By Marie Abaya
The first couple of minutes of "Spring of the Dead" you're thrown into the action with fast cut scenes depicting zombie's heads bashed in by a baseball bat. Not only is HSotD (High School of the Dead) violent, but it doesn't hold back. The mix of fast pace action sequences, point-of- view shots from the zombie perspective, and shaky cam adds to the drama to this zombie apocalypse. Also, Ecchi (a genre of Anime dealing with sex, but in that soft-core kind of way) comes into mind with plenty of panty shots and believe me this episode has a lot of that.
This episode begins in the middle of the chaos that's in Fujimi High School. We join Takashi Komuro, our protagonist of the story, racing to the top of the roof with his child hood friend Rei Miyamoto and her boyfriend Hisashi Igō. After a couple of minutes of them defending themselves against the undead we are right away shown the Opening credits. The opening title screen for HSotD has the typical Jpop music playing while a montage of the main characters are shown. Like most Anime shows, the main theme song lyrics doesn't make sense with the series premise. This might be a cultural thing, because I sure didn't get it.
After the opening, we are now transferred back before the incident happened in school and Takashi is hanging out on the school's steps balcony as he thinks back to his child hood. The way this is portrayed is by cutting in-and- out of the flashback with the film being torn like an old movie reel, giving it a unique style. As this is happening we're introduce to Saya Takagi, childhood friend of Takashi, she exchanged a few words on the step balcony with him before the real mayhem happens. As she leaves Takashi notice a strange incident at the entrance of school gate. An incident that makes Takashi panic making him think of Rei's safety.He rush down the halls of the school to get Rei and warned her. After a couple of minutes of trying to convince Rei into coming with him, we hear the school's announcements come on. The announcement advised that students stay with their teachers because an incident has happen resulting in people being killed in front of school, this is the same incident that Takashi seen on the step balcony.
Takashi manages to convince Rei into coming with him, but she needed her boyfriend Hisashi to also to come along. The tension between Takashi and Hisashi is done really well. You get this feeling of jealously from Takashi as he hesitates to agree with the arrangement. As they work their way to the roof top of the school, the one place they figured out would be the safest place to stay, they are attack by one of undead. During the struggle, Hisashi is bitten and being a long time fan of Zombie films, we already know what that means. The scene ends with Takashi bashing the zombie in the head with the baseball bat and this is where we see the realization of characters as they figure out how to stop them.
On the roof top our surviving characters view the city in chaos. It's visually stunning to see the entire city in mayhem. Hundred of films portray this moment differently, but animation is the only way to get the epic scale of disaster that you can't do with film's limitations. We also view the perspective of other students in the school as they cope with this disaster that is brought upon their school.
The last 10 minute of the episodes deals greatly with morals issues that you can only encounter with when you know the world is going to end. The hard decision that Takashi has to make in killing Hisashi is the defining moment for the series. It gives the story that important lesson, that's it kill or be killed world now. You have to forget about your emotions and let human's nature for survival guide you.
As Takashi makes his decision, we hear a hunting melody that is familiar to 28 Days Later's theme "In the House .In a Heartbeat". This melody alone gave me chills as Takashi finally makes his decision. It was a great way to pay homage to another zombie inspired story. The Ending credits interrupt the tension and again we hear Jpop theme music. At my surprise, the episode wasn't even over yet. As the ending theme plays, the scenes fads into the roof top where our final two characters exchange words.
HSotD is a great addition to already over saturated genre. I haven't seen an anime series tackle this genre without any gimmicks. They don't use traditional scares, but scares one might have if you lose faith in humanity. Personally I love that they use a more traditional zombie that George A. Romero has created. You feel the tension when the characters are surrounded by two or three zombies. The pace of the episode is well done, you get a sense of character development in short amount of time, and makes you wanting more after it ends. If you're a huge zombie fan like me, then this series is for you, but if you think zombies are overdone by today's mainstream, I would still recommend you to give this a shot before you kill it.
The first couple of minutes of "Spring of the Dead" you're thrown into the action with fast cut scenes depicting zombie's heads bashed in by a baseball bat. Not only is HSotD (High School of the Dead) violent, but it doesn't hold back. The mix of fast pace action sequences, point-of- view shots from the zombie perspective, and shaky cam adds to the drama to this zombie apocalypse. Also, Ecchi (a genre of Anime dealing with sex, but in that soft-core kind of way) comes into mind with plenty of panty shots and believe me this episode has a lot of that.
This episode begins in the middle of the chaos that's in Fujimi High School. We join Takashi Komuro, our protagonist of the story, racing to the top of the roof with his child hood friend Rei Miyamoto and her boyfriend Hisashi Igō. After a couple of minutes of them defending themselves against the undead we are right away shown the Opening credits. The opening title screen for HSotD has the typical Jpop music playing while a montage of the main characters are shown. Like most Anime shows, the main theme song lyrics doesn't make sense with the series premise. This might be a cultural thing, because I sure didn't get it.
After the opening, we are now transferred back before the incident happened in school and Takashi is hanging out on the school's steps balcony as he thinks back to his child hood. The way this is portrayed is by cutting in-and- out of the flashback with the film being torn like an old movie reel, giving it a unique style. As this is happening we're introduce to Saya Takagi, childhood friend of Takashi, she exchanged a few words on the step balcony with him before the real mayhem happens. As she leaves Takashi notice a strange incident at the entrance of school gate. An incident that makes Takashi panic making him think of Rei's safety.He rush down the halls of the school to get Rei and warned her. After a couple of minutes of trying to convince Rei into coming with him, we hear the school's announcements come on. The announcement advised that students stay with their teachers because an incident has happen resulting in people being killed in front of school, this is the same incident that Takashi seen on the step balcony.
Takashi manages to convince Rei into coming with him, but she needed her boyfriend Hisashi to also to come along. The tension between Takashi and Hisashi is done really well. You get this feeling of jealously from Takashi as he hesitates to agree with the arrangement. As they work their way to the roof top of the school, the one place they figured out would be the safest place to stay, they are attack by one of undead. During the struggle, Hisashi is bitten and being a long time fan of Zombie films, we already know what that means. The scene ends with Takashi bashing the zombie in the head with the baseball bat and this is where we see the realization of characters as they figure out how to stop them.
On the roof top our surviving characters view the city in chaos. It's visually stunning to see the entire city in mayhem. Hundred of films portray this moment differently, but animation is the only way to get the epic scale of disaster that you can't do with film's limitations. We also view the perspective of other students in the school as they cope with this disaster that is brought upon their school.
The last 10 minute of the episodes deals greatly with morals issues that you can only encounter with when you know the world is going to end. The hard decision that Takashi has to make in killing Hisashi is the defining moment for the series. It gives the story that important lesson, that's it kill or be killed world now. You have to forget about your emotions and let human's nature for survival guide you.
As Takashi makes his decision, we hear a hunting melody that is familiar to 28 Days Later's theme "In the House .In a Heartbeat". This melody alone gave me chills as Takashi finally makes his decision. It was a great way to pay homage to another zombie inspired story. The Ending credits interrupt the tension and again we hear Jpop theme music. At my surprise, the episode wasn't even over yet. As the ending theme plays, the scenes fads into the roof top where our final two characters exchange words.
HSotD is a great addition to already over saturated genre. I haven't seen an anime series tackle this genre without any gimmicks. They don't use traditional scares, but scares one might have if you lose faith in humanity. Personally I love that they use a more traditional zombie that George A. Romero has created. You feel the tension when the characters are surrounded by two or three zombies. The pace of the episode is well done, you get a sense of character development in short amount of time, and makes you wanting more after it ends. If you're a huge zombie fan like me, then this series is for you, but if you think zombies are overdone by today's mainstream, I would still recommend you to give this a shot before you kill it.
