High School of the Dead Complete Collection High School of the Dead Complete Collection

he broadcast series High School of the Dead (2010) opens on an ordinary day at Fujima Academy in Tokyo--until hordes of zombies begin attacking people. Anyone who's bitten by them is either devoured or turned into a zombie. Sophomore Takashi Komuro, four of his friends, and Ms. Shizuka, the overendowed school nurse, fight their way out of the school and struggle to survive in a world gone mad. Using swords, baseball bats, and an arsenal of high-tech weapons and vehicles, the teenagers beat, blast, and flatten their grisly foes. The cause of the zombie plague is just one of the many important plot points that's never explained, but director Tetsuro Araki isn't really interested in presenting a coherent story. He keeps the camera looking up the girls' skirts, down their blouses, or at blank walls that get splattered with blood. In one shot certain to go down in fan-service history, he follows a projectile over one girl's breasts and under another's skirt--in slow motion. Hormonal adolescent boys who enjoy the juxtaposition of jiggle shots and blood baths are the obvious audience for High School of the Dead; other viewers should approach it with caution. -Charles Solomon