Highschool of the Dead Episode 1 (thoughts?)

Lupus said:
You can't be serious, if this didn't have zombies in it, no one would give a **** about it.
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If it didn't have zombies in it, it would be a completely different show. They're sort of the reason the show exists. It's like saying "If Gundam didn't have mecha in it..."
 
ilmaestro said:
100% agree with the use of cliche over trope in this instance, fwiw. Trope is a massive buzzword from the last couple of years that now gets way over-used to the point of misuse.
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And cliche isn't? Cliche is easily far more overused than trope (just like generic).

Trope is correctly used here because the typical aspects you see in a zombie flick are present and are mostly seen in a positive light because they are what people expect from a zombie story. Cliches have negative connotations, and are a lot less common than tropes.
Professor Irony said:
VVV I stand by my use of "cliché". Dictionary.com has my back on this one.
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That's because you're looking at the aspects as a negative, since, like I said, cliche has negative connotations. Zombie flick fans will most certainly tell you they can only see the typical elements as good, and will tell you that these are in fact tropes (which they are). Not to mention you're using the word cliche too broadly.
 
Lupus said:
Let's just be honest here. Summer anime season of 2010, 80% of it is absolute garbage which you wouldn't waste your time with, unless of course you're ilmaestro.
kruemelmonsteryn0.gif
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A little low blow to be mentioning ilmaestro.

So this having zombies and some ****** fan service it's suddenly getting a lot of praise and being lauded as "Anime to watch this year"
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I definitely agree that titling it 'Anime of the Year' is far too much of a stretch. If anything, House of Five Leaves deserve that title, just on three episodes alone of what I've watched. It's a great first episode [and what can you expect from the director of Death Note, who can make great first episode], so it's a shoulder above many other anime of the season.

I watched it and slightly enjoyed it, but come on now. You can't be serious, if this didn't have zombies in it, no one would give a **** about it.
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If you're going to apply that argument, we might as well apply it to many mecha anime. "No one would give a **** about Gundam if it didn't have Mecha'. And judging by the manga, it apparently goes farther than 'we're in a zombie apocalyptic scenario', as it does play on psychological elements and magnifying character's flaws. Yes, the female protagonist annoys me, but at least she can hold her own, which can hardly be said for many other female protagonists in 'zombie apocalyptic scenario'

It all boils down to "Did the first episode impress you? Did you enjoy it?". If yes, then carry on and see if the potential is bigger than it is. If not, drop it and carry on.
 
Zelgadis said:
That's because you're looking at the aspects as a negative, since, like I said, cliche has negative connotations. Zombie flick fans will most certainly tell you they can only see the typical elements as good, and will tell you that these are in fact tropes (which they are). Not to mention you're using the word cliche too broadly.
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That's a very sweeping view of zombie-film fans you've got there, but more importantly...

I think somebody needs a hug. :)
 
Zelgadis said:
ilmaestro said:
100% agree with the use of cliche over trope in this instance, fwiw. Trope is a massive buzzword from the last couple of years that now gets way over-used to the point of misuse.
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And cliche isn't? Cliche is easily far more overused than trope (just like generic).

Trope is correctly used here because the typical aspects you see in a zombie flick are present and are mostly seen in a positive light because they are what people expect from a zombie story. Cliches have negative connotations, and are a lot less common than tropes.
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Tropes (as they seen now. I don't even think people used the word in the same way at the time when the classic zombie movies were made) become cliche via over-use, this is the specific point the Prof was trying to make. That it uses "old", stereotypical tropes - cliches. The word "trope" does not imply any sort of positivity or negativity, nor does it require it.

No-one on the internet says cliche any more, trope is probably the biggest buzzword in anime and video game fandom of the last five years, largely since tvtropes became such a popular site.

Not to mention the quite frankly outrageous egotism contained within the sentence "edited for vocabulary".
 
ilmaestro said:
No-one on the internet says cliche any more, trope is probably the biggest buzzword in anime and video game fandom of the last five years, largely since tvtropes became such a popular site.
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ANN's staff and users use the word cliche (even more as of late) so much I've abolished it from my vocabulary (along with trope). Nowadays I'd rather stick to "generic"... and very rarely (when trying to be objective). Because like it or not, once a person reaches a certain amount of anime, a lot, and really a lot of stuff will seem generic, and what seems generic to me is certainly not generic to a lot of anime fans. This is a one way path in case you watch lots of anime, specially since the Japanese do use their stories and plots over and over (Hollywood is no exception).
A good reference would ANN's current Summer Guide.

"Cliched" is hardly a reason to rate an anime lower nowadays, unless it's extremely bad. The word itself is like a ghost word for me: completely unreliable.
 
Ah, your first mistake was reading ANN, I guess. ;)

But I agree that the use of cliches is not inherently a bad thing - there are reasons that these things have been used so much over time. What I like about HsOTD is how it uses its (ostensibly cliched, in the world of anime) highschool setting to play around with certain (ostensibly cliched, in the world of zombie movies) things - for example, instead of grizzled 'nam vet gunshop owner, you have crazy gun-ota highschool loser.
 
I just finished watching the first episode And yeah.. this first ep pretty much showed what you can expect from people in a zombie-esque situation. MOST will think of themselves / their loved ones first. Anybody else can f*ck off and become a meat-distraction. this first ep also showcases a rather excellant rule for survival :
"when **** hits the fan(in a viral / infected sort of way), get the hell away from big groups of people. fast."
Overall it was very enjoyable and i will follow it and see where it goes :D
 
I enjoyed it barring the fan service. If there were less panties shots for the hell of it, then this is something I would recommend to my non anime viewing friends.
 
I never really made it past the first half of the episode.
Neither did my friend.

Kinda feel the only reason why people think this is so good is because it has zombies in it.
 
zeldafreak said:
Don't get me wrong, i don't think it's that good, I just enjoy zombies lol.
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Yeah! I understand that but I believe there are people going around saying its the best anime this year.
 
I'd say it will be the most popular of the year. Popularity usually translates well into money.

Quality wise? I'd pick Angel Beats! and Shiki for that category.

Someone posted the translated interview with the director of the show. I thought it was quite funny.

"We don't intend to forget Breasts-Butts-Thighs even in a world full of zombies"
"We want to continue adding as many breast bounces as possible"
"We think people that come to watch this anime come to watch the breasts"
"I've never seen any anime with so much breast bouncing as this one"
"The staff has gotten used to it and are bouncing those breasts without me having to say anything"
"I'm trying to make this anime in a way that I, when I was a middle schooler, would have definitely bought"
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Kei-kun said:
I'd say it will be the most popular of the year. Popularity usually translates well into money.

Quality wise? I'd pick Angel Beats! and Shiki for that category.

Someone posted the translated interview with the director of the show. I thought it was quite funny.

"We don't intend to forget Breasts-Butts-Thighs even in a world full of zombies"
"We want to continue adding as many breast bounces as possible"
"We think people that come to watch this anime come to watch the breasts"
"I've never seen any anime with so much breast bouncing as this one"
"The staff has gotten used to it and are bouncing those breasts without me having to say anything"
"I'm trying to make this anime in a way that I, when I was a middle schooler, would have definitely bought"
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And we'd rate this as an 18, when it's target audience is 12-15.
Fanservice is a shounen (not seinen) thing afterall.
It looks like Koihime musou (game not anime), probably like the anime would look if it had a high budget.

Is it popular? The popular shows this season would be Okami-san and Strike Witches.
My metric results :p (dowloads of most popular fansub/stream rip/RAW)
36656(ep 1) 27784 (ep 2), okami
16365 (ep 1), SW (RAW lol) CR rip is ~8k
29527(ep1) HStD (fansub, not ripped ones)

oh it's doing better than expected, maybe the high budget will save it. The otaku didn't seem to care much for it tho'.
 
Heh, I just caught a better translation ~ not amateurish.
“I Want Jiggling Breasts in Every Scene” said:
What would it be like if a school was overrun by zombies?

… There’d be the breasts of a hot teacher bouncing around all over the place, wouldn’t there? She’d be trying to save her class from all kinds of trouble.

I try to keep this in mind when making the anime.

[...]

“Even if the world is swarming with zombies, let us not forget the breasts and thighs!” – those are our watchwords.

[...]

I want to keep making lots of scenes full of jiggling breasts as much as possible. We really think the people who come to watch this are in it for the boobs.

Currently we are constantly researching how to better portray realistically the jiggling breast.

[...]

Yes, it’s all about the breast jiggle. I’ve never even seen an anime with as much jiggle as this. We’re still in production for the remaining episodes but we’re going to keep at it with the jiggling.

Tell us what motivated you to make Highschool of the Dead?

I’m aiming for something I would have bought myself in middle school. At present, this would definitely have been a “buy” for me. I can feel my schoolboy heart rejoicing even now.
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Reaper gI said:
Is it popular? The popular shows this season would be Okami-san and Strike Witches.
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I must confess that I thought about North America when I said that (and perhaps Japan... I'm really curious about how it turns out in Japan). That metric may not be as reliable... Anime Network is streaming HSOTD in the US... episode one for free (which means a lot of them decided to support that instead), but episode 2 will be for paid subscribers (more fansub downloads). And another lot decided to wait for Sentai's release.
The raw download is probably the result of the Japanese downloading SW. lol
I didn't expect Okami-san to be that popular... but how many of us can endure that narrator?

Btw, I just checked the site I usually visit and there's about 100k downloads for the first episode. About nearly 50k were raws.

It's a good thing though. We need to keep the masses entertained otherwise they might invade our favs with their jiggling breasts.
 
Reaper gI said:
oh it's doing better than expected, maybe the high budget will save it. The otaku didn't seem to care much for it tho'.
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Are you talking about High School of the Dead here? I'd speculate that its lack of popularity amongst otaku is because the girls have breasts. And there's no moeeee~~~~
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Reaper gI said:
oh it's doing better than expected, maybe the high budget will save it. The otaku didn't seem to care much for it tho'.
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Are you talking about High School of the Dead here? I'd speculate that its lack of popularity amongst otaku is because the girls have breasts. And there's no moeeee~~~~
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Lack of moe would be the problem. As I said visualy it looks like Koihime Musou, which they liked.

Otaku shows tend to have pleanty of variation, don't know of any that have only (or even mostly) flat female characters.

The shows that sell best tend to be the ones animated best, this has high budget so shouldn't do that baddly. It is a (I assume) plotless splatterfest tho', that will count against it.

Kei-kun said:
I didn't expect Okami-san to be that popular... but how many of us can endure that narrator?

Btw, I just checked the site I usually visit and there's about 100k downloads for the first episode. About nearly 50k were raws.
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Okami-san was the second most anticipated show this season after SW2, partly due to the voice cast. There will be people watching it for Satomi Arai (the narator) especialy after Railgun.

Leach sites get that many, I gave the numbers form the version (torrent) the fansubbers themselves put up.
 
I assume it will do fine in all markets. Not-ADV picked well for the US. I like the idea of the fanservice but I'm skipping this show after seeing the original trailer - zombie stuff always ends up boring me.

R
 
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