User reviews

I'm currently watching the HOTD series which has truly grabbed hold of my attention this season. The artistry's great. The characters are developing nicely. After ten episodes, I've stopped worrying about how a series will continue on people surviving a zombie influx; I'm rather impressed how the producers have kept the whole thing entertaining. But they don't need to keep injecting cleavage (or, bouncing breasts), and the roll-in-the-hay (or bathtub) scenes they seem to relish pushing. Just when I'm getting into a twist in the plot, here comes some up-skirt shot. I've been training myself to ignore those shots - but perhaps many people like that kind of thing. I, at 47, don't need to see it constantly. But the plots and artistry keep me wanting to see what happens. If you're easily offended or put off by the PG-13 (and really pushing R-rated) snippets, please try to watch a few episodes from the beginning. For those who don't care, watch the series from episode one! Great entertainment!

I should clarify from the off - I am male, I love the female form, and I love anime. I even find myself defending most things that are deemed to have 'gratuitous' sex and nudity. But HOTD really scores an own goal with the frequency of ludicrously overdone shots of melons and buttocks jiggling. I know this is a staple of anime, but not to this extent usually, and it genuinely does distract from the story and induced a lot of eye rolling and sighing from me.

It's a shame because, despite not really bringing anything new to the table for zombie flicks, nor being especially thought-provoking, this is a genuinely well made work. The use of music, sound in general, and above all some excellent animation, as well as the way the story moves and the generally quite dark atmosphere...all makes for a show that is fun to sit down and watch if you're into zombie stories. To the extent that I did want there to be a second season and a completed story. Anime also seems to tackle zombies less often than it has the potential to, which does bring a uniqueness to what is happening here - so why ruin all that and the potential for a great product by injecting something so mundane and puerile over and over again?

If it had been scaled down to more standard anime amounts, fine. There is always going to be a certain amount of sexual tension in a post apocalyptic world, and there was nothing wrong with it being used to a lesser degree for the romantic subplots. There are moments where it is employed to genuinely humorous effect. If it had been restricted to those two things, I think this anime could have developed a far larger following.

It's just a pity they ruined that because they decided that, instead, the whole show should grind to halt on occasion because they have nothing more interesting to offer than foisting breasts on you. It isn't that this is a perfect show aside from this - there are some logical inconsistencies, particularly pertaining to the zombies being driven by hearing alone, and the doctor is infuriatingly vapid for a...well, doctor! But there's certainly enough entertainment and a compelling enough atmosphere to wish the show hadn't ended as prematurely as some of its more base viewers doubtless did.

This anime is pretty good I must say. There's action,little bit romance,comedy. I really love this anime. Also the ova was so funny you can't imagine. I wish there were a season 2 but the author is dead. So,there is no hope chances are very slim. Still you should give it a go I think you won't regret it.

Let's start by saying that this receives a 10 based on entertainment value. This is in no way a masterful piece of art, or a thought-provoking series. However, what it does, it does extremely well - violence, gore, keeping with what you expect from horror and anime (breasts, short skirts, profanity, etc).

The story is a very simple one to follow - it's the zombie apocalypse and a group of high school students and the school nurse are trying to survive. The characters are surprisingly deeper than you'd expect and the interactions are intriguing.

The show is completely over the top as you'd expect; chock-full of scantily clad young women, tons of f-bombs, an exorbitant amount of blood, dismemberment and did I mention a lot of fanservice and nearly naked animated girls? That much may be hard for some to take, but when you can look at this show as an over-the-top tribute to horror, mostly traditional zombies and anime targeted at young men, you can really enjoy it.

Let me go back to my mention of "mostly traditional" zombies - the zombies here are what Romero fans WANT to see. No running or smarts here; just slow walkers, flesh eaters and the undead. It's wonderful to see. There is one small twist in their zombie, but it's acceptable and helps with the pacing of the story.

If you're a fan of zombies, Romero or Horror and have never watched an anime series before, this is where to start. I would highly recommend this to horror fans that aren't into anime, anime fans that like zombies, or anyone into zombies for that matter.

While the outbreak part of this and the zombie killings are great, the rest of it is strictly for hormonal teens. The girls all have their breasts heaving all over the place, and they're always in their little sailor suits. Worth a view but not much more.

I'm not very good at reviews, so you'll have to forgive me. I'm sure someone else will write a better review soon though. First off, I used to love anime when I was much, much younger, but seem to have outgrown it unfortunately. When I saw the title of this though, I figured I would give it a try. I thought it was really good. Good, or good enough, story & dialogue Great animation. Good direction (was kinda like watching a non anime movie). Lots of blood & violence, and of course a lot of shake'n titties & panties shots. Japanese artist love some tits and ass. Any way, Great show. Can't wait to watch the second episode.

With Highschool of the Dead I expect nothing than a fun ecchi anime to waste time and I got more than that in the end not because the plot intriguing me or the anime done something new to the genre it parody but because it got some of the most outrageous fan-service sequence that blew my mind away about how down right insane it is. The group of main characters are just a bunch of walking and living zombie genre cliché so naturally I don't care about them at all so the most of my enjoyment come from the zombie action and the fan-service which I mention before pretty insane to the point that if this anime got more balls that it already have it will be a full-fledged hentai. Sadly the manga author Daisuke Sato passes away 2 years ago so the anime still remain unfinished but the main attraction of this anime in my opinion is the fan-service so it not gonna bother anyone so check this one out

It is very rare for me to give a 10/10 to any movie or game, but Highschool of the Dead defiantly deserves the 10/10 because it's one of the top best anime I have ever seen, and I'm not just saying that because I like it, and it is better than all the other teen high school anime like Gantz, Persona, and NGE.

Highschool of the Dead is a perfect flawless anime that has well exceeded my high expectations in terms of story, characters, music, action and production values, based on the ongoing manga series of the same name Highschool of the Dead follows a group of Japanese high school students who witness the violent global zombie apocalypse during class time at their school, similar to the opening of Red Dawn except the Russians are replaced by flesh eating zombies from the George A Romero's of the Dead films.

As the story progresses the students witness World War Z first hand and are forced to fight and evade their way through the thousands of the ever growing undead as well as rescue other survivors and deal with the ones who have gone insane or crazy by the chaos of the zombie apocalypse.

The characters are all very well developed and the story is very well written and keep's you wanting to see more, the music plays on the right mood and for those who have seen 28 Weeks Later might recognize the background music that plays near the end of the first episode ;-) Highschool of the Dead is definitely an anime that is worthy of your time and I will be investing my money into the English dub when it gets released. Watch it ASAP; zombie fans will not be disappointed!

Ah, what an epic Zombie Apocalypse it was. Since I love Zombie Apocalypse a lot, I planned to watch it. After watching 4-5 episodes, I was like, "Amazing, it's a total must watch." But I had an issue. They don't need to keep injecting cleavage (or bouncing boobies), and the roll-in-the-hay (or bathtub) scenes they seem to relish pushing. Just when I'm getting into a twist in the plot, here comes some up-skirt shot. I've been training myself to ignore those shots - but perhaps many people like that kind of thing. Many people like those scenes like but I don't. It was truly boring. After watching 8-9 episodes, I started expecting a lot from this Ecchi. And yeah, I was wrong. The ending was not what I wanted. It was kinda incomplete. Still, it's great.

Overall, HOTD is gonna be amazing for you if you like Zombie Apocalypses and those scenes as well. But if you're not interested in those scenes, you'll start feeling bored soon. Anyways this Ecchi gave me an amazing plot but it'll be better if they make a new season.

My ratings: 7.5/10

When I learned about this title on Amazon, I just had to get it in my collection, so I did order it and sat through it almost immediately as it arrived.

What is not to like here? Manga. Zombies. And I like both, especially zombies, so I was very excited to see this series.

Now having seen the 12 episodes on the DVD, I can say that I am honestly very glad that I did buy this DVD, because "High School of the Dead" was awesome.

The story is pretty much as in most other zombie movies. There is an outbreak of something causing dead people to rise up, look for living people to bite and devour, and they in turn rise as zombies as well, spreading the infection. And in the midst of this chaotic outbreak is a small group of unlikely survivors who teams up and have to struggle to stay alive in a world gone to Hell.

Being a Manga, you will, of course, be in for some outrageous turns and twists in the storyline. And trust me, there are just that in wait.

I must admit that I am conflicted whether to rate "High School of the Dead" an 8 or a 7. I went with the 8 because it was a nicely animated movie, had a great story, and best of all; lots of zombies! What was causing me to have gone for a lower grade was the excessive urge to constantly show jiggling breasts in almost every scene. It was ridiculous and it was seriously too much. It just brought too much juvenile humor to the series. And it was a shame.

What irritated me about this series was episode 6. It was over the top, too much nudity, too much stupidity, and it was not working in the series at all. I was at the brink of turning it off and not finish off the last 6 episodes. However, I did, and luckily they did tone down the nudity (and just kept it at an excessive showing of over-sized, jiggling breasts everywhere). They should have opted not to have episode 6 turn out like that, or just cut it out of the series entirely.

One thing puzzled me was that this series was set in Japan, right? Fair enough. But did you notice the breast size of the women in here? Come on? It was ridiculous. I know it is a Manga and is an animated movie, but seriously? Those sizes were bordering on being inhuman!

Now, with all Japanese Manga, you need to watch it with the original language track, of course. I got the dual language (Japanese and English) DVD version, and I also gave the English version a go. And I must say that the voice cast (and voice acting) in the English version wasn't too bad.

"High School of the Dead" is a must have in any collection if you like Manga and zombies.

A small band of students escape the post-zombiefication of their school to discover their families fates while battling some unsavoury survivors and zombie hordes.

The teen focus for the most part works, although it plays a little awkward for viewers given the abundance of up-skirt and cleavage shots. Still it's an interesting perspective. Some of the scenes granted are childish and overly comedic but these are few and those familiar with the anime style wont bat an eyelid. The interplay between the teenagers and adult protagonists are handled well and the highschoolers especially Psycho and Takashi come across older than they are.

There's cursing, violence, action and gore aplenty, the slow moving zombies are perfectly realised, gruesome and scary which gives the show the required edginess to hold its own. High School of the Dead is designed and drawn skilfully with the sound design and soundtrack as equally pleasing.

Yes, it suffers from the all zombie genres clichés and stereotypes but it's fulfilling, exciting and fun.

This show is full of fan service, gore, and drama. conflicts between characters arise, as well as many interesting fight scenes.

At the beginning I honestly didn't find any of this show appealing but what is developed in 12 short episodes may not have been great, but it was enjoyable. The show had its problems, from to many out of place sexual moments to a lack of depth, but if you intend to enjoy yourself for a few hours It's worth the watch.

This Zombie/infection Anime was more than capable of keeping me interested and left me asking... why was there only 12 episodes? Definitely give it a shot, its worth the 4-6 hours of your time

Fan Service and zombies. That's all this show is. So I suppose that any review has to cover both of them. Ladies first I guess.

The opening titles alone has a dozen crotch and boob shots. None of them serve any purpose. Throughout the show you are constantly plastered with this given the slightest opportunity. Or even when they have to create an opportunity. The number of dialogue scenes where the camera slowly goes down to focus on their panties averages out to at least two an episode. Probably more. The worst episode by far is episode six. In it the girls all bath together, with predictable fondling and lesbianism, while the two guys sit in the other room and talk about guns. That's the whole episode right there. Oh, except for the fact that all the girls try to sleep with the main guy. I'm assuming that they got drunk somewhere in there because they all act it after the bath. Either it's just assumed or that's just how this guy thinks girls act when they let their crazy feminine emotions out.

This is symptomatic of the treatment of the girls in general throughout the series. All of the girls (with one exception) offer nothing but an opportunity to show off their bodies. There are four main girls. I can't be bothered to remember their names so I'll just identify them by their hair color. Pink is a total b*tch. She says she's a genius at every possible opportunity although she never demonstrates any proof of it (many of her 'facts' are wrong and the ones that are right she cannot possibly know), and she enjoys belittling people for it. The blond girl is a complete bimbo. She's the school nurse but she has giant breasts and the IQ of a five year old. She never speaks except to whine or fawn all over the main character who is I might point out, actually an underage student. I suspect she works at a high school for a very specific reason... Brown hair is also obnoxious and likes to go on about how great the guy's friend that he had to kill was. At one point she's thrown from a car and she just lies there for at least 3-4 hours (it goes from midday to sunset) while everyone else protects her. She's not hurt or anything, she just gets up and walks it off. Naturally she's the main love interest. The last girl is purple haired and she's the only semi-good one. She's a master with swords and genuinely loves killing zombies. Her competence and professionalism do not prevent her from being used as yet another sex doll for them to display. It is made quite clear that even the competent girl can do nothing without a guy to lead her. More than that the girls cannot think for themselves and constantly put everyone's lives in danger because of their uncontrolled emotions and lusts. It really is a disgustingly misogynistic and exploitative show.

So now the zombies. Zombies are cool right? How can they mess them up? Well first off they never call them zombies. They seem to think this makes them realistic somehow. Secondly they bind them with stupid rules and then constantly break them. These zombies are cannot see, smell or touch. The only sense they have is hearing. Sounds interesting right? So naturally they'll be quiet and sneak around to prevent the zombies from hearing them. Except they don't. They run around screaming with zombies all around and then one of them will bump into a pole, or drop a bat, or the wind in the trees will make noise and suddenly the zombies are everywhere. I want you to think hard about that last one. The wind in the trees attracted the zombies. THE WIND IN THE FRIGGIN' TREES!!!!!! So having established by the second episode that zombies need sound to hunt they then proceed to ignore it until it is convenient to the show for them to be in danger. How can there be any actual sense of danger when they ignore their own rules when it's convenient?

The two guys are there too. That's really all that can be said of them. The main guy is basically how the author views the perfect guy to be. He has no real flaws and is fawned over to an obscene degree by all the women. The other guy is a fat nerd and a gun buff. He's probably the most interesting character there since he's extremely competent at one thing and enjoys it immensely. Naturally he's treated with nothing but contempt by all the girls who nothing if not superficial.

So, the good things... ... ... I'm drawing a blank here. I suppose that technically it's an impressive film. The animation is quite good and the character designs aren't that bad. The main theme's pretty catchy too. Apart from that zip. Zilch. Nada. This show has no redeeming features whatsoever.

The story was interesting. Full of action and gory scenes. Beware of a lot of fan service (especially in the OVA). Of course, I expect that there is going to be another season because the anime was left with open ending. Everything was beautifully drawn. The gory scenes were not censored (thank you Lord). The characters were very well drawn and what's more important the drawings matched the characters' personalities. All of the characters were so likable...except Rei Miyamoto...she was such an annoyance...I was so going to kill her. Takashi was amazing. Such a strong character. I'm hoping that he is going to end up with Saeko. Him ending up with Rei is a no-no for me. I recommend the anime to everyone :)

This series ended too quickly for me. It has the right amount of everything. No plot holes to worry about and was very entertaining!

A must watch for teens and adults.

It's a short anime, based in lot's of gore and porn in order to catch the teenager's attention. Here we got a bunch of generical students (like 99% of animes and mangas) that are struggling to survive in a zombie apocalypse. The characters got no development at all along the story, neither got any deep personality traits, so that we are not able to connect emotionally with any of them. But I must admit that besides the whole characters problem the show make a really good work in the zombie part, with great apocalyptic scenes and nice animation sometimes. If I had to recommend someone an anime I definitively won't recommend this one, it's not worth it for just a few cool apocalyptic shots .

I loved it very much till the end. It was amazing and I watched whole season and 1 ova 8 hours only. The action was pretty good, animation was at the top, even the characters where great, it was adult also so i liked it. Not too much of serious and too much of fun it was well balanced. Even story wasn't that bad, they kept the suspense for season 2. Can't wait for next season.

Up until episode 8 or 9 I realized that the show started to fall and sort of lost interest, I don't understand the first 8 or 9 episodes were amazing, had me on the edge of my seat loving every minute of it, but then around 8 or 9 it just dropped, things got boring and even the "final" for the show wasn't even great at all in my opinion Don't understand the hype really, because by the time its over I don't really feel like watching more, if the series ending well then I would definitely look forward to watching more but not anymore, Just know that the first 8 or 9 episodes were amazing and I loved them.

Plus loved all the sexy shots of all the hot girls, people say that it ruins it but I for one love anime girls and the ones in this are extremely hot actually the best ones I've ever seen.

Okay my first review. after watching the ENTIRE series of H.O.T.D one Friday afternoon (sweet unemployment) i was certain that the time had come for me to put in the time to write my first anime review on IMDb. I will try and keep this as brief as possible, as pretty much every review below 5 stars on here says much of what i think about this show. It saddens me to see so called anime fans giving this show a 10 out of 10. The writing is cliché and sloppy, even for your typical zombie teen flick. the characters are plain awful with little depth, and are actually annoying. especially the 'doctor' with ridiculously sized boobs (that come with there very own sound effects some of you will be joyed to hear) The kind of stuff i would be embarrassed as an anime fan to watch with someone else who isn't, i imagine i would get a disapproving look like 'dude?.. THIS is anime?'. The action is probably what i enjoyed the most, but very hard to take seriously when a guy starts using a girls breasts as a riffle clamp, so after i learned to take it for what it was it was OK. Basically the best thing you can do is take it for what it is and you should have a chance of enjoying bits of it. I did laugh a lot but mostly on the parts they didn't want me to. I felt that most of the time during the action sequences and the 'heart felt' emotional scenes this show genuinely wanted me to take it seriously and then bang... animated ass and titties. Dozens of interesting rules are discovered whilst fighting with these zombies that could have been used to the writers advantage of creating exciting scenarios within the plot yet none of them are ever put into place or followed through with in future episodes, for example, the zombies cant see but find there way around by sound alone, important right?! nope... this is never exploited in their encounters with the undead. there are many more but probably the most important was that the zombies can only be killed by smashing there skull, after episode six this seems to go out the window as they start running through crowds of zombies just slicing and hacking anywhere with complete disregard of the epiphany that saved them from death in the beginning, and zombies are now dropping dead all around them. I watched this series in English, sorry American dub, im British so i found the 'relatable' American gags especially cringe worthy, like a mention of 'walmart cheetos' and a comparison to Sarah Palin all topped off with a joke about Asian women drivers... wtf?? i thought we were in japan. Finally the ending is just... well it just ends... Although i don't think H.O.T.D is as bad as some people think, it is rubbish in comparison to some of the true works of art and story telling genius that japan has given anime fans all round the world. it was worth watching though, because weather i like it or not it seems this anime is becoming some what of a cult classic, mainly to the kind of people who thrive on mind numbing blood, gore, ass and titties, and lets face it, sometimes we all do, however its those that know only that who are giving this high ratings. the reason? they are ignorant to the truly amazing anime that is out there.