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Highschool of the Dead/YMMV

< Highschool of the Dead


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: It's being animated by Madhouse? And directed by the same guy who did Death Note and made animating that actually interesting?
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: All of the main characters are this, with ample room to interpret their actions and personalities.
    • Is Takashi really an Idiot Hero who suffers from Didn't Think This Through repeatedly, or is he just a good leader in a bad situation and is forced to improvise and rely on the Indy Ploy all the time. While his words and reactions by the characters paint him as the former, the situation being a Zombie Apocalypse and the fact the group is frequently aware they have to move frequently paints a lot of evidence for the latter.
    • Is Rei's interest in Takashi a sense of her romantic feelings coming back after Hisashi died? Or is her interest in Takashi solely because he is the last link Rei has to the pre apocalypse world and she is Loving a Shadow as a result? The anime especially paints the latter as correct, but there is plenty of evidence for the former especially in the manga. Rei's rivalry with Saeko is another one. Does Rei hate Saeko for stealing Takashi just because of the apocalypse? Or does she hate the latter because Saeko embodies everything that Rei felt she could have been had her grades not been sabotaged, and what she should have had fairly?
    • Why exactly did Saeko fall or at least show interest in Takashi? Was it because she saw a kindred Blood Knight who relishes how the apocalypse allows them to let out their violent side? Or is it due to the fact that Takashi is the first person to actually treat her like a normal person, since she infers that he is the first person to actually see her as a friend?
    • Is Shizuka really a Dumb Blonde who somehow managed to become a doctor? Or is her silliness or lack of competence a coping mechanism to handle the fact that in a zombie apocalypse, the need to be pragmatic and accepting not everyone can be saved goes very directly against her Hippocratic oath? Very tellingly, in the anime after Saeko performs a Mercy Kill against a bitten student, Shizuka is shown reeling in shock and tries to stop Saeko from doing it, and there is never any insinuation from the characters or herself that she was unfit to be a doctor, and in the manga that goes into more depth with the characters, it is shown she is very accurate at treating injuries and diagnosing the mental states of the group, which she certainly would not have been able to do if she was really that incompetent.
  • Angst? What Angst?: Alice witnessed her father's murder, and is stuck in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse. Considering this is her default expression, she's taking it very well.
  • Base Breaker: Rei. You tend to either see her as a cute Clingy Jealous Girl who really helps the group, or as annoying dead weight and you begin calling her by the Fan Nickname of Cockroach-Tan.
  • Complete Monster: Shidou makes "them" look practically humane in comparison. If abandoning a student who sprained his ankle and kicking him down in the face for good measure doesn't cut it, maybe brainwashing the students aboard the orgybus and forcibly ejecting one student who showed the slightest bit of concern for his family will.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Accidentally shooting an infected woman in the breasts? Fan Disservice. Accidentally shooting an infected woman in the breasts, and then accusing the offending bullet of sexism? Hilarious!
  • Crowning Music of Awesome:
  • Die for Our Ship: Rei. Clingy Jealous Girl, occasional Faux Action Girl and in the wrong corner of a Love Triangle that also involves the extremely popular Saeko Busujima. May the gods of canon have mercy on the poor girl's soul, for the fanficcers will not.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Shidou, for some, despite or even because of his status as a Complete Monster.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Saya's parents, while only briefly important in the Takagi Mansion arc, proved to be badass leaders.
    • And of course, Hirano.
    • Saeko too.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple:
    • Takashi and Saeko, largely because they were given believable reasons to be together, and in the anime, the romance was depicted more naturally, in contrast with Rei who often is seen going after Takashi because Hisashi is dead and Takashi is the one link she has left before the apocalypse.
    • Saya and Hirano have a respectable fanbase as well.
  • Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: Every single female character covers some fetish, but the winner here is Saya.
  • Fetish Retardant: The constant Gainaxing can bounce into the Uncanny Valley at times.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: One of the mall survivors wears a jacket with the words "Bad End" printed on the back, and he gets one.
  • Les Yay Shipping: While bathing Saeko splashes Saya with cold water and compliments on her voice when she screams. When Saya retaliates, Saeko simply blushes,apparently enjoying it quite a bit.
    • In the OVA, Saeko and Rei think the other one was Takashi andstripped and make out with each other.
  • Memetic Molester: Shidou, due to the ORGYBUS.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • ORGYBUS!!!
    • Boobs Dodge Bullet!
    • I'M GETTING WET had spawned a new Memetic Mutation in 2ch, as noted here. NSFW.
    • Takashi slapping Rei in chapter/episode 1, due to her scrappy status.
  • Misblamed: Some people who have watched the anime without reading the manga have complained about Madhouse inserting gratuitous amounts of fanservice. It was always omnipresent, just taken up a few notches.
  • Moral Event Horizon: A given due to the setting. Among them:
    • In an early scene featuring two BFFs, one of them (called Misuzu) turns on the other (called Toshimi) right after proclaiming their everlasting friendship. It's implied in the anime that Misuzu regretted it right before she got killed, but that's a matter for WMG.
    • The household that kill Alice's father and ignore her.
    • When Rei says that Shidou isn't to be trusted, you wonder why, until a couple pages later when he kicks a student in the face when he twists his ankle and asks for help.
      • Shidou's father himself crosses the MEH when he deliberately has all evidence of his corruption destroyed or otherwise disposed of during an investigation into his activities, as Rei implies when she states that her father found absolutely nothing incriminating about the bastard.
      • Oh, and as if Shidou's willingness to harm his own students (and even murder them; see Complete Monster) wasn't bad enough, he had to go and get Rei's mother ostracized. Yes, his family finally shamed Rei's entire family. And That's Terrible. Perhaps Rei should've crossed the MEH (see below); it's a wonder the main party found Mrs. Miyamoto alive and not infected after being shut out by her own neighbors following a simple shopping trip.
    • The protagonists themselves have acknowledged they may cross the line as far as old human society is concerned. So far, two of them think they already have crossed the line: Takashi believes he crossed the MEH by killing his best friend partly out of jealousy over Rei and doesn't regret leaving someone (a violent nutjob, granted, but still a living human) as live bait for the zombies for attempting to kill him and take Rei, and Saeko claims to have crossed the line long ago, when a man attempted to rape her and she defended herself, but enjoyed it and continued hitting him even after he was no longer a threat. Rei comes very close to the Moral Event Horizon when she's given an opportunity to kill Shidou as revenge for rigging her grades over her father's involvement in the investigation of Shidou's father's corruption (an act that can be considered Shidou's earliest candidate for Moral Event Horizon, by the way--both Rei and Mr. Takagi definitely think it's bad enough to warrant a summary execution). However, she decides he's Not Worth Killing, thus averting this trope. Perhaps she should've killed him (and potentially crossed the MEH) then and there, considering what the fuck almost happened to her mother shortly after Shidou recovered from the subsequent ambush on his lot by "them".
  • MST3K Mantra: The curious interaction between gritty realism and gratuitous, over-the-top Rule of Cool makes this the best reaction to several aspects of the show, especially the matter of zombie navigation. The fanservice is another point of contention to deal with if one is to enjoy the series.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Rei due to a combination of being on the wrong end of Die for Our Ship treatment from Saeko x Takeshi fans as well being an occasional Faux Action Girl especially when compared to Badass Amazon Saeko and for grieving over her boyfriend's death. Many of her haters regularly bash her for accusing Takeshi of wanting to kill her boyfriend out of jealousy something he makes no attempt to deny and even admits to himself that she may be right. That she apologizes for it and only said in it in the heat of the moment contributes to her Broken Base.
    • Shizuka gets this for being was The Load until chapter 26. Saya also to a smaller extent but is mostly ignored by the fanbase in general.
    • For a side character, that bratty kid that Asami and the would-be rapist survivor got killed trying to save. That was after he had just shanked one of the mall survivors and let the zombies into the mall while trying to escape.
    • The Nietzsche Wannabe Knife Nut mall survivor who meets a hilariously pathetic end after suicidally charging into a group of zombies with only a knife, not even managing a scratch on any of them.
  • Smug Snake: Shidou can order people around, but anybody who can stand up to him knows he is actually a sniveling coward who does not even live up to his own ideals.
  • Squick: Any fanservice having to do with the brainwashed kids or the zombies.
    • From the OVA, the revelation that Takashi had hallucinations of the group's women suggests that he had scored with or tried to score with a zombie rather than Saeko.]
  • Unintentional Period Piece: The series is blatantly set in the 2000s. Rei's cellphone is clearly a flip phone rather than an Iphone, the fact that the characters are all at a private school which indicates they are all from wealthy families, before the financial crisis resulted in wealthy families falling under far greater scrutiny, and the casual conversations about nuclear power plants in Japan immediately dates it to before the Fukushima disaster, which made casual conversation about nuclear power utterly unacceptable. The English dub of the series has two other moments, where in the sixth episode, there is a reference to Sarah Palin, who was the vice presidential nominee at the time, along with the fact that Hirano got his knowledge and training from a Blackwater mercenary, which dates when the war in Afghanistan was still on. Palin has not been prominent for quite some time, and with the Blackwater mercenary group having fallen under harsh scrutiny in the last decade, it just dates the show even futher to the 2000s.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Mr. and Mrs. Takagi, the heroic Right Wing Militia Fanatics. When the story was created, it reflected the author's views, but at the very least, it was seen as harmless, and necessary given the Zombie Apocalypse and still depicted with strong standards, but nowadays, it has aged absolutely horribly and would come across as far more difficult to portray now as good people.
  • Values Dissonance:
    • Operating motor vehicles without a license, generally showing independence may not seem so bad, but consider that the series takes place in Japan.
    • Uyoku dantai. Not really the type of thing the networks would like to present in a Fan Service show.
    • Shizuka being depicted as attractive and also flirting with Takashi and Hirano despite being a technical teacher and them being students would never be depicted as comedic now due to the greater awareness of abuse of power in these relationships, even in Japan.
    • Saya's common insult for Hirano is that he is fat, along with insulting his lifestyle choices and intelligence. While she is the only one to do so, whereas everyone else respects and treats Hirano kindly and never makes such comments, such casual bodyshaming would be unacceptable now, unless it was to show Hirano was overweight because he was greedy. Furthermore, Saya's willingness to emphasize her own intelligence would be seen a lot less funny now, since it comes across less as her being funny and more her being a Spoiled Brat in the present.
  • What an Idiot!: Okay Mr. nihilistic mall survivor, you claim to be such a huge zombie fan and yet charge into a group of zombies while pathetically flailing a knife about, when it's been established that any melee weapon shorter than an arm's length will only let them get within biting range? All for the sake of going out like a badass? Not to mention that your stab wound wasn't even critical and the zombies could have easily been avoided? Enjoy your undignified, lameass death.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Political?: Saya's family and their supporters are a group of uyoku dantai- militant, traditionalist Japanese ultra-nationalists with an eye on reclaiming lost territory and historical revisionism in the name of yamato damashii. It's considered politically incorrect in Japan to forward ideas like that, much less on a Fan Service show. Simultaneously, the left wing protestors and survivors in the camp act like idiots. It's not clear if this is the authors personal opinion or dramatic embellishment, but his older works like USA vs. Japan 2025 and an alternate history where Japan is divided Korea-style after World War II clearly state that he is more sympathetic to the Japanese right, even though not necessarily belong to them. The ultra-nationalists were censored in the anime as their views are considered politically incorrect.
  • The Woobie: Asami gets belittled and ignored by the mall survivors, found that her instructor got zombified while looking for help, has a Heroic BSOD, and is later Mercy Killed after being trapped while rescuing the person that necessitated escape.
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