High School of the Dead – 08



I still believe that these are some really strange zombies. I mean, usually from zombies you’d expect the mindset of “humans tasty. rawr”. The zombies here however… they only respond to certain sounds, and even then they just have this tendency to not move for any period of time. I guess that this is a bit of a problem that came from adapting this thing from manga to anime: I imagine that it may have been plausible in the manga, but in anime form it’s getting a bit ludicrous.

The climax of this episode was a bit weird in more ways than just that. I mean, beyond the zombies: the characters could easily have jumped over the fence and run away. Sure, they would have lost the car, but at least they would still be alive. What kept them from doing that? Sheer fear? And yet… the soundtrack in this episode and especially in the final quarter of this episode was the best of this series so far. What this episode lacked in sense it actually made up with its tension.

This episode also put a lot of attention on the guns this time, especially with the way in which Hirono had to explain the workings and details of all of them. The fanservice… was just crazy. Ah well, at least it was creative. My main problem with fanservice is that it often is cheap, completely pointless and annoying, but that was nowhere near the case here.
Rating: * (Good)

21 thoughts on “High School of the Dead – 08

  1. It definitely suffers from the transition from manga. Surrounding the cast with zombies is great for tension in a still image but silly when we see the gigantic horde has only moved a few feet in an hour in the anime…

    That said, I feel HSotD is stronger in anime form. Run and gun action just doesn’t work as well in static images…

  2. Why didn’t you give this episode a “great” rating if you were somehow satisfied?^^ Best episode so far after 1 and 2.

  3. They couldn’t hop over the fence because Rei was unable to move and it would have taken too long to help her over the fence. The team has a very tight knit “one go, we all go” mentality.

  4. When you see any episode of HSotD, is so obvious that the mangaka does hentai work that I wonder: really needs anime more and more PORN? It’s so annoying.

  5. this episode was soooo hard to watch. lol. how long would it have taken them to just bring rei back into the humvee? and why the hell would you ride on top of the vehicle in the first place?! ugh!!! only reason im watching it is i want to see how it all ends.

  6. Why didn’t the simply go THROUGH the wires?! There was enough space there to fit even the fat guy. Only the zombies would be caught on it.

  7. I was wondering the exact same thing. They could have easily slipped through the fence even with the injured person. Fear? Naw, I guess it’s hard to make anime/manga that is fully realistic (or they just don’t bother).

  8. LMAO, I so want to go find a lady with double D’s and ask her to allow me to fire a rifle off her chest so I can record the boob action and decide if it is sexy or not… cause that animation was like… really really really not… >.> looked more like… ya know what? I just don’t know… kinda like jello bouncing on the moon I suppose?

    BTW how in hell can you not hit a horde of zombies from 15feet away with a SCOPED rifle?

  9. @Tc Well if you didn’t know how to use it, as you can see by his shotgun aim, you can miss really easily. This is still one of the best series of the season, despite the fanservice and despite a few bad plot choices.

    And as psgels said, it’s great at building tension.

  10. All i know is its just the main character and and the wooden sword wielding hotty next episode YES!!!!!!!!!…..she better not die damnit

  11. Everything was awesome till I noticed that they are ALREADY starting to diverge from manga.

    God help us, Madhouse will pull a claymore yet again, with some sort of crappy anime-original ending.

    At least next episode is the Saeko reveal, which, by all means, MUST BE manga faithful. if not, I will rage.

  12. Actually, zombies that react to only some sounds and otherwise remain immobile are more natural since they have to conserve energy just like any other organism. True that the way they react to some sounds in this anime is strange to say the leats but always moving zombies will get exhausted quite quickly.

  13. I finally realized what’s been bugging me with this series: There’s no specific antagonist or direct goal for the characters. (other than pure survival)

    Even though I found him annoying, the villain teacher/cult leader at least gave the main cast something to respond to, and something to build a story around. As is, they are just running around and, maybe, looking to find what’s happened to their parents… which leaves the story teen angst, fan service and action sequences to work with. Not very interesting :/

  14. They should have left rei to get eaten :/.
    Anyway
    ot did any see the trailer for that new zombie series that’s airing this fall i think it looks good.

  15. thats definitely some creative fan service! but the story is pretty good too imo and i guess i enjoyed the fanservice too.. the bullet between the boobs and upskirt was really creative lol!!

Leave a Reply