high school of the dead 12
Categories: episodic review, high school of the dead
Tagged: high school of the dead
16 Comments »
“This is the way the world ends /
Not with a bang but a whimper”
I would say the same thing about this ending. Gosh, K-On!! had more of an impact.
How did Sound Effect Sensei (SES) get her medical degree? How?! My conclusion: she sucked more cock than Kevin Smith.
I think we need a spin-off for Takagi’s parents. They’re just so much better characters than Takagi herself. Her dad is probably a match for Kenshin. In fact, I would love to see a sword fight between the two.
And her mom? Definitely MILF worthy… heck, even Hirano calls her “Momma” now. Gotta love anyone who fights with a semi-automatic gun while wearing a cocktail dress and an expensive diamond necklace. Obviously, Takagi inherited her mom’s melonpan but not the same confidence or awesomeness. Which parent gave Takagi the whining gene?
All the bad survivors get owned. All the good survivors live to live another day. Mmm… the crassest of all morality plays. Highschool of the Dead, you’re no Kino’s Travels. Heck, you’re not even Shigofumi.
Whenever Rei gets in trouble, it’s her hopes and dreams that takes the punishment. It’s almost like the zombies are attracted to those might mounds of melonpan.
The ending just was… blah. I’m not sure where the manga is going, but it seems like Madhouse is positioning the show for a second season with the mall arc as the focus (hence the lovely policelady here) except… well… it’s just not interesting anymore. Series becomes a homeless man’s 90210 with a few zombies tossed in. And this goes back to there’s really no clean ending to zombie apocalypse stories. They either find a safe haven (cop out), die/zombie out, or find a cure. There’s no in-between, and that’s my problem with zombie tales. Just a lot of mindless killing but not a lot in terms of exposition.
Sure, High School of the Dead layers tits and asses on top of the zombie fighting, but it’s a very shallow layer. It’ll be interesting to see what AMC does with Walking Dead as it features more personal tragedy, but there’s just not a lot one can do in terms of storytelling during a zombie invasion.
(One idea I like but hasn’t been tried: Yakuza vs. Zombies! Oh wait… nevermind. Better yet! Plants vs. Zombies! Oh wait… nevermind. Ah ha! Pokemon vs. Zombies! Now, I’d watch that. I choose you… #%&! Wobbuffet.)
(Another untapped idea? Wouldn’t the zombies eventually rot and/or run out of energy? I mean, they’re not drinking water… how can a body move for that long without replenishing water or energy? Even the zombified ants eventually stop moving and properly die.)
Explain to me why they took Alice-chan (when they could have left her with the other kids Takagi’s parents were protecting) and didn’t take the one mechanic available who can fix the car? And why is it smart to remove four of the best fighters from the group? Isn’t splitting up the worst thing one can do in a horror situation? Not even Sumeragi would approve of this hap dash strategy.
(Also wondering: they took no supplies. Do you see Hirano loading the Humvee with ammo? Do you see SES piling medical supplies into it? Or did you see Takagi procuring food and water? I’m not saying it has to go into survivor detail a la Let’s Lagoon, but it should have some survivor aspect to the show. Water has more uses than just getting Saeko’s blouses wet.)
How did a zombie board a naval vessel in the past three days and infect the crew? Inquiring minds want to know.
Ridiculous scene in an anime filled with ridiculous scenes. I don’t know how else to describe this anime… it was short, it was fun, it was entertaining, but it’s not memorable. In other words, it’s like just any good old bad Hollywood action movie. I just can’t wait for the Michael Bay remake of this series now.
(And one final good job to Madhouse for somehow working in one final panty shot for all the main haremettes.)
16 Responses to “high school of the dead 12”
Leave a Reply
Jason, I got excited and religiously watched this series because you pimped the manga like 5 years ago. And now you say it’s only okay. Damn you.. DAMN YOU. Well I still liked it!
The first 2-3 volumes were good, but it goes downhill. Zombie stories just don’t got the juice.
Logical (and frankly, common sense) shortcomings aside, it was a fun and mindless romp. There were flashes that it could have been more than that, but alas it was just content to stick with its zombie movie cliches.
By the way, anyone notice Asami’s sempai running past the wall of pictures at the end?
I thought this show was GREAT….so I said to my wife….who thinks I ONLY watched this for the fanservice. Well…to be honest, it was NOT great…it was more like Aaron Rodgers the opening two games of the season, in reverse, kind of…not quite up to what it SHOULD be and CAN be…but…the games were won, one time, there now. And yeh, the fan service was a nice touch. But not really the focal point of the show. The ending seemed to beg for a sequel….but…not a MADHOUSE sequel. This is where, maybe, SHAFT should take over. *slinks away quietly* Anyway…my biggest, and perhaps only, complaint about the ending is the reference to T.S. Eliot’s poems The Hollow Men. If they had intended all along to place this keystone over the ending, then that fire should have been burning from the beginning. I’m not a T.S. Eliot scholar, mind you, but I’m very familiar with his works and can spot a reference a mile a way. And not much of the first 12 episodes bespoke The Hollow Men to me. Not even in retrospect. To be honest, I’d be more inclined to go with one of the Four Quartets….perhaps Little Gidding. Yes…that might fit the relationship/psycho-sexual dynamic of the story a bit aptly.
I rest my case. And yes…the fanservice was ALRIGHT!!!
Hey man, you let your wife watch this ?
Anyway, one thing I can say about this series is that even gay guys become addicted in b00bs after watching it..
Yeah, that section from Little Gidding fits a lot more than The Hollow Men. I’m also thinking about the last part of Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal, I mean, there’s not a lot to look for in a zombified world except from sacrificing everything to get one final “something new”. But I guess the epigraph wasn’t intended as a reference to compare an entire work with the series, but just as a cool phrase, like Peter Pan’s “to die will be an awfully big adventure”. A final token of snobism, so to say. It tends to work very well on TV, after all.
Literary ramblings aside — what a horseshitty ending. Come on. You can present an open ending and making it thrilling. It has been done. This? This has the thrill of an old lady going from her bedroom to the doorstep. I am disappoint, Madhouse.
Also, right from my twitter account that nobody reads lol: “So in the end the best thing of HotD was Takagi’s mother. One of the hawtest MILFs ever. Hirano knows.” Also, I swear I’ve saw her in some pixy hentai. Maybe a side-job? Yeah, I’m being a broken meta-snob.
The mechanic said that he has a beloved girl with the others… thats why he said behind… tztztz
I think I got about five episodes in through before the brain-cell-destroying quantities of gratuitous boob- and panty-shots outweighed the “Yay, zombies!” factor.
However, as a veteran of the Pole Mall siege of ’06 (Urban Dead was fun!), I may end up being forced to watch a second season if it involves a mall.
I agree with Epi, this blog is the only reason I checked this show out. And it was one of the few shows in the past few years that even held my attention. I think it had an energy and rhythm missing from most anime (not to mention the übergratuitousness), even in the final episode. But this blog discounts it. Odd.
The mechanic said that he has a beloved girl with the others… thats why he said behind.
Actually, he said that the girl of his dreams “rides with you,” while giving our whiny pink-haired girl a significant look and bow.
I quite enjoyed HSotD, and really hope there’s another series coming along eventually. No, it’s not high art, more like high fred, but it was something more important: fun.
Not enough of that going around these days.
Meeeh. Fanservice kind of went unappreciated the more I watched the series.
I enjoyed it, but I won’t keep on my HDD for re-watching. Might archive it on my FTP though.
Nah, its memorable. Fun and memorable.
Now if only the manga get more love and less hiatuses.
Not too thrilled with the zombie subgenre in general. Been done too much. The anime “twist” is pretty much what kept me watching this series to the end.
If there’s a second seasond, I hope they put a little more creativity into it. Secondary female characteristics can only take a show so far. Story is more important.
My take on the series here: jaysteevee.blogspot.com/2010/12/not-so-hotd.html
Was I the only one who expected Takashi to say “TSURANUKE, ORE NO BUSO RENKIN!”
i think there should be more tities and maybe even some sex in the next season. i think all the straight men would agree. and maybe some lebians would agree to.i love anime sex. and i would like to see rei get pregnant by takashi. and she gives birth to a baby boy. and the pandemic and shit happens all over when their new baby boy is right where this all began. they could make a couple more seasons out of that
xoxo i love takashi
but the gang is still together when this happens
xoxoxo i love takashi