High School Of The Dead

Label:

MangaUK

Certificate:

15

Format:

DVD or Blu_ray

Discs:

2. (12 episodes)

Running time:

5hours and 22mins approx

Subtitles:

English

Video:

16:9 widescreen

Sound:

Eng 5.1, Jap 2.0 (Blu-Ray has DTS-HD)

Release date:

29th August 2011

RRP:

DVD £24.99 – Blu_ray £34.99

Actual Price:

DVD £15ish - Amazon - Play

Actual Price:

Blu-Ray £25ish - Amazon - Play

Brief synopsis:

As if High School didn’t suck enough already; not only has Takashi Komuro’s childhood sweetheart started dating his best friend but Zombies have started attacking the school and it’s almost time for double Algebra. Wait, what was that? roll back a bit..! Yep, those are definitely Zombies. Well, looks like Takashi’s life is on the fast train to sucking even worse than he ever thought possible, and for a pissed-off teenager that’s sayin’ something. Now it’s up to him to grab his friends, find some weapons and get the hell out of town before lunchtime… because he’s what’s on the menu and the crowd looks hungry… real hungry.

Comments:

What with all the Zombie movies or Post-apocalyptic video games or even Post-Zombie-Apocalypse multi-media we’ve been hit with over the past couple of years, you’d be forgiven for thinking “do we really need another zombie anime?” Well my friends - yes, yes we do. A lot of people have tried to knock HOTD for what it’s not – and The Canterbury Tales it sure ain’t – but when looking at what it actually is, which is an action packed survival horror ZomRomCom… well it hits the spot pretty damn well. From start to finish it does exactly what it sets out to do, which is have a bunch of High-Schoolers beat up zombies in as gory a fashion as the censors would allow all while the female members of the cast flash their underwear and employ copious amount of jiggle-physics as often as they can and still finding time to stuff the whole thing full of visual (and musical) references to other zombie media. In fact, this series takes homage to a whole new level with more Zombie media references than you can shake a stick at. If you can name it, it’s probably in there, from Day of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, 28 Days Later...you can see them, you can hear then, hell, you can almost smell them.

So what’s the actual animation like? Well in looks and feel it’s very much like Black Lagoon, especially in it’s action, pacing and humour, which is hardly surprising as it hails from the same production company - Studio Madhouse (Redline, Paranoia Agent)- and utilises the same Director. It’s also very detailed - oh so very very detailed - the CGI weapons and vehicles are spot on and for once the ever so slightly jerky “almost but not quite spot on” CGI character animation works just right when used to make CGI zombies, who aren’t suppose to look "quite right" anyway. But boiling it down what they’ve gone for is gore, guns and jiggle-physics, and pretty much in that order. Be warned though, there is “boing”, and lots of it, and if you don’t like panty shots... well this is the wrong show for you. Though it does beg the question, why fight zombies in such showy stripperific outfits? Surprisingly in this case one female character does call another girl out as an attention whore because of it it.

One thing they that the producers have resisted though, and it’s a trap that many a anime based on a still-running manga fall into, and that’s to give in to the urge to add a bullcrap hodge-podge ending rather than leave the series open ended. Madhouse must have learnt their lesson after the abomination of a ended that they kludged onto the “end” of Claymore, which many fans (including me) still haven’t forgiven them for.

Another thing they’ve done is try to keep it as realistic as they can, well as realistic as you can be when you’re dealing with the mechanics of a Zombie outbreak. How would people, normal fallible scared humans, react? (Badly). How long would it take for friends, let alone strangers, to turn on each other? (Not long, let’s face it). And just how hard is it really to hit a moving target with a firearm with which you aren’t familiar? (Harder than you think). This show actually had me doing something I hardly ever do… and that’s gritting my teeth whenever the action kicks off as you’re never too sure where it’s going to go next. And then there’s also the somewhat strained relationship between the hero - who is the first to admit he isn’t anything like a hero - and his female friend who's dating his other friend, who he then has to "put down" before he turns into a Zombie... yeeeah, it gets complicated for them from that point on.

For the ears… well the Dub’s excellent, really it is. There’s a large number of relative unknowns in an otherwise tiny dub cast who have been given a chance to prove themselves and its gratifying to see that almost all of them have stepped up the plate and given impressive performances making this a series where I’d happily recommend the Dub over the original Japanese version. .

Extras:

Surprisingly few, just the Textless OP and ED animations.

High School Of The Dead is available now from most high streets and online retailers.

Shikabane Hime: Corpse Princess - Part 1 (Aka)

Label:

MangaUK

Certificate:

12

Format:

DVD

Discs:

2. (13 episodes)

Running time:

4hours 55 mins approx

Subtitles:

English

Video:

16:9 widescreen

Sound:

English 5.1, Japanese 2.0

Release date:

23rd May 2011

RRP:

£24.99 (Average £9-15ish) - Amazon - Play

Shikabane Hime: Corpse Princess - Part 2 (Kuro)

Label:

MangaUK

Certificate:

15

Format:

DVD

Discs:

2. (13 episodes)

Running time:

4hours 55 mins approx

Subtitles:

English

Video:

16:9 widescreen

Sound:

English 5.1, Japanese 2.0

Release date:

01st August 2011

RRP:

£24.99 (Average £15ish) - Amazon - Play

Brief synopsis:

When a restless soul is unable to let go of it’s attachments to this world, there’s a strong chance it will refuse to move on to the afterlife, instead remaining among us as a Shikabane, a vicious and malevolent entity composed of regret and obsessions, wrecking havoc upon all who cross it’s path. The only thing that can destroy a Shikabane is a Shikabane Hime – also known as a Corpse Princess - the resurrected corpse of a young woman who also cannot let go of this plane of existence and has been brought back to solely to destroy 108 Shikabane so they can earn their place in Heaven. Makina Hoshino is one such Shikabane Hime who - with her handler Keisei Tagami, a young Buddhist Priest from a local temple – is fast on her way to liberating these 108 lost souls. It’s only through her spiritual connection to her handler that a Shikabane Hime can maintain her humanity and the longer she remains in this world, the closer she becomes to becoming a rogue Shikabane herself. Will Makina complete her task and earn her place in Heaven before she loses herself, becoming just another target for her fellow Shikabane Hime.

Comments:

OK, so it’s zombies again… but this time it’s zombies as brought to us by Studio Gainax (Evangelion, FLCL, Gurren Lagann) and it’s there’s something Gainax are known for (apart from screwing up the ending of most of their anime) is some of the best, most manic and almost always unorthodox action scenes ever animated. So Shikabane Hime has everything we’ve come to expect from Gainax like Gainaxy animation (ie, the quality’s all over the place but it’s pretty damn good so who cares), the fight scenes are Gainaxy (ie, guns, swords, mallets, sharp sticks, frying pans... and they're all over the place) and the character designs are pretty Gainaxy too (panty shots and jiggly bits all over the place) but in this case as it’s taken from someone else’s manga then the plot and ending aren’t Gainaxy, and this is a good thing.. a very good thing.

So what’s it about; well there’s a organisation of Buddhist monks who bring dead girls back to life to fight evil spirits who won’t clear off onto the afterlife. The girls have been told that if they kill off 108 dead guys they get to go to Heaven, but as any one who’s even the tiniest bit genre savvy will tell you, any collection of monks that makes a living by bring dead girls back to life is probably up to no good and lo and behold, what a surprise, said monks quickly turn out to be maybe not the most trustworthy or altruistic bunch in the world. 

So people get killed, resurrected, killed, lied to, blown up and killed again. Some enemies pop up – pretty much monsters of the week for the first half then some kind of recurring end-of-the-world-evil-plot enemies for the second half - all the while the monks are carrying on their internal power plays and the Shikabane Hime are shooting, slicing, smashing and jiggling their way though re-animated corpse after re-animated corpse. On the whole, it’s all jolly good fun.

Extras:

Audio Commentaries, Textless OP and ED animations.

Shikabane Hime: Corpse Princess - Part 1 (Aka) and Part 1 (Kuro) are available now from most high streets and online retailers.

The Sacred Blacksmith - Season 1

Label:

MangaUK

Certificate:

15

Format:

DVD

Discs:

2. (12 episodes)

Running time:

273 mins approx

Subtitles:

English

Video:

16:9

Sound:

English 5.1, Japanese 2.0

Release date:

19th Sept 2010

RRP:

£29.99 (Actual £18ish) - Amazon - Play

Brief synopsis:

After her father’s recent demise, Cecily Cambell, the only child of the prestigious Cambell family joins the City Guard in order to protect the Independent Trade City and it’s people. Unfortunately for her, what she has in spirit and bravado isn’t necessarily equalled in what she has in either skill or experience. When a crazed veteran of the old war starts trouble in the marketplace, Cecily steps in to protect the peace, only to get her ass quite unceremoniously handed to her on a plate. Luckily the local blacksmith, Luke Ainsworth, defeats the deranged threat before the situation can get any worse utilising a strange type of sword that Cecily has never seen before. This sword, called a Katana, piques Cecily’s interest and as Luke is the only blacksmith around who can forge a weapon like it, she sets out to do everything in her power to convince him to forge one for her with which to defend her fellow citizens.

Comments:

Based upon a long running “swords and sorcery” light novel series, which in turn spawned a popular manga series before being made into a twelve episode anime, The Sacred Blacksmith follows our plucky though somewhat ineffective heroine as she takes up the sword to defend her fellow citizens. Unfortunately for Cecily, while her novel and manga incarnations are fairly good at their job and know what they’re doing with a sword even if they’re a little out of their league, in the anime she's borderline incompetent, a danger to herself and those around her and seems to need Luke to save her sorry (though well rounded) ass every five minutes. When one of her male squad-mates belittles her for being… well rubbish… and tells her to stay well away from the frontlines – partly to keep her alive but more importantly to stop her piss poor performance from getting him killed - well you're supposed to be angered by his seemingly sexist attitude, you deep down can’t help but agree that she is a bit crap at her job. Basically her usual modus operandi is to bowl into the action with a shouty-shouty self introduction, wearing a breast plate made of explodium (and a fully moulded form-fitting tit-clinging breastplate at that) that seems to fall apart exposing her assets if the enemy so much as uses particularly foul language or even just looks at her funny, then get her ass kicked before Luke saves the day... again. Thankfully she stops all this after a while, which is good as my ears were beginning to get tired of the shouting. I can’t help but think that the producers must have had something against the poor girl as it feels like she’s only there to be mocked, saved or have comments made about her boobs, which is a shame as otherwise she’s a much more interesting character when she’s just competent but outclassed.

Luke’s a grumpy recluse with no social skills and even less of an idea how to treat girls and gets terribly embarrassed (and then quickly punched in the face) whenever Cecily accidentally flashes her bits at him. Could the writers be taking a not so subtle dig at their target audience..? Well I really wouldn’t like to say.

Apart from that it mainly follows the manga version (a manga that will probably never be legitimately released in English and a light-novel series that shamefully has even less chance of a translation, legitimately or not) in which Cecily and Luke defend the city against attacking un-humans, nefarious villains wielding demon swords plus conniving emissaries and political power-plays of foreign empires. There’s also a mysterious cloaked villain orchestrating the monster attacks from behind the scenes, though his identity’s not much of a secret as you’ll figure out whose evil alter ego he really is in about five minutes of seeing his civilian persona. As the manga etc are still ongoing the anime is left open ended so those looking for closure aren’t going to get it, but on the upside the producers didn’t try and tack a fluffy feel-good ending onto it which can only be a good thing.

What with all the sci-fi and zombies recently it’s nice to get back to the “Swords and Scorcery” medieval fantasy thing for a while…. though as the bad guys have a favourite little trick involving killing the townspeople and then using evil forces to puppet their corpses into attacking our heroes, well I think that fulfils the zombie quota for this anime as well as for this article.

Sacred Blacksmith - Season 1 is available now from most high streets and online retailers.