High School of the Dead [Blu-ray]

After reading quite a few reviews of Highschool of the Dead both on here and on various other sites... the general opinion seems to be that this anime is pretty good, but also that the "excessive" fan service spoils things a bit... I really don't understand this atall. I never really found any of it to be mood breaking (excluding one or two moments from the school nurse) and I didn't really even find any of it in too bad taste. Having watched alot of anime I can safely say I've seen far worse in terms of fan service. Lets face it... with the zombie apocalypse in full swing, a few cleavage shots shouldnt really bother anyone.

With that said lets get on with the review. Highschool of the Dead follows a group of students (and the school nurse) as they try to survive a zombie outbreak. Strangly enough things don't stay inside the school for very long as the characters try to make it to their various families scattered around the city. What ensues is a very enjoyable action orientated anime with great animtion and a varied cast of mostly likeable characters.

It can be safely said that if you've seen any zombie movies atall in your life then youll find no surprises with the various scenarios preasented in this 12 episode series. Various topics come up like deciding wether or not to kill your best friend after he's bitten or wether to risk your own life to save other survivors.... it's all standard stuff really. But it's all preasented and executed so well I think its fair to excuse the lack of origionality.

The animation in this series is consistantly good. Everything looks smooth and flows well. The action scenes are animated beautifuly and are always visually appealing. The character designs are pretty good (to get an idea just look at the dvd case). The series is very fast paced for the most part but if you're looking for a really deep story you wont really find anything to get you properly thinking. But the story certailnly makes for an interesting backdrop to all the zombie slaughtering action. So I have no issue with it.

I do however take a slight bit of issue with how much things slow down in episodes 10 and 11. Things become very focused on characters relationships with eachother and the fast paced action the rest of the series has is kind of just... gone. Alot of the character development isnt really neccesary especially at such a late stage in the show. I almost found it boring. On the flipside there is alot of suspence built (especially in episode 11) for the final episode which redeems it a bit. But still. A little too slow paced for my liking there.

The ending of this series doesnt really offer much closure but it does leave you wanting more which can only be a good thing. It has some excellent action and rounds off nicely for what I hope is only a temporary stopping point.

The music leans towards j rock most of the time but it all fits together very well and I have no complaints there. The english dub is good with all voice actors putting in some great performances. (I have yet to watch this series fully in japanese but have seen various clips with the japanese track on, it seems just as good as the dub.

On the whole... this really is just a very long zombie movie stretched out across 12 episodes and quite frankly I think this is the best marathon material to be released this year so far.
If you like zombie movies and love anime and don't mind some cheeky fan service here and there then this really is a must buy. If you really despise fanservice then subtract a star (if you must... it's really not that bad)

This show is pretty bloody and theres bad language here and there aswell, theres also some nudity in one episode (breasts on show) so keep this in mind if youre buying for a younger person.

Either way this is yet another solid release from Manga. I minused a star for the slow episodes but really this is mostly a 5 STAR series. I recomend action fans buy this now. Zombie movie fans aswell.

Thankyou for reading.

Technical Information
* Disc Format: Blu-ray
* Num of Discs: 2
* Episodes: 01 to 12
* Audio: Japanese (TrueHD 2.0) / English (TrueHD 5.1)
* Subtitles: English (yellow coloured)
* Regions: B

Extras:
* Clean Opening and Ending
* Trailers

The video/audio quality is superb and so's the series, while it's a short one, it's definitely worth seeing it all, plus the female characters on this show are gorgeously drawn fighting zombies.

This does include ecchi, so you may find yourself seeing some nudity at times.

Manga UK did an excellent job by releasing the Blu-ray set with 2 discs covering all of the episodes the series had, although, it does not come with a slipcover.

Edit: I'd like to add that I'm loving the series and well, the girls too, this anime show is definitely not for kids at all, the chicks are super hot and Them (zombies) get killed however is possible.

You won't regret if you buying this! :)

Ever since I heard about this series it was destined to go in my shopping basket, I have to admit I do love a good zombie movie and I'm a massive anime nerd so this killed two birds with one stone.

The plot is very simple, a group of students team together to try and find safety when the world is hit by a killer virus that turns the dead into zombies, your typical zombie apocalypse concept. Granted it's a story that almost anybody with a pen, paper and half a brain, no pun intended, could come up with but i think that's one of the reasons it is so good.

The characters are all believable and do get a developed reasonably well despite the series not being very long. The voices are quite well in both the subbed and dubbed version, subbed is probably the better. The animation is brilliant, some of the best I've seen this year. The series also has a great opening theme which is always an added bonus

One thing that has been brought up by alot of people is the fanservice. Ok there is quite a bit but it's not as excessive as some make it seem, it is in reasonably good taste and I didn't find that it detracted from or spoiled the series in any way, shape or form. If your not looking for it you don't really notice it. At least it's not like Battle Vixens where no matter how feeble the attack is the front of the girls clothing allows gets torn off and you're left wondering how much these girls must spend on clothing in a week. To be perfectly honest most of the fanservice is in episode six, there's a bath scene and quite a bit of nudity, if you can handle that you can handle the rest of the series.

My one critizism is the annoying, squeaky voice, completely useless, big boobed nurse whose only real purpose is to drive the various vehicles they use in their travels. Series probably would have survived without her.

If you love either zombie movies, anime or both i would recommend this series to anyone plus this is probably the best zombie movies/series for quite some while ,with the possible exception of The Walking Dead which is also brilliant, and I hope they do decided to make a second series.