Sentai Filmworks lost the Anime Expo War, but they still managed to crush their opponents in the Battle of the Simulcasts. Funimation may have had more simulcasts, but Sentai had the only one that mattered*; proving that no amount of machine guns will ever defeat a freaking tank. Quantity versus quality. High school students versus zombies.
High School of the Dead is every bit as cool as the trailer made it seem. It's bloody, it's sexy, and it's usually both at the same time. What's it about? Have you played Dead Rising, or, I don't know, seen any zombie movie ever? Just imagine that it took place in a Japanese high school. Just imagine 20 minutes of the students killing those zombies. It may be a tired premise, but it's difficult to care when executed this well. Whether High School of the Dead will bring anything new to the genre has yet to be seen, but I can't say that I would be upset with 13 episodes of mindless violence and fan-service.
Sentai Filmworks has already announced that they will be dubbing this show. Since it is so over-the-top, they should really consider adding a ton of profanity, similar to the ADV dub of Gantz. In fact, just have the same team work on High School of the Dead. Swearing and decapitation go hand-in-hand, you know it's true.
The only issue I had was with the Anime Network site itself. I've never used it before, and I wish I could avoid using it ever again. For a site that encourages people to pay a monthly fee, the user interface is less than perfect. This first episode is free to watch, but you have to register to do so. That's not a big deal, but filling out the registration form is mildly frustrating. When it was finally time to watch the show it felt like I had to trick the site into playing the video. If you can look past these technical flaws, I highly recommend heading to their site and watching High School of the Dead immediately.
*Sengoku Basara II does look cool, but I still haven't seen the first series because I'm waiting for the DVD release.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I guess I may have to watch this.
I am thoroughly disappointed that I haven’t posted an article on this yet.