apocalypse, they must also face dangerous fellow survivors and the decay of their own moral codes."
KoanMan says: The director of "Highschool of the Dead" Tetsuo Araki certainly had booty on his mind when he rendered this anime, originally penned by Manga author Daisuke Satō.
The plot is reasonably simple, this is a Zombie movie after all. However it is surprising, that terribly cheesy moments, complete with the silly sound effects, are interspersed with moments of intense gravity. The character and relationship development is great with the formation of their erstwhile "family" one of the most enjoyable aspects. The personalities are different enough to add real texture to the story.
The OVA is not important to the general story, but includes a little humour.
How About the Music?: Beyond the copious décolletage, the opening sequence music, "Highschool of the Dead" by Kishida Kyoudan and the Akeboshi Rockets (live version at the link), is fantastic! KoanMan realises this is completely personal, but it fits perfectly with the post-modern pop style of the visuals, and goes well with the Zombie apocalypse theme. There are more EDs than you can poke a stick at (each episode has a different one) so I'm sure there is something for everyone here.
So How Does it End? (Spoiler Free): Satisfactorily. But the journey is very much a continuing one.
Overall Grade: KoanMan gives this a solid B. One is male, of course. Roll on Season 2.
Addendum (by tTPO): HOTD is not without its flaws - there is a recap episode at episode 4 (is that some kind of record?) and as a show focussing on teenagers it fails to escape the trope that most adults are useless and as KoanMan has outline already, there are more than a few cheesy moments. It does succeed though at many things. The animation is great, the scale of the disaster is awesome thought the journey is personal, and by the end of the series there has been more than a little development of the main characters. But most importantly, for a show which is defined to a large extent by the fan service, the creative team seem to have really given some thought to how can we do this differently, and I think they succeeded. Not all the time mind you (note the obligatory bathhouse episode and the unneccessary OVA) but they did the near impossible in making some gratuitous fan service interesting. Put oll of this together and you have and entertaining and above-average series. B+
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