I was prepared to watch a
slice of life anime and maybe be tickled by all the cuteness involved. And it was just like that... at the start.
Takeya Yuki,
Ebisuzawa Kurumi,
Wakasa Yuri and
Naoki Miki are all part of the
School Living Club. Their primary activity involves actually living in school, with the aim of immersing themselves fully in school life. Yuki is the club's most outgoing member, waking up later than the rest of the club members, often seen chasing the puppy
Taromaru all over the school, and is usually the one who suggests fun activities for the club to experience. She also spends a lot of time with her teacher and the School Living Club adviser
Sakura Megumi, or simply
Megu-ne to Yuki.
Since I decided to forego checking out summaries or plots before watching recent
anime titles (as was the case for
Ore Monogatari!!), I chose
Gakkou Gurashi! specifically because it seemed like a series that you could just breeze through. Little did I know that I would end the first episode feeling entertained, intrigued and slightly traumatized.
Aside from introducing the characters, majority of the first episode is dedicated to the antics of Yuki, who seem to require a lot of looking after, which is probably why Miki's apparent concern for her didn't raise any red flags in my viewing. They talk about how the school is a great place for the School Living Club because it's self-sustaining, with its rooftop garden, solar panels and water filtration system, all of which I thought was cool but didn't really deter in my enjoyment of the moe confection unfolding on my screen.
Then you get to the end of the episode, wherein Miki once again expresses her concern over Yuki's cheerful attitude in her classroom. And we finally see what Miki sees. Instead of Yuki's point of view where she is happily chatting with classmates in a bright classroom, she stands talking alone in the middle of what could only be described as the site of a bloodbath.
And it's revealed that the school grounds is overrun by zombies.
What. The. Hell.
Zombies!? So, the upbeat lead character is crazy?! And why are the other members just chill about her delusion? What in the world was up with the
opening's cutesy song and video that my one-year old daughter just danced to if the series was about zombies?... were just some of the questions that ran through my mind at episode's end.
Yet, all the craziness somehow and suddenly elevated
Gakkou Gurashi! in my esteem. Yes, I was traumatized, but I sure as hell wasn't going to drop it from my viewing list. I just had to see how the series would play out.
It's easy enough to understand that Yuki is suffering from a form of PTSD that caused her to block out the realness of the zombie invasion they are currently trying to survive from, and that the other girls are playing along with her delusions, because really, they already have enough on their plates and adding a hysterical girl to the mix isn't just feasible. So, they humor her when Yuki goes to class and suggest activities that they can participate in. In this way, the series, despite the craziness of the girls' lives, depicts how they are able to experience all the usual Japanese high school activities, from sports meets, field trips, tests of courage, to a day traipsing around in their swim wear. All of these occur while Kurumi lugs around her shovel, which she uses to eliminate zombies that they encounter.
Gakkou Gurashi! felt like a genre mashup experiment, with silliness, drama and nail-biting suspense mixed in varying doses every episode, though you do notice that the seriousness eclipses the moe in the last episodes. While the girls maintain a facade of calmness, their stories are eventually told, giving the audience a chance to be familiar with their fears. The stories, however, are told in piecemeal, especially since the series doesn't necessarily follow a linear storytelling approach. The timeline jumps based on who's making a recollection or whose background story is the focus of the episode. The non-linear storytelling does end up adding to the impact of the different plot reveals of the series.
I feel bad that I had to reveal that zombies are in the series, but leaving that out would leave me with nothing to write about. But there's so much more to
Gakkou Gurashi! than learning about why the girls live in school or that zombies are roaming outside. The series tackles plenty of serious themes, such as differing views on survival, deciding on whether it's better to be killed by your friend instead of becoming a zombie, or how even the most determined can falter when faced with the specter of a friendly face. What the girls do or decide in those situations would ultimately be the core of the series.
Yes,
Gakkou Gurashi! is cute (despite its morbidity). But it isn't a fluff piece that one can breeze through as I originally thought. It makes an emotional impact and I can't even promise that you will feel completely happy at its end. When you're dealing with zombies and teenage girls, the most you can hope for is a bittersweet ending.
Gakkou Gurashi! is something else, alright. It was a great series to watch, and one I can easily label as a
must-watch. Never mind that I finished watching the series weeks ago, but still feel traumatized by it.
Happy viewing!!
