HIGH SCHOOL OF THE DEAD (SEASON 1)
December 15th 2011 03:08
Based on the original High School of the Dead manga by Daisuke Sato & Shouji Sato
Director: Tetsuro Araki
Written by: Yosuke Kuroda
Producer: Mitsutoshi Ogura
Starring: Leraldo Anzaldula (Takashi Komura), Jessica Boone (Rei Miyamoto), Maggie Flecknoe (Saya Takagi), Mark X Laskowski (Kota Hirano), Taylor Hannah (Saeko Busujima), Monica Rial (Shizuka Marikawa), Brittney Karbowski (Alice Maresato), Illich Guardiola (Koichi Shido), Melissa Davis (Rika Minami), David Matranga (Hisashi Igo), Andrew Love (Soichiro Takagi) & Shelley Calene-Black (Yuriko Takagi)
Produced by: H.O.T.D Project
Running Time: 300 minutes Rating: MA15
My first encounter with this particular series was on the Madman Entertainment website; I watched the first three episodes and was hooked. I could have watched the rest of the series online via the same website but felt that I wanted to own the DVD set at some stage and just watch the whole thing without having to worry about the old internet connection signal strength and download speeds. I think this is where actually owning a copy is far superior to streaming; you don’t have to worry about such matters. So a few days ago I managed to get the first season of this anime series at a local shop.
Like I said earlier after watching the first three episodes I was captivated by the series. It has some fantastic animation and some of the scenes you’d swear were almost real, in fact I’m not sure that they’re not. Usually these are scenes of the sunsets or dawns, they look so real. And the actual landscapes are fairly convincing as well – though maybe it’s because I’m watching this on a laptop with good video capabilities and not an ordinary television. Regardless though the visuals are spectacular but that’s only going to get you so far…smoke and mirrors are fine if there is a great story backing it all up, if there is something behind all that smoke.
The world ends, and on the day it does end Takashi Komura is at high school moping. The girl he thought he was going to one day marry has dumped him for his best friend, he’s trying to work out how to deal with the situation and not coming up with any really good ideas when the world ends. Not with a bang, not with a fanfare, not even with a sudden live announcement across all radio, television and internet networks, no it all goes to hell in a handcart with someone head butting the school gate. In reality though this isn’t the end of the world – this is the moment when Takashi realises instinctively that there is a sudden paradigm shift, that everything he has known up till now has suddenly come crashing down. The world is well and truly over before the stranger started head butting the gate – this moment is just when we the audience and the protagonists begin to get some idea of how things are going to be from now on.
No doubt you’re sitting there reading this and wondering to yourself just how the hell can the world end with someone head butting a school gate…ahh yes how can it happen, it can happen if the person is one of the walking dead, a zombie. And this is precisely what has occurred. A solitary zombie has approached the school and began to head butt the gate, he is then grabbed by an irate PE teacher who is then bitten by the zombie…and the whole downward spiral begins from that point on.
HOTD then takes this incident and runs with it; the audience is given a roller coaster ride of carnage, mayhem and intriguing character development from this one simple moment. There are moments of pathos, of joy, of sadness, of horror and loads of fan service for those who are fans of cute busty school girls or female teachers but the truly compelling thing is seeing what is going to actually happen. Centred on a core group of two male high school students, three female high school students and the school nurse the series revolves around their efforts first to survive, then to escape their high school and then to discover what has happened to the world they’ve known and their immediate family. It’s a lot to cover in twelve episodes…and unfortunately not all of it gets resolved…which makes me wonder if there is a second season? It would make sense.
In fact it is the fact that this is a twelve episode long season that in my eyes was a big problem; it’s not enough for any real significant resolution to the trials and tribulations or the objectives our protagonists undergo. And as events progress the makers only make things worse by expanding the scope…as our heroes try to survive in metropolitan Japan the rest of the world is engaged in a nuclear slinging match, ICBMs are launched and before you know it it’s electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) time. It’s almost as if all the big wigs in the world have decided that there’s nothing left to live for so why not let the dead have it all…all that radioactive waste and burnt landscape, scorched earth on a grand scale.
Even though it seems like a zombie apocalypse flick HOTD seems to also be something of a social commentary in my own humble opinion. It demonstrates the sheer fragility of modern society, how easily it can all come apart and the consequences such fragmentation can hold. It also demonstrates that the aspect of civilized behaviour and morality is not even skin deep in some people; in fact it is problem the merest of veneers that serves only to conceal the depravity and bile of such individuals. And last but least there is the concept that no matter the situation some people are unwilling to believe what’s right before them if confronting such things proves too painful or traumatic. That seems to be the case even when things are normal but it becomes magnified in this series as people refuse to come to grips with the new ‘reality’. If you are just a zombie flick fan then HOTD will no doubt excite you, if you’re someone who wants something a bit more substantial then HOTD will grab you as I say the story is just more than zombies, death and destruction.
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