The series focuses on lead shounen teen Takashi, who contains every example of a Mary-Sue character. For those who don't know, a Mary-Sue is a character who is perfect at just about everything of value, is loved by everybody unconditionally, and is always right. Out of all the characters in this show he can be the most annoying because he turns out to always be right, even when his decisions are clearly bad. He is perfect at everything we see him do, going so far as to render the only positive input the only other male in his group provides (shooting guns) simply by receiving the instruction to 'shoot slightly above what you want to hit'. He immediately becomes a marksman. The only thing he's bad at is school, but guess what gets destroyed in the first episode?
Other characters consist of Rei, one of the whiniest characters I've ever seen, who starts off the series telling Takashi he'll never be as good as her boyfriend, telling him her boyfriend is always right, and as soon as the boyfriend dies (fist-fighting a zombie is a bad idea? SHOCK!) she begins to immediately alternate between 'you wanted him to die, how could you?' and 'please make love to me, I've always wanted you'. There's also a kendo girl who starts off being the only cool one in the series until a completely arbitrary revelation into her backstory turns her more into a dangerous psychopath (or it would, if they ever bothered dealing with it again). They have the 'smart' girl, who in this case simply quotes common sense and the occasional piece of relevant information she read in a textbook somewhere (which on at least one occasion I double checked and found it was wrong). There's a gun nut who I actually kind of like, in that unlike Mr. Perfect Takashi this guy only has one GOOD quality, and that is his skill with guns. Until, again, Takashi gets one piece of advice from him and immediately becomes a sniper. Finally, we have Boobs Mcenzy, a nurse who doesn't know medicine, can't seem to understand anything that's happening around her, and whose very existence seems to be justified entirely by 'well, she has even BIGGER boobs than the rest of the cast'. Later on there is a kid and a dog, but I honestly can't remember anything she does other than go to the bathroom on Takashi's shoulders (yes, this happens).
Oh, and there's the completely insane, psychotic teacher who nobody in their right mind would trust, yet somehow everybody looks up to him simply because he's a teacher. He oggles the girls while licking his lips, contorts his body into insane poses while detailing why they should relent to his authority (for their own good, of course!) and has some inexplicable desire to... keep the main girls as his slaves? I'm not really sure. It's never really explained, or at least not in any satisfactory way.
One element that confuses me about this series is how it jumps about seemingly at random between 'let's analyze this situation using logic and real world physics' and 'batshit insane anime logic'. For example, at one point Boobs McKenzy tells them that she cannot drive the bus over a small group of zombies because it would flip the bus. Then, as soon as the plot calls for it, she hits the gas, runs over about 30 zombies, then plows through a METAL GATE and drives down the road like nothing is wrong.
This might be salvageable if the zombies were remotely scary, but in this case they go out of their way to make them seem as non-threatening as possible. "How do they do this?" you ask, unaware that not only am I clearly about to tell you anyways, but that I can't hear you and you are just wasting your time. It's simple: in this world, zombies...sorry, NOT zombies... according to this show's logic, 'they cannot be zombies, because zombies only exist in movies, therefore despite sharing almost all the characteristics with movie zombies we cannot use that name as an easy reference point because LOOK HOW ORIGINAL WE'RE BEING YOU GUYS'. Anyways, zombies in this show apparently CANNOT SEE OR FEEL THINGS. I don't mean 'cannot feel' as in 'cannot feel pain'. No, they cannot feel things like a wet cloth hitting the back of their head. Logically one could assume that if they cannot see or feel anything, they would have no way of knowing when they had someone in their grasp, yet that never stops them from doing so. Maybe this is because everybody ignores the fact that they can only hear, and starts screaming as soon as they see even a single zombie come down the road. I believe the author came up with this idea for one scene and one scene only: Takashi walking slowly and silently through a herd of zombies. It's actually a really good scene, and one that gave me hope for the future of the series.
It's immediately ruined because someone hits a pipe against a railing and, instead of saying 'make a noise somewhere else to distract them' or 'just keep moving silently so they don't know where you are' Takashi just begins screaming bloody murder and alerting all zombies everywhere to their presence. The smart girl (whose name I cannot remember) points out that, yeah, that was a stupid f**king move, but we are lead to believe that Takashi is right somehow because then a zombie tries to attack her, which somehow invalidates her point... I think? I mean, she's right, and the zombie only attacked her because she was talking which ACTUALLY PROVES HER POINT YOU GUYS but anyways they just keep screaming and running which gets a lot of people killed. Our heroes!
Probably the funniest use of this new 'zombie logic' comes 3/4 of the way through the series. Some of the characters leave a building to find the yard empty. Then suddenly, Zombies come pouring up the stairs after them! Takashi, in a moment of brilliance that I could not make up if I tried, exclaims 'But how did they find us? DID THEY HEAR THE LEAVES RUSTLING IN THE TREES?'
I'm not making that up. Zombies are attracted to leaves now. Apparently, ANY sound is enough to alert them to your presence, unless the plot demands otherwise (like the previous episode where no amount of sound from another direction would deter them from attacking them). Then, the Kendo girl goes into a killing frenzy against the zombies and declares that the combat has 'made her wet'. Ick.
Oh, and there's a subplot about America wanting to nuke everybody because come on, what else are you going to do? We spent good money on these bombs and they aren't just gonna launch THEMSELVES!
I very nearly stopped watching this show at episode 6, where the fan service was turned up to 11. They found a safehouse and, while the guys were doing things like plan their next move, maintain their weapons, keep an eye out for zombies, etc., the girls got drunk, took a group bath and fondled each other before attempting to get it on with Takashi (and only Takashi, for he is the ONLY man they could go for.. other than the other guy in the group, but he's fat and nerdy so it's completely understandable since looks DO apparently matter).
There is clearly so much wrong with this series that it almost hurts just how good it looks. That is the only saving grace to this show: it is GORGEOUS to behold, and the theme song can get stuck in your head quite easily. In fact, the opening theme made me think this show would be great simply because of the tone and atmosphere it set up. It's a shame the show itself couldn't live up to it's own opening.
I once sat some friends of mine down and we had a drinking game to this show. The rules were simple: Any time we saw fan service we'd take a shot. We quickly ruled out the opening theme because there's about 4 or 5 different shots in too rapid succession to drink and pour a new glass. After that, we had to limit it to 'just scenes of up-close boob and ass jiggles' because we were on a dangerous road to alcohol poisoning already. We quit after 4 or 5 episodes, because I knew the safe-house episode would kill them.
So yeah, that's Highschool of the Dead. If you have friends over and want to watch something mind-bogglingly bad, then grab some bottles of alcohol and watch away. If you are looking for something DECENT, however, then try watching something better. It wouldn't be hard to find.
