Tag Archives: Sato Daisuke

Highschool of the Dead: Episode 2 – First Impressions

Posted on by Arleigh

We’re now into Episode 2 of Madhouse’s anime adaptation of the popular manga Highschool of the Dead. The first episode was one of the most popular series premieres simulcast over at Anime Network and with reason. This manga has gained quite the following not just in Japan, but in North America. What’s not to like about it. It has great artwork which meshes well with the subject of zombies, apocalyptic settings and, most importantly, the ecchi nature of the female characters’ designs. It’s a teen biy’s and young men’s dream manga and now it’s well-done translation into anime should guarantee that Highschool of the Dead‘s first 13-episode will be a success which can lead to another order of 13-episodes (a number that Japanese anime production houses have deemed the correct and ideal one for a series of late).

Episode 2 continues with the first one’s introduction of the premise and the characters who will be the focal point of the series. While we see the two main characters from the first episode appear in this episode they’re definitely not the focus. This time around we’re introduced to four more characters in the form of 3 females and 1 male. The lone male is a favorite character of mine and that is the gun otaku, Kohta Hirano. He’s like the geek in pretty much every anime/manga fan who finally has a chance to actually make use of a particularly useless skill. In Kohta’s case it’s the use and maintenance of weapons even to the point of creating a makeshift one out of a portable nailgun. The three new females to join Rei Miyamoto introduced in episode 1 are Saeko Busujima, Saya Takagi and Shizuka Marikawa.

Saya becomes attached to Kohta during their attempts to avoid the zombies now roaming and hunting the surviving students and faculty. Saeko Busujima joins up with ditzy and fanboy wetdream Shizuka Marikawa. Saya’s character seemed to be set-up to become the annoying one in the group in the anime as she’s shown to be bossy, too smart for her own good, but also quite helpless when confronted with danger. School-nurse Shizuka is quite helpless herself, but probably due to her being such a ditz to begin with. Of all the characters shown so far she seems to be created just to be fan-service. Not that I am complaining mind you. Now we get to one Saeko Busujima. The sophomore who also happens to be the school’s kendo club captain and champion in her own right. She’s cool, calculating and quite the badass. It doesn’t help that she’s also the hottest thing in the anime by a huge margin. The 1/8 resin and PVC figures made of Saeko are becoming as popular as another fan-service heavy character anime/manga fan know as Kanu Un’chou of Ikki Tousen fame.

The quality of this second episode is on the same level as the pilot episode and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. I do hope that these two episode will be all that’s needed by the series writer  Yosuke Kuroda to introduce the series plot and it’s characters. While I’m more than happy about the pacing of the series so far the casual anime fan who have never read the manga may get bored and move onto something else. Like any tv series whether animated or live it’s keeping the casual viewer interested that makes or breaks a series.

Now bring on Episode 3!

Highschool of the Dead: Episode 1 – First Impressions

Posted on by Arleigh

One of the most awaited new anime series has finally premiered over in Japan this past July 5, 2010. MadHouse’s Highschool of the Dead will air in Japan but will also be simulcast in the US with subtitles. Fans of the manga can now watch the series without having to wait for the dvd to be released by Sentai Filmworks in the future.

From what I can tell from this first episode the anime seem to stay quite true to the original manga source. While it doesn’t take everything from the manga scene for scene it does keep enough of the first couple chapters from the manga to set-up the series’ premise and introduce a couple of the main characters. The two characters introduced and which the first episode spends most of its time with are Rei Miyamoto (voiced by Marina Inoue) and Takashi Kimuro (Jun’ichi Suwabe).

The episode does a good job in setting up the personal conflict between these two childhood friends. It actually builds more on this conflict and it’s backstory than it did in the original manga. Here’s to hoping that the rest of the main characters in the manga also get more fleshed out in the anime as it moves forward. But for now, I like what MadHouse and series writer Yosuke Kuroda have done in adapting the manga.

One thing I didn’t have to worry about with this series is the quality of the animation. MadHouse is and still remains one of the top animation studios in Japan and their work on this anime doesn’t do anything but continue to prove their reputation. The characters look pretty much just like their manga counterparts which is great. Not all manga-to-anime adaptations get such an accurate transfer of character designs. The look of the zombies themselves were slightly exaggerated especially once they’re on the attack. This doesn’t bother me much since it does make them more menacing than just walking corpses.

The voice-acting I have to reserve judgement on until more episodes have been aired. The intro and end credits songs didn’t stand out, but that could change in time. Some of my favorite anime intro songs didn’t become favorites right away but took time after several listens.

As for the violence the anime captures it well, but I’m a bit worried that certain scenes may have gotten censored through cleverly added animations. I will have to see how the dvd turns out and see if some of the more overly graphic killings and zombie eating people were censored for the US market or if they were animated that way to begin with. I will say that the hype leading up to this series have created a high expectations for it but from my first impressions of this first episode I will say that it more than lives up to the hype…for now.

For those who want to see the first episode as a whole should head over to Anime Network where they have them up in one whole piece instead of broken up the way they are on YouTube. Link below should provide everything.

Anime Network – Highschool of the Dead

Highschool of the Dead – Anime Trailer

Posted on by Arleigh

One of my most anticipated events for 2010 is close to happening. Animation Studio MadHouse has adapted the very popular manga title, Gakuen Mokushiroku aka Highschool of the Dead. This manga is the brainchild of Sato Daisuke (writer) and Sato Shouji (illustrator) who combine a couple of themes popular with the shōnen (stories popular with young men and teens) demographic. I’m talking about heavy action, horror and, most important of all, very high on the “fan-service” aspect of the genre.

The plot to Highschool of the Dead is quite simple. An unknown event causes those who die to return to life as flesh-eating zombies and it has spread globally within hours. There’s never an explanation as to whether its viral, biological or even supernatural which has caused the dead to return to life as zombies. The manga (and the soon-to-be-released anime series) focuses on a group of Japanese highschool students who band together to find their family and survive in a zombie-infested Tokyo. While it’s an ensemble cast the manga does concentrate on the character of Komuro Takashi who must help his friends and strangers survive the zombies and the humans who have taken advantage of the seeming apocalypse which have grabbed a hold of the world.

Highschool of the Dead doesn’t have earth-shattering themes outside of friendship and honor. It doesn’t have the same gravitas as some of the best zombie stories and films in the market, but what it does have is a story that’s fast-paced with little filler, lots of violence and gore, and the aforementioned “fan-service” which means lots of provocative poses from the heavily endowed female characters. It’s really tailor-made for the teenage boy and young men crowd. The trailer above shows hints of those “fan-service” shots. The fact that the illustrator is also a well-known hentai artist shouldn’t make the look of the women in Highschool of the Dead too much of a shock and surprise.