Review of Is This a Zombie? of the Dead

Brief Synopsis Kore wa Zombie-desuka? Of The Dead, for all intensive purposes, is a direct sequel of the original series. The story follows Ayumu Aikawa, a high school boy who was turned into a zombie by Eucliwood Hellscythe, a Necromancer from the Underworld. However, that's not all, he's also a Masou Shoujo after accidentally stealing the powers from another Masou Shoujo named Haruna. On top of this insanity, Ayumu also befriends a Vampire Ninja named Seraphim, and together, these four live together and battle many different forces of evil. In this 2nd Season, Ayumu encounters a new enemy, which appears to be the ultimate villain in thisseries thus far...the only problem is he just doesn't realize the threat this person poses.

Strengths

I thought the strongest aspect of this anime was the comedy writing. For an anime that felt like a fairly big filler, it was pretty well written in its comedy regard. While I was a bit impartial to the comedy of the 1st series, I found the 2nd season to be better written. I found myself laughing much harder at the ludicrously ridiculous situations Ayumu got himself in.

Another strength of this animewas the character development. We learned a lot more about not only the leads, but many of the side characters, such as Kirara, Yuki, Orito, etc. On top of that, an array of new characters were introduced, including a hallucinated Fairy-like character, another soft-spoken harem addition named Taeko, and a former warrior for Eucliwood from the Underworld named Negrelia. Learning more about the side characters, as well as the addition of the new side characters seemed to lighten the overall mood for Zombie-desuka and made it much more humorous.

As per usual in the Kore wa Zombie-desuka series, the music and voice acting is pretty solid. Especially in the Kirara concert scenes, there are many insert songs that are pretty solid to rock out to and the background music in almost all the scenes fits perfectly, ESPECIALLY in the final episode. The voice acting overall is still very solid and for the many Eucliwood Hellscythe fans from this series, they'll be glad to know they'll get to hear a lot more from their favorite...quiet Necromancer.

Weaknesses

The obvious weakness of this anime was story progression. It's difficult to progress an on-going story in a 10-episode run, and on top of that, the 2nd Season didn't even really try and progress the story very much. Essentially all we learned from the 2nd Season is there is a new enemy, a Masou Shoujo named Chris, who stands in Ayumu's way. However, her grand scheme was not clearly revealed and I would more than likely guess it will primarily be revealed in the 3rd Season.

Another weakness of this anime was pretty much the same argument I had with the 1st Season. It just goes way too far with the fan service. Fan service to me is sort of hit-or-miss in anime. There are times where it is used well and can make a funny situation even funnier...and there are times where it is just thrown in for the simple fact of appeasing a semi-perverted audience. In this...it's spotty. There are times where it works and times where it just falls flat and is completely unnecessary.

Overall

My overall impression of Kore wa Zombie-desuka? Of The Dead? It was okay, and not necessarily a step up or a step down from the original series. Fans of the series are going to get what they expect...more crazy, loony comedy from a mixed troupe of fantasy characters living a frantic, yet semi-normal high school lives. Like I said, I felt the comedy in this anime was much stronger, but the overall storytelling was much weaker. In my own personal opinion, I've become more of a fan of this series due to this season because I felt the storytelling was good in the first season and the comedy was lacking. This season, to me, more or less balanced things out. As far as a recommendation, Kore wa Zombie-desuka? Of The Dead is a good watch if you were a fan of the original series and even if you were like me and thought the 1st Season was sort of watered down and bland, this does seem to add a little bit more of a wrinkle that makes it funnier and more interesting. If you weren't a fan of the 1st Season, it's not very highly recommended. All this season really adds is a little more depth to the characters, more hilarious side stories, and a setup for a 3rd Season.