Highschool and Zombies: HSotD and School Live

Highschool of the dead and School Live are shows that I watched one after another because they cover similar plot ideas in different ways. I already spoiled you on what those two are, but the most interesting way of saying it is Japanese high schoolers fighting for survival in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. If you are familiar with both shows, then you know that they couldn’t be any more different from each other. In this post I am going to talk about both shows in a short amount of time, because one series doesn’t have a lot of things to talk about behind it and I don’t want to spoil you on anything from the other one. Well, at least not now.  Exciting right? Eh, kind of. Which one is which? Well, if you know me from everything that I’ve written on this blog you can probably figure that one out. If you can’t, here is a blog post just for you.

Highschool of the Dead

Despite this show being out for eight years, this is my first time watching Highschool of the Dead. I was an anime fan when it came out so I did know of it, but it never interested me. By writing this, I am kind of sort of patting my eight-year younger self on the back because I still don’t think it’s interesting for me. In fact, I can’t help but remember how the early 2010’s was such a nothing period of anime. Seriously, name a show besides this one that came out in 2010 and 2011 that is still famous or notable today. I’ll wait. I’ve got time. This show broke through the blandness of anime during that time with its boldness, it’s excessive amount of T&A female fanservice, and its stellar action beats that still look amazing today. There was so much passion in this show, for some reason, that I don’t know why fanservice and wish fulfillment shows even try. You can’t beat this show.

Highschool of the Dead is very self-explanatory just by its title. It’s about a group of high schoolers and their teacher fighting against the undead and other people. Add tons and tons of female fanservice in anyway that you can think about it, and you have the show. The best way I can describe this show in a short amount of time is the opening of episode six. We see our two male characters watching the news about the ensuing zombie apocalypse with chaos in the streets while cutting in between our four female characters taking their clothes of in preparation of taking a bath with each other for skin ship shenanigans. This show uses guns and other weapons to explore how to display various parts of the female body in interesting ways that have never been seen before. You know that famous shot were a sniper rifle is rested against one character’s breasts while showing another female character’s assets in ways boobs don’t move in real life in bullet time? Yeah, there you go. Not to mention that even zombie girls are treating in the same manner as our four female characters

Now, I am not saying that this show doesn’t have value beyond fanservice and action. There is the exploration of the fall of society, what defines a person, how people act when rules and laws are void, how people try to return to their normal lives for the sake of their own sanity. It’s just that Highschool of the Dead isn’t as interested in those things as everything else. The characters are barely above card board level, so it’s hard to see those are explored as much as they could be. The action is stellar though because there is a lot of passion behind each of the scenes and there is large varieties of it. You have katanas, sniper rifles, shot guns, motorcycle wheels hitting zombie heads, and I can go on and on. All of that as much of cinematic style as you can get it. If this sounds like your kind of show, please go ahead, watch it, and enjoy it. I won’t judge you. It’s not my thing so this show fell flat for me. I guess I am just a boring person then, but it is what it is. I can accept people calling me boring.

School Live

The weird thing about this show is that it’s not my usual kind of show, being more of a Cute Girls Doing Cute Things show. Despite that, I kind of fell head over heels for School Live. I’m discovering over time that I do like these shows as long as they go somewhere and there has to be a unique twist to it. A CGDCT show taking place in the middle of a zombie apocalypse is quite a twist, don’t you think? Nothing like having girls have their fun school activities at a mostly barricaded off high school with zombies outside waiting to eat you to add an extra thrill to everything. Definitely the opposite of High School of the Dead because it’s a show more interested in exploring its characters then giving the audience over the top action all the and doing everything else that HSotD is interested in doing. Not saying that fanservice and action aren’t things that happen in School Live, but those aspects are toned way down in comparison.

The most interesting aspects of this show are its mystery and how the zombie apocalypse affects our characters. School Live is centered around a cast of four girls and their teacher. Each one of them is given ample time to explore who they are, how they got there, what role they play in their group for survival. This show does play as girls working hard to achieve whatever their life is outside of high school. Weird, right? It’s strange and yet it works somehow. Now, the visual aspects aren’t as good as High School of the Deads, but oh well. The characters art style and detail put into the characters are lacking in some ways and there is some rampant cg that is used for obvious reasons, but this show plays with filters in the most interesting ways possible. Characters covered in a colored outline or covered a color filter of some sort mean something and you only learn about what those are later in the show. I really like School Live, because it felt like it was designed for people who aren’t sure they are fans of CGDCT shows like me. Maybe I need to explore more of these shows in the future.

Happy October and Happy approaching Halloween everyone. This post is part one of my three stepped plan in celebrating Halloween this year. I didn’t do anything for the past two years, so here is my time to shine. Be ready for next week for part two. If you have watched my twitter feed at all, you probably know what’s coming next. If you don’t, then you might be in for some kind of surprise. See you all next week.