Highschool of the Dead is one of those shows where you can switch off your brain whilst watching it (much like the undead the series revolves around ironically). There's lots of action, lots of unnecessary fan-service but not much of a story apart from: get from A to B maybe taking a diversion to C whilst fighting your way through hoards of the undead. Don't get me wrong, the series is undoubtedly entertaining to watch and I would recommend it but only if you take it at face value; this is not a series with complicated twists which requires your full attention. The fact that the story revolves solely around the selection of main characters means the viewer is as knowledgeable about why the zombie outbreak as the group of teenagers we're watching. This might be revealed later on but I'm basing this on the first season. To give HOTD credit it does give a back story to most of the main characters and also has a few emotional scenes (my personal favourite being at the end of the first episode). There's plenty of challenges that the protagonists must overcome and the animation is excellent. Overall I gave it 4 stars because it had plenty of potential to be better but as it is, it's still a good watch and has plenty of likeable characters.

High School of the Dead is a beyond great and hilarious. It is mainly based around 6 students traveling trying to find somewhere where they are safe from the zombies. If you like any animes with zombie action, violence and comedy then this is a set for you. Bluray is much better than the dvd set; there is a huge difference in the bluray compared to the dvd. It is easily worth the extra few £ for bluray.

Zombies are everywhere these days. Not literally of course, in spite of what every fan boy might say, an actual zombie plague would probably be a bad thing. Figuratively however zombies are becoming something of a cultural phenomenon from TV shows like the walking dead to books like the zombie survival guide, the shuffling corpses made famous by the now legendary George A Romero classic night of the living dead have grown in popularity since a resurgence of interest in the wake of 28 days later. It was only natural then that with zombie films emerging everywhere from Greece to Latvia eventually the Japanese would get in on the act. In all fairness the Japanese have already produced more than their fair share of zombie films, but now they have transferred the genre to the hyper popular cultural export that is animé. The real question is, is the show any good? Well the answer from me is a cautious yes. As an apocalyptic zombie story high school of the dead does little wrong, it sticks to the conventions fine. A mixed group of Japanese high-school students must survive a mass epidemic of the walking dead that erupts during a seemingly normal school day. The 13 episode series charts the story arc as the kids grow from ordinary students to survivors, learning to fight in order to survive. If you can get past it though, hsotd is a great little series, and its a shame its not longer, the manga is ongoing but this series sticks at 13 episodes which is a shame. It looks fantastic on blu-ray and the subtitles are fine though there are no extras to speak of. Certainly a series that's worth a look!

Watched this anime as not really good quality video. Blu-ray was really cool with this anime.

High School Of The Dead is a good anime. The tragedy is that it could have been a *great* anime if not for some horrible mistakes. Let me explain. The setup is awesome. Zombie apocalypse+ a renegade group of kids + anime? It's pretty much every nerd's wet dream. Unfortunately, the writers decided to focus on the "wet" part much more than the dream. A lot of people have been debating over HotD's overuse of fan service. Is it justified? I personally don't think so. Here you have a perfectly awesome setup for the apocalypse. People grabbing their guns, moral dilemmas, false messiahs, etc. HotD sets this up in a fairly realistic way and creates an immersive world that terrifies and fascinates the viewer. Then they give you episodes where 90% of the screen time is decided to naked women touching each other. Other episodes are more toned down, but the fan service isn't very subtle and it is very distracting and at times annoying. Shizuka, One of the main characters (who really isn't a character as much as she is a walking-talking fetish provider) has boobs that are literally larger than her head and does absolutely nothing besides acting stupid. She provides absolutely no other value to the show, and one has to wonder how she even gets out of bed in the morning. Some of the other characters also have the same kind of one demential personality. Then you have characters like Saeko, and Takashi, who end up being dynamic and very interesting to watch. These two characters provide the show character development, constantly walking the line between hero and killer. They are fairly fascinating to watch, especially given that the series never promoted itself as being thought provoking. The artwork is tough to describe, because while it is a visually impressive show, some of the character designs are incredibly awkward. As I mentioned before, the breast proportions on the female characters are insane. Rei and Saya have very edgy and unattractive hair that makes their characters look a bit cheaper than the rest of the cast. Despite this, most of the illustrations are very beautiful and it's generally top notch animation. The best way to enjoy HotD is to expect very little from it and just go along for the ride. It has some terrible faults that might really ruin it for a lot of people, but watching the group survive the apocalypse is incredibly entertaining. It's a great mindless anime that is far better than any ecchi I have ever seen. If you are looking for a show with well developed characters and tasteful character interactions, find a different show. I would say that its worth making the exception for HotD though.