Forum - View topicREVIEW: School-Live! Streaming
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BodaciousSpacePirate
 Subscriber Posts: 3017 |
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I really enjoyed the School-Live! anime - I guess that's obvious, given my avatar picture - but I question whether I would have liked it as much if I didn't know from the manga that School-Live! relies on a million little details to tell its story. If I didn't know to look for all of the easy to ignore stuff in the backgrounds, it's possible I would have considered this an annoying sort of "you're watching a David Lynch movie, so make sure to count the number of light bulbs in every scene" gimmick, rather than a genuine attempt to add depth to the story.
It might be that I just appreciate this kind of "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" stuff much more in manga, when I can move through the story at my own pace. (Then again, I liked Penguindrum, and it had this kind of stuff all over the place.) |
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bibotot
Posts: 79 |
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I am a huge fan of zombies. When I was younger, I watched Night of the Living Dead and then Dawn of the Dead (remake) and got nightmare for months. As I grew up, I became less afraid of the living dead and more fond of them.
Recently, the zombie genre has not seen much greatness outside The Walking Dead (both TV series and video games, not a fan of the visual novel). When I came to School-Live! I was expecting some weird Japanese cutesy moe with zombies as parodies, much like almost every other monster depicted in anime. I was pleasantly surprised to see they actually portray the zombies as what they really are - ever-hungry post-human cannibals. Going through the show, I thoroughly enjoy it, from the mind-blowing plot twist at the beginning to the many hints of what to come, some being more subtle than the others. The characters are great and I like how they develop throughout the show, except Yuri, of course, because the material for that is after they leave school. The change in the opening is a boon, compared to the constant cutesy trick they play in Madoka which at one point I find so hilarious I could not stop watching that opening. Much like Madoka's opening, I never skip any opening segment of School-Live! just because how much it changes throughout the series. And come on, who would not love a cute girl slaying undead with a shovel? Overall, I highly recommend the series. I bought the first volume of the manga and even though I knew the plot twist was coming, I still had goosebumps when I made it there. Very good execution overall from both. It's not as good as Madoka, but I would give 9/10 to the anime. It is my favorite anime of summer 2015. |
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Sahmbahdeh
Posts: 712 |
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I highly recommend this series, even if you're into neither of the two genres it blends (moe and zombies). I'm certainly not, and I really enjoyed this show. I think it's the best anime of the 2015 summer season, and in my top 5 for the year.
Everything about it works really well: the animation and art is pleasantly solid and the visual tricks and motifs are expertly handled, the music and sound design in general is some of the best-utilized I've heard this year, the characters are endearing and the emotional impact is strong; I found myself tearing up multiple times in the last half of the show, and I very rarely tear up when watching anything. Give the show a shot. |
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Covnam
 Posts: 3644 |
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Sorry, but if you're going to put this
That's pretty telling if all the info you had before was the synopsis to go on. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15457 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Coming to the end of the year, School-Live! is high on my list of top anime of the year. It was a really good mix of cute and creepy, and I think in general it was really well made. Actual twists were not so much as sudden as they were actually very hinted at before. So many small details hinted at what was happening that it was rarely sudden and tried to play up the emotions in the scene.
For instance there was that scene where Miki laments that of course a novel will have the same conclusion if it is in a different adaption. It played of knowledge the audience might have of different adaptions that something was about to go down. Music, Rebecca said it takes a bit getting used to, though I think it is actually one of the most effective parts of the anime. There are a bunch of scene that take full use of even music range to take what has otherwise been used cutesy and then distort it. What I love about it are the details, and it makes it feel well put together. |
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Ali07
 Posts: 3333 Location: Victoria, Australia |
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Guess that I'm just over spoiler[zombies], not something I've really been into anyway (aside from spoiler[Zombieland]), and having a cast of moe girls thrown in there is less enticing. The initial impression I had of the show was CGDCT, which isn't something that really attracts me...but the twist had me initially steer clear.
I remember seeing the promos for this show, and thought something was up. And, since I had been spoiled, I was surprised at the reaction some had to the reveal. Honestly thought that more people were either expecting something like it or already knew. |
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Quark
 Posts: 710 Location: British Columbia, Canada |
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This matches my experience with the genre exactly. When I first saw Night and Dawn of the Dead, zombies were #1 on my fear list - I did nightly checks out my window to make sure there weren't any shambling corpses outside. The genre has become so watered down and tamed that it's rare to find stuff that gives me the sense of anxiety that the older movies did. I went into School Live a bit skeptically, but I'm glad I gave it a chance. It reminded me a bit of the original Dawn of the Dead in that the characters chose to build up a wall, goof around and try to ignore the fact that their gruesome death is literally right around the corner. The fact that it was able to do that while also being really, really cute is impressive. It's interesting reading the manga right after watching the anime because it is much, much darker. There's still that glimmer of hope, but it does in general feel more grim than in the anime. |
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NormanS
 Posts: 167 |
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I also like the sound design for the series. If i recall correctly there was a scene where Yuki was showing Miki the CD stereo player, and the music started to be distorted when Yuki dropped the stereo and her delusion started to crack.
Which also prompts the doubt that whenever there is a scene with Yuki, there is a thought lingering that we are seeing/hearing things from her delusion. Like is the stereo that Yuki was holding broken and playing distorted music, or it was fine before she dropped it? |
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