Not since Engage Planet Kiss Dum have we seen a recap this early in a series. Obviously, something went wrong, though thankfully only the first half of the episode was a recap: the rest of the episode was new material, but even then you could see that a lot of corners were cut here, like a number of far-away shots and convenient censoring that obstructed nearly the entire screen (though admittedly, some other scenes did have very good animation).
My guess is that something went wrong with the outsourcing. Madhouse seems to be a studio that outsources a lot, and my guess is that the part of this episode that some outsourced companies were responsible for failed to deliver their work on time. Hence the sudden inclusion of a recap.
Anyway, about the actual new content of this episode, it was mainly meant to show how even the people who didn’t turn into zombies can snap and cause chaos. With the authorities gone, people have just turned to killing in order to survive. It’s an interesting varation on the “punks are beating up random people”-trope.
Oh, and there were a number of small new scenes in between the recap (it’s as if the creators want to force you to actually watch it), but the only noteworthy thing about it is that we did see organized efforts in getting everyone to safety. That smirk of that teacher however… was just too much. I can understand that the creators wanted someone with a personality that will cause conflicts, but with this guy you can just hang a neon-sign above him reading “I am an asshole”.
Also, this episode showed that Zombies react to not just any sound, but the sound of metal. People talking and yelling seem to be just fine. This really seems to be a bit of a weird design choice, if you ask me.
Oh, and the creators? They’re definitely Shaun of the Dead fans. This episode featured another cameo, and both the title of the series as the title of the episodes are references to its title.
Rating: – (Disappointing)
Yeah the teacher is definitely annoying. Every scene with him so far is him going “I’M SO EVIL MUAHAHAHA, LOOK AT MY EVIL SMIRK” and he hasn’t done anything really devious yet.
And I don’t get why the zombies didn’t react to the sound of the cash machine getting smashed (which was accompanied by a pretty loud sound effect), but they reacted at the bat dropping.
haven’t watched it yet, but that outsourcing thing seems bad.
anyway, that part about, showing that people can snap too and become the villains..
well, that’s just the point of all zombie movies ever made.
maybe you’r not much into the genre, but, from the classics to today, all movies like george’s romero’s and stuff in that genre, it’s all about people, not zombies, it’s always a character study that shows that humans show their bad halves when society breaks and they are free to do what they please
It just seams that you hate this anime and try to find every freaking flaw. I don’t like reading your reviews anymore.
Lol, its impossible to watch this and not care about ever flaw… because there are so many
Wtf, who the hell recaps at the 4th episode? And here I thought the last ep was getting better
Skoopman: you haven’t been reading Tenka Seiha (http://blog.seiha.org/2010/07/high-school-of-the-dead-04-pure-unadulterated-garbage/) , have you?
Seriously though, it’s not like I hate this series. In fact, out of all the moe and fanservice series this season, I consider this to be one of the better ones, but I don’t like it enough to start raving about it. When I encounter something I don’t like, I’ll mention it, but the same holds when I encounter things I like. This just happened to be an episode in which a lot of things went wrong.
Darknives: I am indeed not very familiar with the zombie genre, no. Does HSotD really play out exactly like your average zombie-flick, or are there points at which it does something differently?
I think they just wanted to drive nail (point) in that the world that was day ago has ended.
I like HSotD for it’s characters and relationships. and i come to conclusion that just about everyone is psycho. The reason that they are so effectively killing zombies is because they enjoy it.
Skoopman: you should go watch major anime forums such as MAL. there is a bunch of people whining about recaps and slow pace like zombies lol
storywize, the show just keep trying to be a typical zombie show. the only unique about the show might be the director
I decided to drop the show with this episode. To me it seems really very average at best, with its claim to uniqueness obviously being zombies, but I dont find it to really be doing very much there. And then there’s the excessive fan service. I wanted to like it. Maybe its not too bad, but I certainly dont find it to be very good. I’ll tune in on reviews once it wraps to see if it got better.
the fanboys for this show are unbelievable. 30% of people gave this episode a 5/5 on MAL.
“Also, this episode showed that Zombies react to not just any sound, but the sound of metal. People talking and yelling seem to be just fine. This really seems to be a bit of a weird design choice, if you ask me.”
It’s likely just a matter of the type of sound in relation to how far away the zombies are.
Even shouting will only carry so far and the further away you get the weaker the sound will be.
However the sharp sound of a piece of metal being whacked would travel further and remain strong over distances.
@Psgels
i don’t want to defend HotD (because i didn’t like this episode as well) but throwing Tenka Seiha when he’s mostly critical bout a lot. just look what he wrote about a episode you gave 2 stars.
“Occult Academy’s (awful) third episode was already leaked/covered earlier this week, so no post about it tomorrow.”
Also i saw Chris Beveridge’s review of the episode and he gave it B+ so.. but like i said, i didn’t like the episode as well but that’s mostly because of the recap which i hate.
“Even shouting will only carry so far and the further away you get the weaker the sound will be.
However the sharp sound of a piece of metal being whacked would travel further and remain strong over distances.”
Actually, higher frequency sounds tend to die out sooner, so that doesn’t really make sense (think of jets taking off — you can hear the rumbling from far away, but not the higher frequency tones). The reason you might think a piece of metal being struck travels longer distances is that the sound is being generated even after the metal is struck because it’s a pure tone so the metal will continue to vibrate and produce sound. Also, generally, people can’t shout very loudly.
That having been said, I don’t think it’s true that the zombies are only attracted to metallic sounds. Before, when they threw a shoe at a locker, the zombie heard it fine. I know a locker is made of metal, but it doesn’t produce a pure tone, so it’s just like any other sound.
I think a better theory is that the creators just arbitrarily make the zombies hear things or not when it’s convenient for the plot.
Pretty sure it’s in the manga somewhere that talking, yelling, and screaming will attract zombies. So, yeah.
Also, c’mon guys, it’s a tits and gore show. It’s for mindless entertainment. There’s no shame in liking it, but let’s not pretend this is the more amazing thing ever made and diss those who think that this, well, ISN’T the most amazing thing ever made?
I have decided that this is a show that is better left marathoning. It’s too hard to watch only one episode a week. I was really hoping that they would speed things up rather than just covering one chapter per episode, but at least it looks like we get the hot sniper chick in the next episode, as well as motorcycle ramping and explosions. Looks like episode 5 will make up for this slow episode.
Just a quick thought. This TV show is *supposed* to be mindless entertainment, but I’ve been finding this entire series pretty boring. Heck, there isn’t even any suspense – you KNOW the main characters can’t possibly be harmed… (plot armour ftw)
@mark48torpedo
Except that its not supposed to be mindless entertainment. Its slice-of–zombie-apocalypse type of series.
its not about beating up zombies, its about main characters living, and surviving in this enviroinment.
As for sound – voice is generally “more silent” type of sound. Sharp sound of falling metal can travel a lot further than a simple yell. The characters DID attract zombies with talking in the beginning of episode after all, its just that some sounds travel further than others.
Overall still great episode (way better than % other shows this season like the famous occult academy that im already fed up with), minus the recap of course.
I still love this series. As for the recap here I thought, that it didn’t feels like 9 minutes or so, because Takashi reminds the scenes with additional thoughts, so it’s not that boring – and you don’t have to sit through long repeated scenes. They just show again the fantastic animations they made in the 3 episodes – which were in my opionion much better than your normal tv-budget-series.
Sure, I would love to see more progress in this episode, but let’s take it as a episode to take a breath, let the action down for a while and look what’s happened to the world. In this situation I would like to have some kind of break – so that’s what we’ve got here.
And for the sound I see it like “Unknown Vioce” – the metal-echoe was just louder than the normal talking, so it attracts even zombies, which are far away.
So even after this episode I’m still in Love with this exciting series. 🙂
@mark48torpedo:
“Heck, there isn’t even any suspense – you KNOW the main characters can’t possibly be harmed… (plot armour ftw) ”
Isn’t that the same for ANY anime?
Yeah 4th ep recap this seems like a fail series, Im glad I decided not to watch it from the title :school of the dead. . .yeeeah *roolls eyes*
I just couldn’t believe it when this episode had recaps in it…I actually went to make sure that the episode I had downloaded, was in fact the one I was watching for a second.
I seem to be the only one slightly bothered by this…but I saw it as completely overplayed to have 30 seconds of groping. 5 even 10 seconds would have been enough to get the message across.
I am looking forward to the next episode even more now though, after this one just left me wondering why…
As crude as it sounds, after finding out this was a recap episode, the only reason I watched it WAS for the 30 seconds of groping.
oh wow… someone really arguing about “Plot Armor”?
Wow, really? Talk about discouraging. Despite all the flaws of the show, it’s still entertaining. I liked the episode and thought it was alright. It’s not exactly a piece of cake to make this stuff. So I’m grateful for what comes my way.
I came to this blog once before and was turned away and I come again to see what the heck made this place win that Aniblog Tournament. I haven’t the slightest clue. :\
this is the best anime this season