Manga Review: Highschool of the Dead
Story:
In the best imitation of a John Romero flick Highschool of the Dead begins with the unimaginable numbers of the dead rising out of their graves and eating people for no apparent reason, and now it’s up to our team of sexy teenagers to protect themselves from being eaten alive. There’s Kumoro Takashi, the main guy of the group. A pretty badass guy who prefers using pipes and motorcycles to guns. Also obviously likes Rei. Miyamoto Rei is the first hot girl of the group. Skilled at killing with a pole and looking good doing it. Was going out with Hisashi until he went zombie and Takashi killed him. Obviously the source of some bad blood between Rei and Takashi. Then there’s Busujima Saeko, a kendo master who likes fighting in her thong and a naked apron; Takagi Saya, a bitchy tsundere who’s also a genius and something of a geek; Hirano Kouta, Saya’s friend/slave who’s an extreme gun otaku that can make a nail gun out of paperclips. Needless to say, he’s pretty badass for a fat guy. Finally, there is Marikawa Shizuka-sensei, the students bumbling and extremely buxom teacher. Penchant for getting naked a lot and driving a hummer really well. So far only seven chapters have been released and their all about the students trying to survive the zombie outbreak and get out of the city.
Art:
The art for this series is done by Satou Shouji, better known for his numerous best selling hentai mangas. Actually, I’m pretty sure this is his first non-hentai manga. If you’ve never seen Shouji’s work then there’s only one thing you need to know: his women are hawt. Not moe, but drop dead sexy, which every girl in HotD is, even the zombified chicks. The man just does fanservice well. It turns out he can also draw grisly violence well too. Being a horror series HotD has a ton of zombie killing, with everything from swords, guns, nails, motorcycles, whatever, and all of it looks bloody fine. Satou is the perfect man for this unique fusion of fanservice and zombies. Also wins for putting a Shaun of the Dead reference in.
Opinion:
Everybody loves Zombies and everybody loves fanservice. Put the two together and you get what Highschool of the Dead is, an awesome horror story. I could say that it’s mostly the sexy women and over-the-top violence that make HotD great, and mostly that is it, but there are other aspects as well. HotD goes into great detail to show how the world works in an apoctalyptic state. There’s frightened mobs ready to kill anyone or anything, world governments that are useless, teachers that choose to become dictators over the survivors, knowing who to save and who to let die, and other similiarly tough moral questions. A general sense of panic just pervades the whole story. And if zombies and the world ending aren’t your thing, there’s also the soap-operish qualities between Takashi and the girls. All the girls seem to like Takashi, except Saya who has her own problems with Hirano ie. too proud to admit she likes him. Obviously Takashi is meant to end up with Rei, seeing how their childhood friends and he killed her other boyfriend, but I wouldn’t mind Takashi giving Busujima-sempai some love in that naked apron of hers. Basically HotD is just an incredibly fun read. There’s no random philosophizing, mindless powerups, or moe girls going about their daily life, though there are sexy girls. It’s just people trying to survive in the worst situation possible, which can be plenty entertaining in it’s own right. Highschool of the Dead is currently being scanlated by XLG.
