Since it was brought up in this thread: forum #7819

I first discovered it as a horny little pre-teen, and while I didn't watch much of it, I do remember obsessing heavily over the two fanserivce heavy episodes. I loved all the huge oversized boobs, but couldn't really tell you what I thought otherwise of the show. I was scared of zombies. But if you asked little me at the time, I'd probably say "it was a good show!"

Over the years, and actually developing a taste for media (besides going "oooh pretty colors" or "ooooh you can see her booooobies!") I then realized "man, High School of the Dead is fucking trash". I think it has a lot to do with watching actual critically acclaimed zombie media, like the Walking Dead, 28 days later, etc.

The main problem with it is the fanserivce and ecchi absolutely destroys all semblance of seriousness within the show. And it wasn't a boob jiggle here or a panty shot there, it was literally any scene involving any female character. It was too oversexualized for the story it was trying to tell. Just destroyed it completely for me.

I'm considering rewatching the series to form a clearer opinion, but I think there was a good reason why I threw it straight into the trash.

Anything involving zombies is a nope for me

I mostly loved it, both for the ecchi and the story. I own both the anime and the whole manga in colour. Maybe I'm just able to compartmentalize in the case of this series or I take it as something in the middle ground, not super serious or too ridiculous but somewhere in the middle, more just entertainment and drama with a side of sexy. Even though I'm not into gory action or violence in general somehow zombie stuff has usually been reliably an exception to my rule, but there is a moment or two I could do without... like when the outbreak started at the school one friend threw her other friend to the zombies which I still think was one of the darker things that happened in the whole series, imo, but it was just two no-name characters in a 10 second scene so I got over it.

I've seen a lot of casual anime watchers enjoy the show for the plot and were able to ignore the ecchi, which has always surprised me tbh. I mean there's still two or three scenes they make fun of despite that tho. But I think it's not surprising it got a bit of a more mainstream appeal because it does a good job at telling a compelling old school zombie survival plot.

And like in 9/10 cases in general, yeah the manga is better than the anime, but the anime did mostly adapt the manga really well.

Other zombie stuff I like: Night of the Living Dead, RE4, 28 Days/Weeks Later, Dead Rising, House of the Dead series (the rail shooting game, never the movie). All of which I saw and enjoyed before seeing Highschool of the Dead (I was around my mid 20s when it came out)

Hotd is one of those series that doesn't take itself too seriously when it first came out which is fine its honestly just a fun watch, the characters are great and funny and there are ecchi scenes which is fine really but if you didn't like it the first time you probably won't like it again

It's a show that exists

It gave us Shizuka Marikawa

Some zombies, some fanservice and laughs were had

Looks like someone hasn't read Kloah's HOTD oneshota doujin

It's an entertaining but silly action ecchi series. It gave us the goddess Saeko so I'll always be grateful to it for that

Regardless of your opinion of the series, it sucks that the writer of the story died