Review of High School of the Dead

At the height of the post-apocalyptic zombie horror phenomenon, Highschool of the Dead happens to be a very relevent anime. Story: 7/10 Highschool of the Dead's story can best be described as half zombie gore and half fan service. This is the story's fatal flaw, the large emphasis on fan service often serves as a distraction from the main plot, it was pointless, when their should have been more focus on the characters. The story takes on a fast pace, however, with the minimal amount of progression in the story the pacing felt offbeat. Art: 9/10 The art in Highschool of the Dead was simply breathtaking. The inclusion ofcherry blossoms shedding their flowers was beautiful. The characters were drawn exceptionally well and the zombies looked very realistic.

Sound: 8/10
The quality of the sound was very good, one of the best examples can be found in an early episode, that features a teacher dropping a piece of chalk to the ground, that gives off a sound as it shattters.

Characters: 7/10
Due to the excessive amount of fan service, most characters didn't recieve any real development. Takashi, the main protagonist, whilst competent and compassionate, didn't really seem to have any other character quirks and at times I found him to be kind of dull. As for the female characters, I had a polarizing opinion of some of them. The female characters include: an indecisive sometimes annoying red-head (with big boobs), an annoying, bitchy pink-haired know-it-all (with big boobs), a dumb blonde doctor with tits larger than her brain, and a cute little girl. The one female character who had any sense and was different from your average teen high school girl was Saeko. Saeko was this anime's saving grace in the character department, a sword-wielding badass, she was by far the most interesting and least stereotypical character in the entire anime.

Enjoyment: 8/10
For all its flaws, Highschool of the Dead was very entertaining, and despite finding the fan service to be excessive, I found it to be enjoyable at times. This happened to be my first anime, and since rewatching it I still find it to be entertaining.

Overall:8/10
Highschool of the Dead is great for people that are fans of the zombie genre and fan service. It is also great for those first timers out their. Overall it was a decent anime, it had some gripping zombie fighting sequences, and some decent character moments, but I stil feel that had the amount of fan service been limited, and the length had perhaps been slightly longer, it could have been a better anime than it was.