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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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:55 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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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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Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:08 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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