an anime about zombies.

It's Japan's first take on the zombie apocalypse genre,

following a group of survivors battling the vast army of the undead with a cast of highly-trained supermodels,

complete with over-the-top, balls-to-the-walls, physics-breaking action,

as if the whole thing was programmed in the fucking Matrix.

Speaking of The Matrix...

[Neo] What are you trying to tell me?

That I can dodge bullets?

Whoa...

At this point in time, the zombie genre is a concept that has been done to death in the Western media,

invading movies, comic books, video games, and even novels.

It's gotten to the point that all we need to do to advertise something is slap some zombies in it

and the thing will sell out as if it came with complimentary biscuits and blowjobs.

Surprisingly enough, there hasn't really been any anime centered around a zombie apocalypse,

even when the medium of anime gives the Japanese the chance to play with new and original takes of existing genres,

or explore imaginative settings that couldn't have been presented in any other medium,

which would have been perfect for a re-imagining of the zombie genre.

And then, along comes Highschool of the Dead, a zombie apocalypse set in fucking high school.

Shine on, Japan, shine the fuck on.

Highschool of the Dead is a 2010 anime done by Studio Madhouse

and follows the progression of a zombie apocalypse seen through the eyes of Takashi Komuro,

who's basically a clone of Kazuki from Buso Renkin, but then again,

I'm pretty sure super-serious, spikey-haired high school boy takes up around 90% of all anime protagonists.

Anyway, one day, where Takashi is busy pondering why pinky promises made in elementary school don't equal guaranteed sex,

and casually pretending to converse with a girl despite the fact that her face is up here and not down there,

he bears witness to a zombie attack by what seems to be a zombie version of Bill from accounting.

From there on, panic ensues in school as everyone gets involved in the massive biting-frenzy and,

before you know it, the whole school has become an infected pit of dead flesh before you can say,

"you've got red on you."

From here, Takashi must rise to the challenge as he forms a rag-tag team of survivors

and faces the biggest challenge of his life:

trying to keep his fucking dick in his pants with a bloody sex parade constantly waving in his face 24/7

and maybe surviving the oncoming apocalypse in the process.

The show plays out like your typical zombie survival story,

with a group of unlikely heroes teaming up to battle hordes of the undead

wearing short skirts that cover about a millimeter of skin, while, along the way,

hinting at the fact that the real monster in all of this is, instead, mankind itself.

And, in the end, the cast is what you get if you cross a zombie apocalypse with your typical harem-ecchi anime.

You have Takashi, who starts off as the unwilling, spikey-haired hero who is thrown into a situation

where he is forced to fight for survival and transforms into the confident badass leader

who's not afraid to kick ass and take names, while occasionally asserting his authority by bitch-slapping the odd girl;

Rei, the annoying cock-tease of a heroine, who flips between bitchy, stuck-up girl who just lost her boyfriend,

to helpless, needy damsel in distress.

So, suffice it to say she needs the occasional bitch-slap to keep her in line.

And again.

And again.

And now, just because I can...

["Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor]

Takagi, the brains of the group, who is the type of girl that will fuss over her makeup and trying to look pretty

and put on a strong fa?ade in front of the guy she likes,

but she forgets that in real beauty, it's the inside that really counts –

her dreadful personality;

Kohta, the chubby nerd who's secretly a badass with guns,

giving the viewer some hope that all that time dicking around in Call of Duty may actually come in use one day;

Saeko, the badass swordswoman who happens to think that dressing like a porn star is the most practical battle attire;

a lolicon, because there wasn't enough pandering in this show; and finally,

CLEAVAGE!!

Now, if you've heard anything about this show, or its infamous reputation,

you may be expecting me to rip it a new bollocks,

so allow me to surprise some of you by saying, in some ways, I actually enjoyed this anime,

in the sense that it was just pure mindless fun.

Yes, character were typical, story predictable and completely shallow,

but it never tries to hide what it's trying to be, and does exactly what it says on the tin, with the tin saying,

"Hot high school girls fighting hordes of zombies with plenty of blood-wearing, skimpy school uniforms. P.S...

CLEAVAGE!!"

This is a popcorn flick, through and through, and makes no attempt to disguise it.

The plot is nothing he haven't seen before in previous zombie flicks,

but it does well to portray the panic during the rise of the zombie infestation and post-apocalypse.

This keep us interested in what happens and how society breaks down in a dying world.

Characters are pretty much one-dimensional and are only really there to fill in their stereotypical roles of

kicking ass, flashing skin, or being fucking useless.

But, honestly, you don't go into a summer blockbuster expecting Oscar material

and, at its best points, it's a fun and entertaining show to watch.

Animation is also top-notch, which is especially evident during the very well-executed action scenes,

in which all the high school kids apparently tap into their inner B-movie action hero

and spontaneously transform into the cast of The Expendables...with tits.

This resulted in some heart-pounding, over-the-top, balls-to-the-walls action,

reminiscent of my experience with Black Lagoon, another series done by Madhouse,

where the action scenes were stupid, defied the laws of physics, and were ridiculous to look at,

yet were bloody awesome.

Hold on a second...

over-the-top action, a cast of stupidly attractive female characters, explosions, a scene with the president...

This is a Michael Bay movie!

"I stayed up late on the night before the..."

No, wait! It needs some Linkin Park.

"I stayed up late on the night before the day everything came to an end."

["What I've Done" by Linkin Park]

"Mr. President, you have to enter the code."

"Come on!"

"Fire!"

"What the fuck's going on?!?"

Now, of course, there's no way to go through this review without talking about the fanservice,

so as for that, I thought I said all I needed to about ecchi shows in my Ikki Tousen review,

but with Highschool of the Dead, it's a slightly different case, since, if it went without the borderline pornography,

it wouldn't totally suck. (No pun intended.)

See, the show itself is actually quite well-done and, without the fanservice,

it would have been a respectably entertaining series,

but any change of it getting taken seriously is thrown out the window when the creators thought to themselves,

"You know what? We could create a fun yet respectable anime that takes a serious look

at a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infected world, but FUCK THAT!"

This is going to be watched by guys, guys have dicks, dicks like these,

so let's throw them a bunch of tits and wait for our big pile of money.

This results in some of the most distracting and downright annoying ounces of fanservice

that break any kind of immersion you may have had in any serious scene.

See, as much as I like to rant about fanservice, I'm all for it,

as long as it doesn't get in the way of the actual good stuff.

And in Highschool of the Dead, they wave it in your face, whatever the setting, context, or tone a scene may be in,

creating what I'm pretty sure is a a new concept in modern cinematography of the classic breast-eye view shots.

No matter what's going on, the camera angle is always situated at the most revealing position possible,

and, on a side-note, my belts are longer than these fucking shorts!

Where was I again? Oh yeah; breasts.

Every breast in this show seems to have their own physics engine.

By that, the anime completely ignores an old invention called the bra,

boobs are almost large enough to collapse in on themselves to create a singularity,

and each individual boob has a mind of its own,

with the slightest nudge apparently signaling the start of a breast rave party.

["Sandstorm" by Darude]

And also, tits cannot do this!

...I think.

And this is a real shame, because there is a lot of good in the show,

which is easily overshadowed by the fucking tits waving in your face.

For the subject of dubs or subs, this is a tricky one, actually.

On one side, the sub is just better-acted, but on the other hand, the dub is just a lot more fun.

You can tell the translators were having fun, since the script is heavily re-written,

adding a variety of pop culture reference from Romero films to Sarah Palin jokes.

I'm not even joking.

And also adding the word "fuck" to every few sentences.

So, take your pick. Would you rather have a more refined and better-acted version

or one that doesn't take itself too seriously and is just having fun?

Because, as we know, adding the word "fuck" makes everything cooler and funnier.

"It's fucking Sunday and I've got to go to fucking work in four fucking hours"

"because every other fucker in my fucking department is fucking ill."

"Now can you see why I'm so fucking angry?!"

"Fuck yeah!"

Overall, Highschool of the Dead was a mixed bag of fun.

It really is nothing but mindless entertainment,

but it knows what it is and never tries to be anything more than that.

So, if you've got some time to waste and want to watch zombies

getting splattered to some well-animated and choreographed action scenes, then go right ahead.

Just make sure you have your fanservice filters on because you will get exposed to much of this shit,

your body is sure to start an immunity against it.

Currently, Highschool of the Dead is licensed by Sentai Filmworks

and is available through legal streams at Netflix, Hulu, or The Anime Network.

And, just in case you're one of those twats who skip right to the end of the review

to see the score without actually watching it, well, here's my review in a nutshell:

CLEAVAGE!!