Opening Songs
OP 1 - I Want To Be Friends (Gakuen Seikatsubu)
Ending Songs
ED 1 - Harmonize Clover (Maon Kurosaki)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Horror, Psychological
Episodes: 12
Well here we are again with another mainstream, cute-sy show that obviously appeals to the moe crowd more than anything else. With cute girls doing cute stuff in a standard, high school setting that has been abused to death, its basically just another cut and paste show that'll appeal to you if you enjoy this kind of stuff.....
Not.
"School Live" is probably the top show of 2015, no bars held. Its insane, its unique, its absolutely mind f**king and its also one of the most emotional experiences in a long time, let alone the year 2015. While sporting an art/visual style that will quickly have many others label it as another cliche moe piece of junk....a book should never be judged by its cover. Despite what you may or may NOT think by looking at its promo-art alone, "School Live!" is a psychological, drama-packed zombie apocalypse show. Yes, its about zombies, and not the usual, we kill zombies everyday ez kind of show, its a show about a bunch of girls trying to survive in a zombie apocalypse with little ways to fight back. It may not sound like much, but with a delusional protagonist, everything changes. Everything.
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| How to badass-ify. |
With completely misleading songs, its actually worth to watch the opening and ending themes for the show at least once. "I Want To Be Friends" is the opening theme and its performed by Gakeun Seikatsubu, the group of seiyuus that voice the main characters of the show. Its extremely happy and energetic, which is highly contradiction to the theme of the show. The ending theme as well, which is "Harmonize Clover" by Maon Kurosaki, its a lot slower than the opening theme, but doesn't really convey what the show is actually about.
Rating: 8.5/10
One show that I can easily recommend to anyone looking to start on anime, really. Despite its awkwardly cute-sy visual style, "School Live" is one of the most, mentally brutal and f**ked up shows that I've seen in awhile. Sure, it might not be that heavy in terms of gore, but from a mental/psychological standpoint, "School Live!" is incredibly f**ked up. Especially when we get such an...interesting protagonist that's so screwed up in the head. Instead of a squad of school girls going around killing zombies, they're basically just trying to survive behind a barricade, trying to help their friend live through tough times where she in mentally unstable. Psychology is the main theme in this show, instead of a straight-out zombie show, its more of a show about a girl trying to fight her way through her mind and to survive in a bleak, destroyed world, with her friends trying to help her cope. I love it, and since the show is so fully packed with drama, there are a multitude of emotional moments and very, very strong character interactions.
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| Death, nothing but death around you. |
Yuki is your average, incredibly energetic and happy-go-lucky high schooler with a lot of friends. She's a natural clutz and is cute without even trying, making her a hit with most of her school mates. She belongs to the school's "Living" or survival club, a club that well, does stuff around school at their jurisdiction. With Yuki attending classes and talking to her friends as always, its easy to think that there's nothing quite going wrong here. Actually, the world has already plunged into chaos, with a zombie apocalypse hitting everyone, including all the students in the school. The only 5 girls alive are Yuki's friends in the survival club, which is actually just a club leeching off the school building's supplies to survive as they keep themselves barricaded from zombies. With Yuki still thinking that everything is as per normal, its their job to keep her in check and to prevent her from ever leaving the barricade to...well, her death, where all the zombies reside.
"School Live" is an amazing show if anything. Its not action packed and its not full of sparks or explosions, but if emotional impact means even a thing to you at all, you'll not want to miss "School Live!". This was one of the few shows that after I finished it, I immediately went to read the manga, because it was simply not enough. Love it, I hope this show gets a sequel, because the story after this is pretty hardcore.
Peace.
