Highschool of the Dead is pretty easy to explain because you all heard it before. There's some epidemic that turns people into zombies. After one is seen on campus and bites one of the staff, the disease now has the ability to be spread through the school. How? By biting the crap out of people. The other part of the story would be about Takashi, a normal high school student hesitant to confess to his crush, who gets tired of waiting and goes out with his best friend. After that same friend is turned into a zombie and killed by Takashi, his crush, Rei, and him are forced to work on their relationship in order to survive. Along with them are a group of survivors who all use teamwork in order to stay alive. Its quite simple, but the added high school drama makes it a bit more complicated, mainly because God knows that high school girls are a complex creature. This combined with zombies was a unique experience, but seemed to putter out. After a while it become confusing, and I began to not care about the drama anymore and actual hoped they'd get there head out of there butt and start killing zombies. Besides that, its your average zombie flick.
The art was VERY surprising to me. I wasn't expecting much because of the honestly lame title, buy it was the first thing that caught my mind. The visuals were extremely sharp and smooth, and the action seemed to carry those same visuals over nicely. The character designs were fantastic too, ESPECIALLY the women. It is the only time I found an anime girl truly sexy, and it took me off guard a bit.
The soundtrack was very fitting for the show, and I couldn't ask for more. Although I wasn't a big fan of the ED, the OP was completely badass and set the mood perfectly.
The characters impressed the hell out of me. Each one had the personality of an actual person, and didn't feel artificial in anyway to me. Also, since the circumstances change people, the desperation that some of the characters experience felt very real for me (remember drill gun scene).
Although the story is common, zombie killing will always be one of the best forms of entertainment, and this show deserves to join the ranks with the big boys, like Call of Duty (lol). I recommend this to people who love zombie slaying and can handle gore. If this is you, this show will be a blast.
