Review of High School of the Dead

Highschool of the Dead is based at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, centered around the lives of five teenagers, a teacher and a small child - accompanied by her dog - in their quest to find their families. The plot/story-line provided a good basis for the anime itself, giving many different directions to be taken and to keep the anime ongoing for several series. However, it quickly becomes clear that the story-line, while still obvious and in play, appears to fade into the background in a few episodes, the idea of teenage drama taking over. Yet, the plotline is a constant and this is akey feature throughout the entire anime.
The art style for this anime could be classed as original but commonly falls into the style of hentai and ecchi styled characters. Every female character, excluding the child, is sexualized to the point where the watcher has to double check they aren't actually watching hentai. The design of the zombies is brilliant however, but still doesn't make up for the poorly-drawn anatomy of the female protagonists.
The sound in this anime is effective, well done and the best thing about the anime. The intro and outro are good choices of music, fitting well with the apocalypse theme of the anime. Not only that, but the sound effects used throughout the anime effectively created the effect of a realistic apocalypse, silence rarely occurring with sirens in the distance, wails of the dead, etc. Even the voice acting was well chosen and fitted well with each of the characters.
However, the character development in this anime was poor for the majority of the characters. Granted, there was a good distribution in the attitudes of the characters, there was little to no character development for the main male-protagonist and many others. The characters only occasionally acted realistically to the stress of the situation; one turning abusive and another having a break down at one point.
Overall, this anime was decent, but is discontinued. And in many ways, this is most definitely a good thing.