High School of the Dead: Anime of the Dead

[Sithdarth]

So HOTD anime is out and a couple of episodes into the story. You can catch them here legally. (http://www.theanimenetwork.com/Anime/High-school-of-the-dead/Watch) The first one you can just watch. The second one requires a free registration and so far the third one is only available to paying members. However, I think after next weeks episode it'll become available for registered users.

Now I must say having read the manga not 2 weeks before the anime came out they are so far relatively close. Some things got taken out that I don't particularly agree with but some people might have seen those scenes as pure exposition dumps which might not have worked animated. It is certainly easier for me to follow the action in the anime. So far the gore seems to have been decreased but the fan service is way increased. Like I can remember thinking for the first chapter or so that the fan service wasn't too bad. Of course then I hit the scenes at the school Nurse's friend's house and yeah that impression was pretty much destroyed forever. The fan service in the anime is so far much more noticeable but perhaps only because of the slight lack of gore. Also, that rather top heavy school nurse got sound effects to go along with her upper body motions the first time she was shown running. At first I was wondering why the heck I was hearing random sound effects you'd associate with something bouncing and then I realized where the bouncing objects were. I tell you what if that noise actually occurred in that situation in real life jogging would be much more interesting.

[Julford Hajime]

Holy hell they actually made one? I thought the series died like, a year or two ago when the manga was put on hiatus.

*Checks status of the manga*

And it seems to be on a short hiatus again, though it started back up in March. I for one am really excited, as HOTD was a gateway drug/manga of sorts for me, as it got me into works that leaned towards more fanservicey shots (Which itself is odd as I don't like fanservice in most animes, and in fact see myself not liking the HOTD anime already for it)

Will definately check this out sometime this week/weekend, though.

[Sithdarth]

It seems like the manga is going to alternate in a monthly manga publication with the author's other work Triage X. Which is also totally awesome from the chapters that are out so far. The manga itself is supposed to be back in September with Triage X following probably in its place in October.

I don't think the anime really has all that much more fan service than the manga it's just more obvious because there is less gore and shock to balance it out. I'm kind of hoping it settles out a bit as time goes on.

[phil_]

You know what's great in this show? The sound track. It's like the Blank of the Dead movies' and the Amount of Time Later movies' sweet, sweet love child.

[Sithdarth]

Well the honeymoon is officially over. They are already throwing in recap filler to stall for time which is really weird considering all the little bits of conversation they skipped from the manga that could have been done instead. The sound track is indeed awesome still and as always the action itself is really nice. Did run into the first bit of noticeable censorship though which was weird and makes me interested to see how other much worse scenes are going to be handled. There is at least one I think that just isn't going to make the cut without serious changes. Personally I'd be ok with since it was essentially like a couple of pages from the authors less reputable work snuck into the manga at that point.

[Pip Boy]

The show is freakishly fanservicey though. I hear either the animator/director/both used to do hentai.

[Julford Hajime]

The show is freakishly fanservicey though. I hear either the animator/director/both used to do hentai.

blahblahblahWORDS it was essentially like a couple of pages from the authors less reputable work snuck into the manga at that point.

Yeah, basically. I don't know anything about the animation staff, but the manga artist made it REALLY obvious what he used to do. Constantly. Like I said, the manga is like, 30% zombie fighting and 70% fanservice. Also, interesting use of character archetypes.

[Sithdarth]

Yeah it's pretty clear what the original artist used to do. I mean the art style is very distinctly not what you generally see in manga which contributes to the awesomeness as a whole. You just got to watch out for the bits were he slips into old habits and sort of let it slide in the interest of getting to more zombie killing action. Also, the stories this guy tells are actually quite good which you wouldn't expect given that quality of the storytelling in his media of origin.