WMG / Highschool of the Dead

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Takashi and Saeko made love in Episode 9.

Let's look at the facts. They're both young, hormonal adults. They're obviously attracted to each other. They've had more than their fair share of close calls. They had the shrine to themselves the whole night. And in the morning, Saeko was seen fixing her skirt. Can't get more obvious than that.

Rei and Saeko made love in the OVA.

Think about it. It was late at night when the group inhaled the hallucinogenic smoke, and the two of them were discovered nude and kissing each other early the next morning. That's at least 6-8 hours. So either they fell asleep and woke up high, they just made out all night, or things got more extreme.

Bras were never invented in this setting.

How else can you explain that much jiggling from so many female characters?

• Jossed. Bras did show up eventually. Maybe they're just really rare.
  • Or not very good.
    • Judging by the amount of detail on Saekos, it seems they prefer bras that are form over function.
• You can literally see characters wear bras. In the OP. Which plays in every episode.

Daisuke Sato (the writer) is in an editorial conflict with his brother Shouji (the artist), who has the executives on his side.

That would explain the constant, schizophrenic Genre Shifting between trying to make us care about what happens and trying to make us jerk off (to seriously fucked-up shit). The former of which has gradually lost influence over the manga's run so that by the time the anime rolled in, we were getting panty shots of decaying corpses, jiggling girls getting devoured alive, and female main characters who apparently derive orgasmic pleasure from getting brutalized.

• Well yeah. I thought that was true info not WMG.
  • This may be Jossed, surprisingly enough. According to the interview at the end of Volume 6, Daisuke actually includes notes in the scripts where there should be fanservice, and that "99% of our e-mail correspondence is about tits." Also, they aren't brothers.

High School of the Dead is what happens if Shishio Makoto of Rurouni Kenshin WON his war to take over Hell.

After 133 years, the warlord was finally able to gather enough warriors from a Japan made apathetic, selfish, cruel, cold, unfeeling, hateful and cynical by westernization. As George A. Romero predicted, Hell was so full that it no longer had space, so Shishio mustered his armies and struck back at reality.

The modus-operandi of his soldiers, "Them" is quite literally Shishio Makoto's ideology made manifest; The flesh of the weak is food for the strong. And sure enough, only people pragmatic, cruel, selfish and above all strong as he was were able to survive in this Hell on Earth. 133 years after losing to Himura Kenshin's idealism through a "technicality", the evil warrior is sadly finally able to prove his point.

Chapter 29 will have awesome artwork, as well as even more Gun Porn than usual.

Bonus points if they include Scenery Porn and make it sixty pages long.

• Jossed. Sorry.

The American nuclear attack wasn't an act of panic or attempt to control "Them". . . It was retaliation.

China started the outbreak and America responded accordingly.

• That would be cool, considering that China and Japan has always hated each other anyway. However, I think it's highly unlikely, because first, Japan is more likely to act first (as they always have), and America (in Japanese stereotypes) doesn't really need a reason to want to nuke someone. And even if it was true, the nuclear war would not stop here, there are plenty of countries around that would want to nuke other countries (including America, China and Japan) too.
  • Why else would Russia join America’s seemingly random nuclear first strike against China and North Korea? Clearly the Russians know something about China’s role in the zombie apocalypse!

The series takes place in the same universe of Resident Evil.

So, Raccoon City was an experiment of a new kind of nuke, which was used again in an preemptive nuclear strike at China, North Korea and Russia, so Umbrella caused the existence of Them.

• So Wesker really did get his complete global saturation?
• No, because we don't have zombies with tentacles.

  • T-Virus creates zombies, G-virus give us aberrating mutations, or maybe the zombies from the anime are from a virus mutation

This series takes place during the events of Left 4 Dead.

In the world, The Green Flu has not only spread throughout the entire Eastern coast of the United States, but the entire world. The thing is, America got the worst of it, while other countries get their Romero-esque Zombies, due to the distribution of disease in certain areas. People evacuating out of the U.S. by plane, and landing in other countries contributed to this quick, atrocious outcome. That meaning, the concentration of Green Flu remains heavy in the United States because as it is, the epicenter of the infection. American infected, are the most potent and harmful of any zombies in the world. As the zombie incursion spreads, its effects become more and more dispersed as it goes. It may take longer for their "foreign" counter parts to mutate, perhaps never, but nevertheless they are just as deadly as any other zombie.

And that island the three original survivors were heading to? They actually were driven off course and somehow ended up in Japanese waters. Louis knows Japanese anyway, so he could get along quite well with the Six Japanese survivors(epsecially Hirano). And who knows? Could the Left 4 Dead 2 Survivors get kicked off the cruise ship, or abandon ship for one reason or another, end up in Japan as well? As just one big family, and with the spirit of Bill to guide them, they won't be stopped so easily.

-Now you've got me pairing up Nick and Shizuka. She loves him for his strong, debonaire self, and he loves her for her TITS!!!

• Yeah, because the zombies are totally running at the same speed. Also L4D aren't reanimated corpses. They're infected humans.
  • The functional difference is perfunctory at best, in fact have we ever acutally seen a truly dead body raised? I only recall seeing living victims turned and even the character in story acknowledge it's some kind of infection driving the outbreak.
• The strain becomes weaker as it moves across the world. Imagine dropping a pebble into water. The waves become less and less violent as they disperse across the water. The same with the strain of Green Flu. Although Scientifically speaking, it probably wouldn't make sense at all. However, let's not worry about it shall we?
• I have a feeling Fanfiction of this idea would be really good or really bad.

The Outbreak occurs in the same universe as the Dead Rising series, but in an alternate timeline.

Frank West was unable to stop Carlito from blowing up the mall. The bees were released into the atmosphere and then taken by wind currents all over the world.

The whole outbreak was a terrorist attack

It seems highly unlikely for and infection like this to not have a single epicenter. Perhaps this whole thing was started as a result of a bioweapon being deployed by... let's just call the organization EVIL. Since they wanted to annihilate as many people as possible (perhaps they favor social darwinism and only want a new world order with the strongest as their subjects) so they released the gasses in all the majorly populated cities in the world. In particular, EVIL was targeting world leaders like the President of the United States, The Prime Minister of Japan, and basically any other "trustworthy" government official people might turn to to lead them. The gas spread into the atmosphere, the farther from the launch site, the weaker it got. The infected people became "zombies" and began to bite and subsequently infect the rest of the world, effectively destroying it in a matter of hours.

Now, EVIL is rounding up survivors and taking them to a zombie-free paradise they constructed in the middle of the pacific ocean. The survivors do not realize the connection of all this, and most likely will not unless Takashi and friends do a little snooping.

• Addendum: Shidou's father is a member of EVIL. He gave his son fair warning and told him to bring his "strongest" students to be rescued. That's why he was so gleeful once they escaped the school, He was going to become Daddy's right-hand man and he decides to use his influence as a teacher to make his students his mindslaves.
  • That theory can totally work. In the anime, the survivors of the American government are shown a digital map with most of the countries immediately having zombie outbreaks from Ottawa all the way to Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur.

The zombies aren't totally blind.

They didn't really spend a whole lot of time on this plot point, meaning it's entirely possible that the zombies vision isn't zero, but just very poor, say only able to see a few feet in front of them. It would somewhat explain why we don't see them walking into things and mistaking each other for food.

• Only walking into stuff is exactly what the first zombie seen did.
  • That's only because that particular zombie was trying to get at the big mass of warm bodies inside the school.
  • I think that the zombie that he (or she) is talking about is the one that followed the sound of the wet rag hitting the locker. It kept on running into said locker for the rest of the scene. This is the one when they were talking about how the zombies can't see.

First Girl Wins.

That's my simple prediction.

Shizuka is a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass.

Her Action Girl competence has been hinted in omake, it's just a matter of time before it's made canon (perhaps it already has in the manga.) She's retaining The Ditz persona that kept her profile low, and she's able to maintain it because in her years as nurse she became familiar enough with which students could survive a Zombie Apocalypse that she was able to handpick them for True Companions while making it look like a coincidence. Her moments of awesome are brief and sporadic enough that the students who haven't known her as more than a loveable idiot can't picture her any other way.

• She does have the highest body count.

Shidou is responsible for Rei's neighborhood turning against her mom

When we first Mrs. Miyamoto, she said that before she went on a supply run, they let a strange person into the walled off area. Shidou just seems like the type of guy who'd turn a neighborhood against the wife and mother of an enemy For the Evulz.

Takashi's dad had something to do with the outbreak.

I'm only really putting this up because this happened in a dream I had once where I was stuck in the middle of this anime. In the dream, Takashi's blood also contained a cure. I don't really think that the blood part is at all possible, but (although I'm not 100% sure about this) I don't think we've heard much about Takashi's dad, whereas we've heard a lot about every other parent.

Misuzu's actions early on were just signs of cowardice and paranoia.

Misuzu most likely didn't mean to kill Toshimi. Think about it: there are actually movies out there with talking zombies (e.g. The Return of the Living Dead and Zombi 3D), and Misuzu was just being too cautious, having seen The Return of the Living Dead with Toshimi the night before. Seriously, if you saw The Return of the Living Dead before a Zombie Apocalypse hit your neighborhood, would not the line between friend and foe blur before your very eyes? And then there's some evidence in the first episode of the anime that shows Misuzu may have regretted killing Toshimi out of cowardice and paranoia and on impulse right before her own head got crushed by zombies she had unknowingly attracted with her racket.

The series will have an epic conclusion and a Bittersweet Ending.

At the end of the elementary school arc, Shido makes enough noise near Rei to attract the zombies to her. Alice pushes her away but gets bitten in the process. With her dying breath, she asks Takashi to make sure her body rests in everlasting peace. Takashi reluctantly obliges, putting a bullet in her head after she passes and vowing to make sure Shido pays for forcing him to do such a thing to her. Upon seeing Alice's dead body, Rei finally decides enough's enough and goes Dirty Harry on Shido, vowing to not kill him if he spills the beans as to who disgraced her mother and how the Outbreak began. Shido confesses that Kurokami spread the rumors about Kiriko to her neighbors and that it was his own father that started the Outbreak by infecting a Dietman with a virus called "Death Zero" and sending him to kill Rei in a further attempt to get back at Chief Tadashi Miyamoto. Rei promptly cuffs him to a nearby post and fires a gun into the air, and when he protests that she said she'd let him live, she says, "I only said I wouldn't kill you." Takashi and his group leave Shido to die without Rei getting her hands dirty in the process and return Alice's dead body, and that of her father, to the Maresato residence to be buried in the backyard.

Then Takashi and his party prepare for the final standoff against Ichiro Shido and confront him in his headquarters. What follows is an epic final battle against Dietman Shido and a bunch of zombies in the vicinity. Saeko faces Dietman Shido and gets stabbed in the forehead during the confrontation. Shizuka flees and is devoured. When Dietman Shido asks why Saeko is smiling, she replies, "Because thanks to you, I can NEVER become one of Them! EVER!!!!" She then kicks Dietman Shido into a waiting zombie mob just as a separate one takes Saya and Kohta. Takashi and Rei clear out the rest, and Kohta gives Saya his gun to Mercy Kill him with. While taking Saeko's body with them, Takashi and Rei bring Saya back to her own residence, where we learn that her parents, sadly, did not make it. Saya smiles, though, since at least she now knows she'll be reunited with her parents anyway. After her passing, Takashi shoots her in the head and does the same for her parents. He then lays their bodies out and burns them in a funeral pyre. Afterward, Takashi and Rei bury Saya's ashes, and those of her parents, in the Takagi family grave, also burying Saeko's body in a spot near the Busujima family grave while at the cemetery. The two then return to the lab where the Death Zero experiments were conducted and find a formula the scientists had made for the cure right before the Outbreak inhibited production of the cure when the scientists were devoured. Takashi and Rei decide to make enough vials of the cure to eventually end the reign of Them.

Kouta Hirano is in fact Kouta Hirano

The Zombie Apocalypse inspired him to write Hellsing.

• Explains Hellsing’s gratuitous Gun Porn.
  • This becomes a hilarious prospect considering Hellsing Ultimate Abridged. Namely, that following this WMG's logic, Kouta ended up writing about how the outbreak began in the first place. This also brings one to question if any of Kouta's friends in the Zombie Apocalypse get self-inserted into Hellsing. Kouta himself (the gun-toting asskicker) becomes Alucard. Takashi becomes Walter, (since they're friends and fellow asskickers) Saya becomes Integra (keeping with Kouta being smitten with her and serving her one way or another,) Shizuka becomes Seras (because breasts,) and... that's all I can come up with.

Saya Takagi is secretly a Gamer Chick

• Despite allegedly hating nerds and anything else resembling them Saya regularly makes remarks that would really only make sense for someone seriously into that kind of thing. ("What period is your character sheet from?!")
  • Might be overcompensation to cover up her own geeky hobbies?

Kouta and Saeko will have at least one mini-arc dedicated to bloodshed and friendship

• Come on. These are the two biggest Blood Knights in the entire series, respectively at long and short range. At some point, these two will be separated from the group, and have to fight through entire hordes to make it back alive. They will, of course. But in the process form a bond of unlikely friendship, united through bloodshed. It is at this point I expect Saeko to get a Chainsaw Katana while Kouta gets a Gatling gun, but one thing at a time.

The weapon Alice will wind up with...

• is the crossbow that was mentioned way back in the apartment. Little to no recoil, cannot be kept loaded and thus far reduced chance of an accident, and with her bike might be able to easily recover her bolts.
  • You do know how ridonkulously hard it is to load one of those right?
    • Unless it's a lever-action, or adapted to lever action. Such crossbows are quite real.

High School of the Dead is set in the world of The Walking Dead

• One can only wonder how each set of characters would fare in the other's setting.

Magic exists

• and either The Magic Came Back or it was under The Masquerade. They aren't any sort of virus, but a curse; this also explains why they're so much stronger than is reasonable (biological panic strength or not, no number of dead bodies should be able to knock an iron gate out of stone moorings) and why the entire world came down with it at once (it was released in a deliberate attack by those responsible, from a large number of initial victims). If those behind starting it also specifically targeted world leaders, that also explains why the heavily fortified US White House was nonetheless unable to hold off Them. And some sort of latent magical capacity may explain the enormously inflated ability and competence of the protagonists and the few helpful adults over everyone else.
  • Not entirely a WMG. Daisuke Sato explicitly states that the zombies are supernatural creatures.

The series is an allegory of The '60s

• The infector at the gate represents Lee Harvey Oswald; the infection of Teshima represents the JFK assassination; the epidemic represents communism and anarchy (Lee Harvey Oswald defected to the CCCP a few years before the assassination and was apparently a Castro sympathizer); Hisashi Igo represents the assassination witnesses who were allegedly offed when they got too close to revealing the truth; the zombies attacking the stoner in chapter 1 of the manga represent the cancerous effects of smoking (as revealed in 1964); Coach Takayama represents the LSD users who believe themselves to be invincible and/or can't tell dreams from reality; Kazu Ishii represents the soldiers who died bravely fighting the Charlies in 'Nam; Shido represents Charles Manson; his students on the Orgybus represent a twisted cross between the Manson family and the hippies of the late '60s; the punks on the bridge represent the Kent State students if they faced high-pressure water instead of gunfire; the Takagi family represents authority and the right wing (obviously); the protesters at Takagi Manor represent the draft dodgers; et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Alucard is the reason for the events of the story happening. "They", are his ghouls.

Observe the first few minutes.

HOTD is a thinly-veiled love letter to Eurocult

• How in the name of Lucio Fulci has nobody within the Eurocult fandom yet noticed a strange connection between HOTD and Eurocult?◊ The zombies, for example, are representative of the Eurohorror genre; the bath scene at Minami's place and the goings-on aboard the Orgybus are representative of the Eurosleaze genre; and the unavoidable point that there's a war going on (in this case, between humans and Them), complete with war-themed imagery here and there, is representative of macaroni combat. I can't put my finger on where the Spaghetti Western genre would fit in, though...

HOTD takes place in the same universe as World War Z

Hirano's hallucination in "Drifters of the Dead"

...is the only one we weren't allowed to see. But, given the general context of the OVA, along with the fact he was humping a broomstick the next morning, and the relationship dynamics within the group, it isn't hard to guess what it was about.

Hirano thought he was banging Saya.

Just as Takashi had hallucinated about getting it on with Saeko and how Saeko and Rei wound up frenching each other, in the nude, while each thought the other was Takashi.

What to do about the future of the series

• Now that Daisuke Sato has unfortunately passed away, they would have to figure out a way to continue or conclude the series if it goes out of hiatus.

If someone else takes over as the writer, we might get spin-offs set in Canada and America.

Americans did appear at one point, and Ottawa was mentioned.

Saeko was a serial killer before the outbreak.

She takes to being a Blood Knight really quickly, everyone else is kind of struggling with the ethics, even Takashi is constantly reaffirming to himself and the others that they need to do morally questionable things to surivive, but Saeko just takes to it like a duck to water. She was a Honey Trap Serial Killer before everything went to hell.

The anime/manga takes place in the same universe as Shaun of the Dead, and both outbreaks are linked in more ways then one

It is possible that England and Japan suffered the same outbreak due to a strategically placed infection targeting major national capitals; the idea being that the resulting chaos and bloodshed could result in a more cowed and easily ruled populace which could lead to governments receiving more power. It explains how the military were able to mobilise so quickly and quash the dead, at least in London; they were preparing to crush it. The shadowy group responsible just never expected the US, Russia, China and North Korea to start a nuclear war over it, nor did they expect the virus to spread as far as it did.

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