Review of High School of the Dead

When I started to watch this anime I expected from its title a typical zombie story. A zombievirus gets spread, some people manage to survive it and fight together for their lives. I got exactly what I expected. The Story - begins quite interesting somehow because it starts out in the action and afterwards shows kinda how the virus actually started to spread out and then it continues in the normal zombiestory manner. Mindless gore, people try not to get bitten and stuff. It's nothing special but if you are a fan of zombies then I'm sure the story won't disappoint. The Characters - are the biggest critiquepoint and the worst part of the whole Anime. You have this typical school theme which just won't allow anything non-stereotypical and cliche character-wise. The main characters only purpose seems to look badass while giving fan-service and bathing in blood. None of the characters develop in any sort of way throughout the story, nor do they give you surprises. All of their actions seem predictable and dull, yet something a very young audiance might enjoy if they like these "don't think, just shoot"-kind of cool people.

The Sound - is one of the best things about the whole anime, it's representing the mood of the current situations overall mostly well.

The Art - never is to everyones taste, but it sure looks well drawn, detailed as much as smoothly moving. Moving animations and the whole action scenes make the anime look very alive and this is certainly the strength of the anime, because the art gets you in the mood to watch on and makes kinda up for the unbelievably monotone choice of characters and the repetetive scenes of boring fanservice.

I didn't really enjoy watching this anime. I can't say that it's a bad anime however. It does offer the typical things you would expect from a title that has "school" in its name and zombies as its theme. But if you are expecting some really good story plot, interesting characters or some sort of deeper philosophical meanings built into the story or even variety, this anime won't give you any of these. So my final result is, I go re-watching Higurashi or Death Note or some other anime that makes sense if I find nothing new and you should do the same.
If you are a Haruhi fan or just like zombies, then give this anime a try, it will most likely fulfill all of your cliches that you want to see.

~Flevalt