High School Of The Dead Ep11

All right, so Ep10 wasn't the most sterling example of the wonderment that can be High School of the Dead.  I'll grant you that, but it was important for all that "characterization" stuff the kids talk about these days.  I'll tell ya, back in my day we didn't cotton to newfangled concepts like that, no sir.  We'd gotten along perfectly well for hundreds of years without fancy-schmancy character advancement or engrossing plots or witty repartee.  We had fanservice and episode-long powerup sequences, and that was all right with us.  But now!  Now, you can't have a show without half the cast becoming fully actualized people along the way.  Sheer folly!  That's why I appreciate shows like HSotD; it's a throwback to the days where we were lucky to have any anime at all.  Just with better art.

See?  I told you it was going to be a 747 of doomy doom!  I think it's safe to say that President Skippy Henderson is no longer amongst the living... but he may be amongst the unliving, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

If nothing else, you've got to hand it to the unnamed (and unseen) pilot of AF1.  Imagine... you're flying along, you've got a jumbo jet full of politicians, media, and the living dead (but I repeat myself), pretty much every airport in the world that's able to handle a 747 is probably full of zombies, if you even have the fuel to get to any of them.  Sooner or later, those that wish to eat your brains, as well as zombies, will be smashing at the door to the flight deck... and the one chance you've got is to put your jumbo jet on the ground.  That he was able to do so at all is pretty amazing.  That the plane is in relatively such good shape is astonishing.  I mean, the plane is still recognizable, the wings are still attached (well, mostly), it's a safe guess that the fuselage didn't break until the post-landing fire consumed much of the plane's spine... for all intents and purposes, that thing is in one piece.  Even the engines are still attached.  That's some mighty fine flyin' right there... too bad the pilot and co-pilot are surely zombiechow.

Yet this guy is still alive and kickin'.  There ain't no justice in this world.  Not that the other people on the bus would agree with me...

...'cause he's got them believing that they're the Saviors of the World, their pure spirits and bodies (particularly their bodies) will guide us all out of the dark.  He is honored just to be associated with them, and their pure spirits (and bodies) will clean the taint of his adult soul.  He's not worthy, blah blah blah.  Of course, they eat it up.  That he turns the bus into ORGYBUS during "rest time" surely has nothing to do with it, heavens no.

Yes, I said ORGYBUS.  This is HSotD we're talking about here, after all...

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High School Of The Dead Ep10

So last time, we pretty much had an epic episode, what with the Saeko backstory and the Saeko swordplay and the Saeko BSOD and the Saeko gets splashed by lots of water twice and the Saeko ginsuing zombies and the psycho Saeko and the Saeko Saeko Saeko Saeko Saeko.  Saeko.  I guess what I'm saying is that a Saekocentric episode is pretty much as awesome as this show can get, more or less.  So how in the world can the production staff hope to follow up such marvelousness?

Why, with fanservice, of course.  How else would HSotD deal with an issue?  And it throws it at us so quickly that I had to break my introduction formatting (two or three pictures, followed by a Title screen), otherwise The Pond would suddenly become NSFW on the front page.  We can't have that, no no no, this is a family blog.  Mostly.  More or less.  How many of you realized that I even followed my own formatting rules?  It's fine if you didn't, it's not like I advertise it or anything, but these things ain't just thrown together on a wing and a prayer, y'know.  They're keenly thought out, finely detailed, nigh-on exquisite gems of literary excess. 

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High School Of The Dead Ep09

Some of you may remember that, last episode, everybody was about to die when the fire brigade arrived, led by Saya's mother.  The Fellowship was saved, hurray!  Except for Saeko and Takashi. 

Them, they got separated in one final suicidal attempt to distract the zombie horde from their friends, which failed miserably, then when the Cavalry came riding over the metaphorical hill, they couldn't be rescued.  Way to go, heroes!  Now they've got to make their way across zombie-filled territory without supplies or assistance, all in an attempt to make it to Saya's house.  Still, they're the two best melee fighters in The Fellowship, they should have a decent chance if they're careful.

...and then they jump off a railing.  Takashi lands wrong, sprains an ankle, and is eaten a few moments later when he can't outrun a zombie.  Saeko, having no idea where she needs to go now that her "native guide" is dead, gets lost and is trapped in a dead-end alleyway.  Her corpse later reanimates and is casually shot in the face by Hirano, who doesn't even realize who it once was.  So she's got that going for her.  Which is nice.

Still... nimble little minx, isn't she?

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High School Of The Dead Ep08

It was only an episode ago that The Fellowship came to the conclusion that they had to be ruthless to survive, and heaven help those who weren't them.  Immediately after deciding that, they galloped off on their trusty steed Humvee-kun and rescued a young girl from the clutches of a front yard full o' zombies.  So much for ruthlessness.  To be fair, however, if they hadn't've (am I the only person who uses that double contraction?) saved Alice, there's no question but that I'd've (again!) sent HSotD packing, with nary a sou to its name and good riddance.  So now they've got a child and a Yappydog with them.  Great, just great, that'll really help their survival chances.  So what wonders does High School of the Dead bring us with this new episode?  Shall they rescue two koalas, a ferret and an angry llama from the local zoo?  And just what in the world is the Japanese Ministry of Environment Supernatural Disaster Countermeasures Division doing to stop the zombie plague?  It seems like this would be right up their alley.

In my years of watching this anime stuff, I've discovered that any time you see the White House or Air Force One in an episode, nothing good is going to come of it.  Mark my words, readers, and mark them well: this is to be no ordinary jumbo jet.  It is to be a 747 OF DOOM!  DOOMY DOOM!

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, Skippy Henderson.  President Henderson has a problem.  Y'see, his wife and half of the Presidential aides became zombies on AF1, shortly after takeoff.  His SecState was bitten, and is in the process of turning as we speak.  Worse still, the entire press corps entourage turned as well... though to be honest, it seems to be an improvement in their case.  Somewhere along the way, President Skippy got himself bitten on the hand and he's not feeling all that perky.  SecState, doing his level best to advise his Skippy-In-Chief before he becomes a member of the Shambling Horde himself, says that the US should officially announce National State of Emergency Tactical Regulation 666D.  Which, I assume, calls for kittens and balloons to be handed out to all citizens, with instructions on how to play with them for maximum calming effect.  Or the firing of ICBMs at countries aiming at the US, one of the two. 

President Skippy can't decide, and while SecState goes all grnfgrrrngrfzombiebrainnnns, we get a look at the current situation map.  Europe is Zombie Heaven.  Brazil is gone, much of Africa too.  Japan and China are going down.  A look at the insert map shows some interesting things going on in the US.  There's a huge outbreak in NYC and Washington DC, not that anybody could really tell.  Chicago, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have anything much, while St Louis has gone all zombo.  Must be all the Cardinals fans mixing up the sensors.  I'm amused, however, by the small outbreak in Minneapolis.  "Yah hey dere, lingonberry goes great with braaaaaaaains dontchaknow?"

Minnesota zombies.  I'm scared to death, you betcha.

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High School Of The Dead Ep07

Last episode, we experienced the quintessential HSotD experience.  If someone came up to me and said "what is HSotD all about," Ep06 is the one I'd show them.  If you remember correctly, and I think you do, The Fellowship had taken refuge in the house of Boing-chan's friend, up-armed themselves, oh and the wimmenfolk took a bath.  At the end of it, however, a barking dog had drawn a horde o' undead to their doorstep.

Meet another J Random Survivor.  We will call him Skippy for the duration of his stay with us.  Skippy is armed with an over-under shotgun, what many might call the perfect zombie-hunting weapon.  These unnamed "many" would be wrong, because over-under shotguns are usually single-shot weapons.  Well, dual-shot as there are two single-shot barrels, but Skippy here, quite wisely I'd think, is using both barrels on his undead targets.  Anyway, Skippy, possessing all the tactical genius of a fly that landed on a copy of Sun Tzu's "Art Of War" once, is running around blasting zombies and making whole metric farktons of noise in the process.  Drawing more undead to him.  Seeing that he has to reload after every shot, this may not be the brightest idea he's ever had.  Eventually, the inevitable occurs: he fumbles a shell.  At this point, near as I can tell, a shotgunner has four options: 1) let it go, man, 'cause it's gone, and shoot one barrel; 2) pull another shell out of your pocket; 3) feets don't fail me now;  4) come to a complete halt, bend down to pick the dropped shell up off the ground, and let the zombies gather around you.  What would you do? 

Since I've named him Skippy, you can guess which choice he made.  But he picked up the hell outta that shell, and a good job it was, too!  It was the best job of picking something up off the ground that you ever did see, going back to when some kid named Arthur pulled a sword outta a random rock somewhere.  Art got a kingdom out of it, though.  Skippy here, well, at least he makes an appearance in this episodic review.  That's gotta count for something!

The death of Skippy is also noted by Hirano, Saeko and Takashi, who are up on the balcony munching popcorn and generally enjoying the show, safely far above the gathering hordes.  Well, not really.  They note that "it's getting worse" out there.  Our Hero is all for going out there and trying to save everybody.  Saeko gently but firmly points out to him that he's a FRIGGIN' MORON.  Not only are they gonna have to deal with the undead hordes, but sooner or later, living people will notice that there's an awful nice safe spot up there and come a-callin'... and they don't have the resources to save them all.  Or even themselves, quite possibly.

Oh yeah.  Forgot about that little detail, didn't you?

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Random Anime Picture #69: That Was... Odd

-Nazo no Kanojo X Ep01

What a seriously quirky show.  I'm not even going to attempt to summarize it, I'll send you to Mauser's place for that.  If you can get past the drool, there's potentially quite a little gem here. 

(sarcasm)
There's absolutely no symbolism involved in the show at all whatsoever.
(/sarcasm)

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High School Of The Dead Ep06

As you may remember, last episode was quite the action-packed lil' thing.  We met the Japanese Police Force's fifth-best sniper, for example.  We saw four teenage delinquents act all delinquently, and get water-cannoned into the river for their troubles, and good riddance to 'em, too.  I know I was never a jerk such as them back when I was a teenager, some 25 years ago.  Now, I was a well-behaved lad, raised right and all that sort of thing, but c'mon... teenagers arguing with police in armored vans armed with high-pressure water cannon deserves to be taught a lesson by Chuck D.  As opposed to Chuck D... that'd be an entirely different type of lesson.  Though, if you think about it, it'd be exactly the same.  Anyway, Shido-sensei formed his little cult of personality, the larger portion of the Fellowship of the Ring Our Heroes bailed out of the bus, but not before Hirano went all Rambo on Shido... is there a word for last-letter-of-a-word-alliteration?  After they left the bus, the smaller group of Our Heroes appeared out of nowhere just in time to clean up a zombie horde... and the Fellowship was rejoined.  They then decamped to an apartment nearby, apparently owned by Boing-chan's friend, the fifth-best sniper in the Japanese Police force.    Which is where we pick up the action, more or less.

Well, actually, we pick up the action on a nearby bridge which looks very much like the Dan Ryan "Expressway" (aka I-90/94) around 5pm on a Friday afternoon... and how a 14-lane highway can have traffic problems is entirely beyond me.  It may have something to do with the dismounted police officers blocking gaps between cars to form a defensive barrier against encroaching Packers fans zombies.  I mean, in the show.  On the Dan Ryan, the cops wouldn't last a minute.  Getting back to the show, while I applaud the efforts of the shield-wielding police, shouldn't they have adopted a better defensive position, tactically?  Using the cars is clever, but please note that the four-man groups are unable to support each other easily.  The cars are in the way!  If the zombies come en masse, the police are screwed.  And I've just dissected a defensive position to determine its effectiveness against zombie attack.  Thank heavens for the internet.

Oh, but they've got a dog with them, never mind.  Lil' Yappy up there is promptly eaten by a zombie.  No, no, sorry, no, Yappy goes running away.  The undead don't seem to care... or do they?  Hmmm... could that have been foreshadowing?  Bwah-hah-ha-hahahahahahahahahaahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Meanwhile, at the safehouseapartment, the girls prepare to take a bath.  Wait, what?

Cue the sirens and put on your civil defense helmets, HSotD has gone to Fanservice Condition Red!  I say again, Fanservice Condition Red!  Oh god help us, it's a bathtub scene.  This business will get out of control... it will get out of control, and we will be lucky to live through it.

It should go without saying that everything beyond this point should be considered Not Safe For Work.


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It Was With The Best Of Intentions

Dragging myself home from another long day at the Duck U Bookstore, I had planned to finish my writeup of High School of the Dead Ep06.  That is, after I had dinner of course... that sammitch that rules all other sammitches: the Reuben.  As I munched, I watched what was turning out to be a bad movie.  As a lover of bad movies (see: Wonderduck's collection of 122 MST3K episodes), I stuck with it... and it was a very bad movie indeed.  When Samuel L MF'ing Jackson is overacting so badly that even a Samuel L Jackson fan is astonished by it, you know there's something wrong with the movie.  Anyway, when the movie came to its welcome end, it was almost time for the Bears to make their first round pick in the 2012 NFL Draft.  When THAT was done, I took a shower, and then it was now.  1030pm, and I've yet to type a single word for the Ep06 writeup all night.

Fortunately, it's about half-completed already.  One last big push, and it'll be done.  My guess?  Friday or Saturday, hopefully Friday.  It should be worth the wait, I think. 

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High School Of The Dead Ep05

So, last episode we saw Takashi and Rei get their photo taken by a recon plane, rob two policemen and a gas station, and leave a survivor for the undead.  Oh, and about a third of the episode was taken up by a recap.  Which would be like this paragraph turning out to be seven hundred words long... don't worry, I'm not gonna even try to do that to you.  You want a recap of last episode, or of the show so far?  Read the episode posts!  Advantage: The Pond!  So, High School of the Dead, what wonders bring you me with Episode 05?

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking.  The crew has finished its inspection of everybody on board, and apart from Mrs Snodgrass in First Class, nobody has shown any sign of being either infected or already dead.  So as to not disturb the patrons in First Class, she has been moved to Coach.  We will be experiencing a short delay as the runway seems to have been infested with the undead... or as we up here in the cockpit call them, passengers.  Ha ha, just our little joke, we're kidding of course.  We know you have your choice of airlines, so on behalf of all of us, we thank you for flying with Oceanic Airlines today."

Sucking a destroyed zombie into an engine would be only mildly better than sucking a "live" one into an engine, but you can push dead ones off the runway.  Turning living undead into dead undead is her job, and she's quite good at it.

Her name is Rika, she lives on the second floor.  She's the fifth-best sniper in the Japanese Police Special Assault Team, which seems rather a specific ranking.  Me, I'm the third-best duck-based anime blogger whose name beings with a 'W'.  I move up to second if you only count those of us who are currently blogging HSotD.  Rika and her partner were scrambled to this unnamed "floating airport" which is pretty obviously Kansai International to help with a "terrorism" problem.  Terrorism, undead, eh, whatever.  They've got plenty of ammo, but sooner or later, they're gonna run out.  What then?  Well, she's got a friend in the city that she'll have to go find... a nurse at one of the high schools.

Well, isn't that convenient?  Subtlety, thy abbreviation is HSotD.

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The Return Of Humvee-kun!

Over two years ago, during the writeup for Ga-Rei Zero Ep11, we saw the reoccurring character of HMMWV-san killed by one of the Spirit Beasts.  But in Episode 05 of High School of the Dead, we see the return of Humvee-kun.

It's back, and it's better than ever.  Keep your eyes open for the Ep05 writeup... coming soon to a Pond near you.

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Ten Years Of Joy

April 8th, 2002 was just another day for many people.  They woke up, went about their daily business, came home, and went to sleep.  But in between waking and sleeping, some of these people were fortunate enough to watch something wonderful occur.  For it was on April 8th, 2002, that Azumanga Daioh premiered on the TV Tokyo network.

I've written about Azumanga Daioh before.  It's my Favorite Anime Series Of All Time, and it was also the subject of my first bit of anime writing, way back in 2005.  In fact, it was shortly after I wrote that 2005 post that Big Papa Pixy offered me a spot in MuNuVia, so I've always thought that this blog owes its existence to the show.  There's no way I'd still be blogging so many years later if I was still stuck in the Blogspot ghetto.

While AzuDai was not the first anime I'd ever seen, it was the first that made me appreciate that the genre could be something more than just mere cartoons.  Pretty impressive, considering that the first time I watched, I didn't like the show.  I only made it two episodes before I said "nah, not for me."  Some months later, I watched the first episode again... and wondered what was wrong with me the first time.  I would watch an episode a night, for this was the dark time when I had only dialup internet; a single episode would take anywhere from 12 to 16 hours to download.  But I did it, and gladly.  Besides, anybody who needed to get a hold of me knew my cellphone number anyway.  Once I had watched the series via fansubs, it became the first one I ever purchased, six DVDs at $24.99 each.  But I paid that $150 gladly.  I wasn't the only one, either. 

There's something about AzuDai that hits many people right in the happy place.  It's not a masterpiece of writing.  The animation, while very good, wasn't the best, even in 2002.  There's practically no plot to speak of.  And yet, an episode of the show is usually enough to bring a smile to anybody's face.  It may be a wistful smile, but it's there nevertheless.  In fact, it may be that wistful smile that gets to the heart of AzuDai's success.  It reminds us of what the good parts of high school were like, the day-to-day interactions with our friends, obnoxious and annoying as they have been,  the little triumphs that made things worthwhile.  The series brings us those rose-colored memories with a skill and aplomb I've not seen since, though some have come close (the Hidamari Sketch franchise and Sketchbook are two that come to mind).  Sure, the characters are a little more out-there than your circle of friends, probably, but still entirely believable.  In the end, the six girls that make up the main cast of AzuDai are more than just moving pictures on the television screen... they're people.  For the trick of pulling that off alone, the show deserves praise.  There are people out there who don't like AzuDai, or are critical of its weaknesses.  To be sure, it has faults... but they do not (or should not) detract from the whole. 

It's been ten years since Azumanga Daioh was first broadcast.  Ten years of joy.

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High School Of The Dead Ep04

If my memory is correct, last episode Our Heroes escaped from Zombie High in a mini-bus.  Along the way, they picked up Mr Shiro (a devious teacher) and what survivors from his class that remained (lickspittle whining toadies).  At the end, Rei and Takashi leave the mini-bus, then are separated from the rest of the cast by an exploding busload of flaming zombies.  They go on to find a motorcycle and head for the city.  Then they find a F-4 Phantom II and take to the skies!

...or the JASDF has made an appearance, one of the two.  Interestingly enough, a small amount of research indicates that the plane, probably a RF-4EJ, didn't take off in Japan proper.  Instead, it almost certainly flew from Okinawa, home of the Southwestern Composite Air Division, which is the only unit of the JASDF to fly the recon variant of the standard F-4.  So one could posit that, while the rest of the world is being affected, there are still some places that aren't.  Okinawa, for example.  The Falklands, certainly.  One could continue to speculate, but that's not the point here.  The point is, the authorities are trying to figure out what's going on

The picture isn't good, at least in this city.  I don't know that I would have expected fires to have broken out like this so quickly, but maybe it's the result of all those incendiary undead from last episode.  Are there armor-piercing zombies, too?  However, all hope is not lost.

For where there is life, there is hope.  Even if said life is a pair of teenage kids riding a motorcycle without helmets or even a license between them.  While I commend the pilot for his exciting flying, does the show really expect us to believe that the Japanese don't make a camera that's got a halfway decent zoom lens on it for their recon aircraft?  I mean, really?  Do the names "Nikon", "Minolta," "Konika", "Pentax" or "Canon" ring any bells?

Whatever they've got, it's got one heckuva fast shutter speed to be able to take blurless photos with the combination of the aircraft's velocity and the distance to the aiming point being so ridiculous.  At least the backseater's got decent taste in where he's got the camera focused.

But then again, this IS High School Of The Dead... what else would we expect?

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High School Of The Dead Ep03

Yes, really.  If I can, I want to get a few more episodic recaps done before the next F1 race, too. 

As you may remember from just a couple of days ago, the three pairs of survivors had made contact with each other and were making plans to rescue their family members when Rei turned on the TV...

...just in time to see a remote news team turned into hors d'oeuvres by a wave of reanimated corpses.  The reaction of the television channel to the death of their newswoman and cameraman... on camera, no less... is just about what you'd expect from the world of TV.

Is there nothing that can't be fixed by a brightly colored scene, hand-drawn by kids?  End of the world?  Zombie apocalypse?  Eh, just get more crayons!  Saeko, apparently repulsed by the color magenta, changes the channel, perhaps looking for Ninja Warrior but instead stumbling across...

...uh... CMN?  Whatever.  The Cable Mews Network anchor reports that things are going zombietime all across the planet.  Beijing is in flames.  Contact has been lost with Moscow.  London has managed to maintain control, undoubtedly because they've had experience lately, what with 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead and all.  There's looting in Paris and Rome, which means it's basically just like every other day in Paris and Rome.  Here in the US, the President is allegedly being evacuated to an aircraft carrier-based command post.  Meanwhile, A-10 Warthogs are bombing the streets of New York City.

I'm okay with this.  Really.  Do we need to have a reason to do that?  Aim for the New York Times building while you're at it... the place is full of mindless undead.  Oooh, snap! from the apolitical anime blogger!  While I'm feeling all sorts of triumphant for sticking it to Da MAN, the Pink Haired Harpy Saya is harshing everybody's groove by pointing out that they've got a pandemic on their hands... one that seems to be following a similar pattern to the 1918 Spanish Flu... or the Black Death in the 1300s.  Y'know, two pandemics that ended only because they killed people too quick for them to pass the disease on?  Except with this one, the vectors are human-sized and they walk...

With that thought ringing in your ears, sleep well tonight!

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Ga-Rei Zero Live Action A Go? Maybe!

Potentially exciting news from Japan, where it was revealed that a live action version of Ga-Rei Zero is in the works.  Brickmuppet will have more details, since he's the one who did most of the legwork on tracking it down; I just heard little rumors.  Considering the lack of information in English, I defer to his knowledge of Japanese on this one.  If it's true, I'm going to be one happy Wonderduck. 

Actually, GRZ would make a fine movie... plenty of action, drama, even a romance if they want to try and work it in.  Even if they didn't, there's plenty there to work with.  Just the main "Schoolgirl in Black vs Everybody Else" storyline would make for a fun action flick.  I'd think they'd do away with the twins, Nabuu and Nabuu, Isayama (the guy with the drills), Kazuki (the one who dies... well, one of 'em.  The guy with the multi-barrelled briefcases), Motive Power Kiri-chan and The Boss with her Rocket-powered Wheelchair of Awesome, even Kagura's friends on the swim team, all of 'em gone.  Which would be a shame, because c'mon, they're what makes GRZ so much fun.

But the Monochrome Schoolgirls and Mr Laser Weasel would surely be in there.  I wonder if they'd even bother to do the "Spiritual Beasts", and just stick with the sword-fighting.  THAT would be a huge mistake, but it would save them money on special effects.  It would also be like doing Death Note without Ryuk.  Or Evangelion without EVAs.  Or NOIR on American TV.  Oh, wait... 

I don't know that there's another franchise I'd be more willing to see Live Action-wise, come to think of it.  It's not like Kanon would be a good candidate, or HidaSketch.  You could do a Live Action version of ARIA, but it'd fail so hard I can hear the producers jumping out of windows right now.  Maybe LA Fate Stay/Night?  I'm willing to bet that Glico is more than willing to work with the production, though... particularly if there's a chance it'd get a US release.  Pocky from sea to shining sea!

UPDATE: Brickmuppet is still working on his post, but he sent me a pic of Yomi (aka "Schoolgirl In Black") that he found... click on the "more" link.

ANOTHER UPDATE: 'Muppet's post is here.  I must have misunderstood him, because he's saying it's gonna be a TV series, not a movie.  He also says that it'll start with GRZ, then go on to cover the manga, Ga-Rei.  While I'd rather see the manga turned into an anime, Live Action is perfectly okay too!  I'm sure the producers right now are saying "*whew* Wonderduck approves!  We were scared." 

THIRD UPDATE: Muppet spills the beans.  It was his idea, though, and I've got the e-mails to prove it.

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High School Of The Dead Ep02

Have you ever had a bad day?  You wake up, stub your toe, slip in the shower, can't find a pair of socks that match, dump a cup of coffee on your khakis, your customers are all grumpy, the boss screams at you for nothing, your car gets a flat, the girlfriend dumps you, and finally your bed breaks and dumps you on the cat who promptly turns you into into his personal scratching post.  By the time you stop the bleeding it's three in the morning and you have to be up in a couple of hours to do it all over again.  That's a bad day.

Then there's the day Takashi and Rei are having.  The zombie apocalypse has begun, their city is in turmoil, they've seen many of their classmates eaten, and he had to put his best friend Hisashi down after he got bitten defending Rei from their Modern Japanese teacher. 

But hey, you keep mourning the loss of your quad venti skinny 170 mocha macchiato no lid double cup.  At least they have socks that match, right?

Meanwhile back in the zombie zoo, pink-haired harpy Saya Takagi has teamed up with Kohta Hirano, overweight loser and author of the Hellsing manga, and she's not happy about it.  Of all the people in the school for her, a super-genius, to end up with... he's slow, doesn't like walking, and kinda dumb.  He wears glasses.  His socks probably don't even match.  And good lord, have you read Hellsing?  What sort of twisted mind comes up with Nazi Vampires in zeppelins destroying London?  Well, there's nothing for it...

...she'll just have to boss him around until the running starts.  That way, she won't have to be faster that the zombies, she'll just have to be faster than him.  Though maybe he'll be worth keeping around, somehow, because when the zombie apocalypse occurs you still need someone to be comic relief.

Because violence and fanservice will only get you so far. 

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Just A Little Teaser

It's coming...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:35 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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High School Of The Dead Ep01

There are times when I greatly enjoy blogging.  Where the intellectual stimulation it provides makes the sky blue, the birdies sing, my toes tingle and puts a big cheesy grin upon my face.  And then there are the times when I spend days banging my head against any convenient sturdy surface while trying to figure out how to deal with a topic.  Can you guess which one of these two options I've been experiencing as I've watched and rewatched the first episode of High School Of The Dead?  Don't get me wrong, I really like this show, but writing about an action series can be frustrating in the extreme.  But enough about my problems, let's get on with why you're really here... the zombie apocalypse!

"I stayed up late the night before the world came to an end" says the unnamed narrator.  Of course, he's a high school student... chances are he stays up late every night.  I did when I was a high schooler, even though I didn't have any reason to... I was a good little student.  Still, the drama is higher with the world ending than, say, "I stayed up late the night before one of my socks disappeared." 

Suddenly, zombies!  The walking dead!  Draugr!  Oh, and three allegedly non-zombie kids running across the roof of a school, armed with a baseball bat, a pointed stick, and a bloody bandage.  Wait, what?

A brief skirmish points out that the only way to kill the Shambling Deceased is to hit 'em in the head, and they that appear to be unstoppable otherwise.  Slow, but unstoppable.  Our heroes gain the heights of the Observatory Platform, and after saying that, I would like to point out that schools in Japan get all the cool stuff... an observatory?  Really?  I mean, yeah sure, my high school had a radio station, but I hand-wound the transmitter's antenna for pete's sake.  It had a range of about 100 yards!  We didn't have no frickin' observatory.  We did have ducks though, and that makes up for a lot.  If we DID have an observatory, I think there's a fair chance I wouldn't be sitting here, hammering on my keyboard on a weekend, but I digress.  The uninjured fellow takes one look at the Waddling Cadavers and yells to the heavens "What the hell is going on?!?!"   

High School Of The Dead, that's what's going on... and you're right in the middle of it, buster!
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Tank Witch

Over at Steven's place, a discussion about the new Strike Witches movie is going on.  Over there, I mentioned that I'd kill to see some Tank Witches involved.  Reader Siergen wonders what a Tank Witch would look like, since they've not been animated, and Steven says their legs look like the lower half of Robby The Robot.  Still, that doesn't really clear anything up.  Fortunately, I can do a little better than that!

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Elizabeth, a Britannia M4A1 (Early) Sherman Tank Witch!  She normally sits on top of my computer, guarding the external hard drives.  She ended up at Pond Central thanks to the good graces of Avatar, who sent her my way last year.  According to the light novels, since they don't have to fly, a Tank Witch can use more of her magic ability for her shields, much like a tank is more heavily protected than a fighter plane.  They're obviously slower, however, so there are tradeoffs.  Still no pants, though.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:19 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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The Best Laid Plans Of Ducks And Men...

Well, I had planned to do intensive work on the first installment of HSOTD: The Episodic Review, but I got sidetracked.  Bad Wonderduck... and I've just realized that I can add words to Firefoxy's dictionary, so now I don't get the evil red squiggle under "Wonderduck" anymore.  That just made the night worthwhile.

Yes, it's that easy to make nights worthwhile here at Pond Central. 
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The Polls Are Now Closed

The votes are in.  The Pond Scum has spoken.  The next series that I'll be doing an episodic recap for is High School Of The Dead.

Considering that it was my favorite show in 2010, this will hardly be a chore.  Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the best anime series of 2010, just the one I enjoyed the most, the one I most looked forward to watching.  Considering that Season 3 of Hidamari Sketch ran that year, as did Amagami SS, Sora no Woto, Strike Witches S2 and Ikkitousen Xtreme Xecutor, all of which I greatly enjoyed, that's really saying something.  Heck, I'm even reading the manga for HSotD as well, and I don't read all that much manga.

However, I will say that this wasn't the show I hoped would win.  If I hadn't of opened the choice up to voting, I probably would have done Blood-C.  There's a lot more train-wreckage in that one, though it did all make sense... eventually.  I may even still do it sometime down the road.  Alas, only DiGiKerot and David voted for it.  I'll admit that I threw Library Wars into the mix because I actually enjoyed the show; yes, that's right, I was one of the few. 

Which brings me to Black Lagoon.  It's outstanding.  It's one of the best anime series I've ever seen.  It's also grimmer than the Warhammer 40K universe.  It takes a lot to make the Zombie Apocalypse seem light and fluffy, but in comparison to Black Lagoon, pretty much anything is cotton candy and unicorns farting rainbows.  Having said all that, it might have been interesting to recap, but all in all I think I'm glad it didn't win.  Though, it is a shame I won't get to say anything officially about this scene:

...because it's an Elco 80' PT boat firing two Mk8 torpedoes at a Mi-24 "Hind" helicopter, and you just don't get much of a chance to say things like that very often.

So the final counts were:
High School of the Dead - 9 votes
Black Lagoon - 5 votes
Blood C - 2 vote
Library Wars - just watching.

Stay tuned for the first recap of HSotD, coming awfully soon.

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