Review of High School of the Dead
Tits, Guns, and Zombies... what could go wrong? Absolutely nothing. Are you tired of boring and pathetic ecchi/harem animes whose plots make little difference in the end? Highschool of the Dead is the anime for you! In all seriousness, it takes your typical ecchi/harem elements and throws all the boring shit out. Now you have zombies instead of slice of life, guns of instead of homework... and really big tits ... well they are always there regardless. Our protagonist, Komuro is no longer a totally oblivious guy to romance nor is he an apologetic wimp. He has courage when needed, just a lil' humility to takeit to the bank, and enough badass-ness to pull it out in the end. And there's always his sidekick of course, Hirano whom I nominate for best sidekick. Usually we have sidekicks that just pull off the comedic stunts required for the series to progress forward. Hirano on the other hand is pathetic until you hand him a gun, then he becomes a psycho maniac that enjoys mowing down zombies.
Girls... well I feel the female cast for the most part are just used as tits props with the exception of Busujima. She's a bloodthirsty cold hard bitch who enjoys asserting her power. She's nice enough to call a friend but once that blade gets going, nothing is in her way.
The art in this series is absolutely gorgeous. You can't have cheap effects when clombering zombies, no no, you have to see the splatter of their brains. Each action scene for the most part is individually animated rather than using fractal backgrounds (not sure what everyone else calls them). Choreography is great, tits movement is great, and there are enough panty shots to satisfy your average ecchi. Camera scenes are especially well implemented, bullet time, bullet moving between tits, shaky camera scenes, zoom ins, it feels like this series has the budget of a movie. Not only that, sound effects is some of the best I've heard. Everything is cohesive and nothing sounds cheap.
Oh yes, onto panty shots.. they are the most tasteful panty shots incorporated into an anime that I've seen unlike others (I'm looking at you Rosario Vampire). They aren't exactly in the way of enjoying zombie killing scenes and they are done usually in the right moments.
Story-wise... no one really cares. If we wanted some complex plot or romance or mystery there are many other animes to satisfy that. It's only once in a while that such a tasteful zombie, guns, and tits anime comes around and this certainly is one of them.
I nominate Highschool of the Dead for having the best first episode. Not many animes can pull off a good first episode, and to me, the first episode is incredibly important in getting my attention. Along with that, the opening is total awesome. If you don't like the first episode, then you will not like this anime since the first episode sets the pace and mood so well for the rest of the series.
Looking forward to the OAV and second season... sadly the manga is not keeping up.