Recap: Spring of the Dead

Dedicated to the Memory of Daisuke Sato and George A. Romero

Warning: This recap contains images of violent and disturbing content, innuendos and is not recommended for younger audiences. Read at your own risk.

Hello everyone, and welcome to my oft-delayed look at the first episode of High School of the Dead! I have been wanting to do this one in the past; but given recent events, as well as the passing of its creator, I thought now would be a good time, so, let’s open up “Spring of the Dead!”

Like many anime that I’ve gotten into since I came of age, I watched the sub of this first, then the dub later. Also, if my disclaimer didn’t make clear that this isn’t a show for younger viewers, then the first scene has two of our leads killing zombies; one of our female leads Rei (no relation to the EVA pilot) having some relatively impressive “jiggle physics”, an upskirt shot and her friend dropping the “f-bomb” in the dub before we even get the theme music. 

Haven't seen the likes of this since Columbus and Tallahassee.

He then reiterates the situation by shouting, “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” There are times when the normal delivery of a line like that just isn’t enough.

The J-rock sound of the intro also isn’t that bad. I never really paid it much mind when I watched this before, but it seems OK. Definitely fits the tone better than the last recap I did. 

The title card is just displayed over the sign of the school, signifying the calm before the storm.

In terms of screen time, that calm lasts barely under a couple minutes, when a strange man comes to the gate of the school, and the faculty somehow doesn’t notice the hole in his torso or the smell of rotten flesh. I may like this anime more than most other people, but even I have to admit that’s the kind of tactics that get you ridiculed by captives on Moon 13.

Of course, the teacher, Mr. Tajima; doesn’t get far on bashing him on the fence before his arm gets bitten. Well, that was fast: six minutes in, and we already have our first victim. I last longer than that on a typical game of Resident Evil.

Sure enough, Mr. Tajima starts biting the other faculty members that come to investigate. Three more victims in less than a minute! Total carnage! I love it!

After alerting Rei and his friend Hisashi, the male lead, whose name is Takashi by the way; decide to take matters into their own hands when the emergency phone lines are overloaded! 

Other characters include a snide pink-haired lady named Takagi and a portly otaku stereotype known as Hirano. I was expecting him to get made a meal of, but it turns out he’s quite adept with both a nail gun and a real gun as the series goes on. Also, I know there’s a lot of fan service for a zombie apocalypse, but there’s also a scene in the beach OVA where everyone gets wasted on hydrangea fumes and he does something naughty with a broom in a female school swimsuit… I may be crazy, but I’m not crazy enough to make something like that up. 

We then see some people in gym class, another student named Saya (who just happens to be leader of the kendo club), and a very voluptuous school nurse. Pardon a certain overused quote from my childhood, but.. HELLO nurse!

The ensuing chaos in trying to evacuate the school is actually pretty good if you can get past the fan service. The execution settles into a style that’s a nice blend of Romero, Boyle and even a bit of Snyder as well. 

Rei is also captain of the martial arts club, which helps her run a zombified teacher through with the end of a razor sharp broom! 

Hisashi ends up getting bitten by one of the teachers for his troubles, and despite saying “it’s no big deal,” that’s basically horror film speak for him being a goner.

The SDF has even been deployed, and in and out of the school; everything is falling apart in a sea of blood and upskirt shots. Was that one victim’s underwear originally yellow? I mean, I wouldn’t hold it against them, but just hope it’s not on the electric fence. 

Another gym teacher, who’s a stereotypical fatso, just jumps out the window to avoid getting eaten. … Too obvious.

Also, despite Hisashi’s claims that “this isn’t a movie or video game,” as I pointed out before, the experiences these teens had from those actually comes in handy; especially in Hirano’s case.

Now, as we reach where we started like last time; Hisashi, Takashi and Rei try to get to the top of the roof, bludgeoning the heads of the undead in as they go! OK, this next joke is an easy one.

I'm a superstar leaping through the sky like a tiger, defying the laws of gravity!

They reach the roof, but ultimately, Hisashi succumbs to the bite;  and Rei and Takashi are forced to kill him! Wow, we usually don’t get to the whole “shoot the dog” moment until way later in a work like this. 

So, despite what had to be done, Rei and Takashi decide to reconcile their relationship as the episode ends with them standing on the smoldering ruins of their school and the remains of their classmates. I know the breakup was technically the “b-plot” of this episode, but both in and out of universe, the YA romance is ultimately secondary to the zombie apocalypse.

With the godfather of the zombie genre and the creator of this series now having passed on, this definitely impacted how I felt writing about this anime. Overall, though, “Spring of the Dead” makes a worthwhile pilot to what I found to be an entertaining series. While it’s not my favorite by any means, it’s actually a much better show than the fan service would have you believe. Once you get past the ladies in fancy drawers to be turned into bloody body pillows; it’s actually a fairly decent depiction of how teenagers might handle this situation, and it shows how the actions they take may seem uncommon to a Japanese viewer; most people here wouldn’t think twice about it, especially given current events these days. I may do more in the near future, but first I will have to watch more to see what I can do. Plus, this whole unpleasantness with Scott Freeman doesn’t help with his role as an antagonist here either. Long story short, he’s been blacklisted as a voice actor for reasons I shall not discuss here. Let’s just say he’ll have good company with Bill Cosby and possibly Harvey Weinstein.

I also have to take a couple more tests for my CJS class, and I will be going out of town next week. I want to ideally be done with my plans by Halloween night for this month, so I can have the slate clean for November. This will include my riffs on the live-action remakes of Death Note and Ghost in the Shell, as well as the remaining BW films in my Pokémon movie marathon as a double feature of both the Kyurem and Genesect movies! See you, space cowboy!