2015-09-25

School-Live!

School-Live! (がっこうぐらし!) is a 12 episode moe/zombie series based on the manga of the same name by Kaiho Norimitsu and Chiba Sadoru.  The series aired in Japan during the summer of 2015.


    A small group of girls is holed up in their school following the zombie apocalypse.  The girls have formed the Stay At School club in which they camp out in their club room, cook food at school and go about their lives with in the confines of the building.  One member, Yuki, has mentally repressed the disrepair to the school and the hordes of zombies around every corner.  The other members do their best to protect the group and sooth Yuki's fractured mind.  As they dig into the reasons why the school is as well stocked as it is they sense something intentional behind the state of the world around them.  They limit their expeditions outside of the relative safety of the school building as much as possible, but realize they can't stay there indefinitely.  Are there other survivors?  Is the entire world ruined now?  How long will their haven really last?



    The series is essentially the moe version of The Walking Dead, yet it still manages to have better acting than its live action brethren.  The animation is pure moe.  Cute girls in cute uniforms doing moe stuff.  The fan-service is rather low level though and the show really focuses on the plight of the survivors.  The majority of the first episode doesn't even elude to the apocalypse already in action as we see it through the delusion of Yuki.  The way this was handled was amazingly well done and is only the first of some well executed surprises in the show.  The bulk of the episodes deal with about 80% moe fluff and 20% doomed reality.  The fluff makes the hammer blows of reality hit harder than they would normally.  In all honesty, the show was pretty well executed and was thoroughly enjoyable.  It wasn't anything like I was expecting and did well to keep me wanting more.  Hopefully the short segment at the end of the final episode will lead to another cours of the series.


    The anime simulcast on Crunchyroll and Sentai Filmworks has picked up the distribution license.  The manga is being published in English by Yen Press.


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