School-Live! (2015– ) User Reviews

This story is really good.

[invisibleunicornninja · 8/10 · 23 July 2018]

There is a reveal at the end of episode one that make it hard to talk about this series without going into spoilers and ruining that incredible reveal. Yes, the show is a bit slow before that reveal, but trust me its worth it. I will be trying to avoid spoilers during my review, but I'd still recommend just going and watching the show before you continue reading. Its absolutely fantastic. Its so good that even I, someone who rarely cries over fictional characters, cried.

Story - Though episode one starts off somewhat bland by anime standards, it quickly redeems itself with a shocking and well-executed reveal. This reveal comes into play for the entire show, and the balance between what is shown at the beginning and what is reality is handled brilliantly. Every story beat is told nearly flawlessly and even the scenes that clearly only exist to be fan-service are pulled off well.

Animation - The art is jut wonderful with great direction and character designs. Everything down to the editing is done incredibly well. A few elements could be considered a bit generic, but overall the look of this show is stylized and aesthetically appealing. My only complaint is that no-one really looks their age. The teacher looks like a teenager, and the high schoolers look like 10-year-olds. The female characters only have boobs when the fan-service demands it. There are only a few scenes where the "teenagers" look like teenagers. Overall, this isn't so much of a bad thing, I just found it a bit inconsistent.

Audio - I watched this with the Japanese dub, and for the most part the voice actors are pretty good. The overall sound design and music is as well.

Characters - There's not much to really say other than everyone is fleshed out, interesting, and entertaining.

Theme Song - I just want to say that the theme is great. As the show goes on there are subtle changes to the visuals being shown, but the upbeat and catchy song stays the same. This is a song that I went out of my way to put on a YouTube playlist. I also want to point out that the animation for the opener is creative and fluid with a lot of imagery and I just want to acknowledge all the effort that was clearly put into it.

Gakkô-gurashi! - Awesome and Real

[Cafelar · 8/10 · 15 December 2019]

The characters construction and the way that the main character's create her defense mechanisms are very well constructed, but the predictability of the characters' next steps takes the shine off. In the end, an attempt to create a bigger world with the possibility of other seasons was not well built and does not generate anxiety, but it is a great anime to have fun and understand a little more about the human being.

It's a pretty alright anime but dang emotional!

[Irishchatter · 7/10 · 14 September 2019]

Seriously when the dog died on the last episode, I nearly cried. I think someone found me weakspot lol.

I thought the anime was good like it was interesting for a change to see lolli school girls surviving for their lives in their own school during the zombie apocalypse . Each character was pretty likeable in a way. I wish we could've got a better ending where everything goes back to normal but instead we got a cliffhanger of some zombie infected chick looking at Yuris drawing.

That's all I'm gonna say, this anime is actually worth the watch if you have no other anime to think of watching next!

On of my top 3 fave animes

[spiderandwolf · 10/10 · 4 March 2022]

I loved this anime, there were alot of unexpected moments that shocked me and made the anime so much better. I was scared the anime would be boring at first while watching the first episode, it started out slow but near the end it got really creepy and crazy. The anime isn't too scary though I wouldn't recommend it to kids. The description on this anime made it seem boring, IT IS NOT BORING. To be exact life isn't as it seems. Fr tho y'all should watch it, such great character development and storyline, I was never bored. I even bought the manga.

Slice of Life Zombie show

[ceojonathanmontgomery · 6/10 · 27 October 2023]

Hello Fellow Humans,

School-Live! Is an anime about zombies and slice of life. You have 4 main characters Kurumi, Miki, Yuki, and Yuuri. At first you think it's a slice of life show, until the end when you see the windows broken and all bloodied. This is when you find out Yuki is talking to herself and not classmates. Kurumi is the one with the shovel and probably the most likely to survive in real life in this type of situation. Yuuri is the one who is most likely the mother. She cooks, does gardening and makes rules. Miki is the one who likes to read, but she is also the quiet one. Yuki is the loud idiot one and seriously is only alive because of the others. All the girls pander to Yuki and her extreme dilutions about what's going on. They simply let her think school is normal and that everything is completely normal. Except they are sleeping at school because their class club has void to protect the school apparently. That's what they tell this useless girl Yuki at least, because she is so far gone she is full on conversation with no one. She goes to class and pretends to learn. The others tell her, "to be quiet, the other students are in class" to make her be quiet when needed. It is nuts in my opinion.

If zombies really happened in real life do the following. Get weapons, guns, bats, hammers, anything metal that can take crushing skulls. Then make sure you have shelter and food and clean water. Next, find a place like a Costco or IKEA or something like that. They are like castles and have solar and kitchens and food and are easy to protect. Then build a wall around the parking lot so you can start growing food. The place you pick ideally will have a Home Depot near it or attached. Even prisons would be a good place to set up. When it comes to people obviously helping is good. However, always make sure people are checked before coming into your group for bites. This means making them undress in a safe place and check. I have seen so many movies where someone lies and then turns and kills everyone. If they just checked they would be fine. Next make sure you have people who are useful in medicine, farmers, trades like welders, plumbers, electricians, etc. Useful people are top priority then women of child bearing age and then anyone else either needs to help and work or dismiss them. You can't waste food on people who aren't useful. This is why in this show I am torn. On the one hand Yuki is a girl and will be able to help populate the world. However she is 100% useless and crazy. So she seems more of a liability to me than worth keeping. If I was in a zombie world I keep her around but force her to stand guard or work fields or something useful. But if she was just as insane and useless and a male I probably just toss his butt out and let him die. Because crazy is infectious and unstable people will make others unstable and that will cause massive issues.

This show is fun to watch. It also has an ok story. It is more kid friendly if you can call a zombie show kids friendly. Like I may let my son watch it when he is 12-14 but not my daughter who is 4 years younger. The zombies are all blacked out and they don't show much. It is definitely not like Highschool of the Dead or anything. It's more like Zom 100 in the sense it is silly and fun and cartoony. I know technically this show is older but I can't think of any show now like this one. It is good but it is not adult or MA so it is very childish. I was hoping it would be more adult and show much more zombies and strategy and then survive. But they do say it is a Slice of Life Zombie show. So don't go in expecting a lot from this show. The show really is about this girl and her massive dilutions. She even talks constantly to this teacher who clearly isn't there and the other girls just go along with it. It is just sad really. They need to slap her back into reality.

On the same bar as Madoka Magica and Angel Beats

[embracing_silence · 10/10 · 7 November 2019]

I originally passed over this anime, thinking it was a normal slice of life anime about school girls. Sentai Filmworks had a sale for horror anime and this one was listed. That got my attention. I was able to buy the collectors edition for a cheap price, and I'm glad I did.

The main premise is about a group of girls who love their school so much that they live there. At the end of the first episode you find out why they live there: their city has been taken over by a zombie apocalypse and the school is the only safe zone. The main character is so traumatized that she forces herself to imagine that everything is normal. The story shows how they survive, and how they got to this point. There are a lot of parts that are emotional and depressing. Since it's only 12 episodes, there's no filler except for one episode. However, that episode is a break from the next ones where everything goes downhill fast.

I didn't really like the English voice actress for Yuki, I'll probably rewatch in Japanese. That's the only qualm I have about the show.

The last episode was a bit open ended, so hopefully we will get a season 2! I would recommend this to Madoka and Angel Beats fans.

"...So if something sad happens, it's okay to feel sad." - Takeya Yuki

[martinwasdeleted · 10/10 · 27 August 2021]

When I'm writing a review, I try to avoid spoilers at all costs, but in this show's case, that's impossible. However, I really want to write one about it; how can't I, when it made a bit emotionless guy, like me cry like a baby.

Here is the story in a nutshell (imagine enormous spoiler tags here): the 4 main characters of the show: Takeya Yuki, Ebisuzawa Kurumi, Naoki Miki and Wakasa Yuuri. What's the similarity between these completely different girls? They are in the School Living Club! A club, that envolves around staying at school 24/7 and doing fun stuff like sports festival or going on an adventure in the middle of the night! Well, that's what Yuki believes, as she tries to hide from the harsh reality: they are in the middle of a zombie apocalipse, and they are the only survivors in the entire town, stuck in the school building and waiting for help.

The first of many shocks literally comes at the end of the first episode: the realisation of the depressing situation of the girls, it just really hits hard. Of course, the anime could have easily run out of fuel already and all, but luckily, the plot still holds some suprises (I won't tell, no worries). But the unique plot wouldn't be enough without characters, am I right? Fortunatelly, after the big shock, making lovely, lovable, but still deep characters has become one of the anime's main goal. The absolutely brilliant soundtrack helps out to reach this goal: there are so many memorable, lovely, sad, depressing one's that I can't even count. They always change mood as it pleases, making a scene more fun or more touching. Of course, I can't say anything bad about the visuals too.

But you could still ask me, "hey dude, that's cool and all but how could this be a 10/10?". Most of the episodes are just typical slife of life moments, as the girls are trying to have fun despite the clearly hopeless situation. And that's where the anime really begins to "shine". It doesn't really matter, how lovely a scene, or how much fun does the characters have: there is always a soul-destroying, depressing feeling in the viewer. Every time, the atmosphere starts to become a little uncomfortable, you try to search for the upcoming danger, even if there isn't one; you hold your breath with the characters as they are hiding from the undead; you are laughing with them, when Yuki has a new absurd idea, like organising a sports festival. These are the moments, when you realise: the anime made you feel with these characters and to empatize with their absurd, unimaginable situation.

Of course, I could still talk about the large amount of hidden details, which just confims the fact that this show is complex, full of hard work and deserves attention. But where the anime is the strongest is still the emotions. You will feel a various range of emotions from the beginning till the end. I can and will recommend this show, because the emotional ride that it gives is so unique that it must be experienced.

School Live!

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 13 November 2015]

If you have yet to watch episode one of this series I strongly suggest you stop reading and watch it first as it is impossible to review this series without lessening the impact of the end of that episode.

As the series starts we see protagonist Yuki Takeya enjoying life at school; she does all the normal things like going to lessons and hanging around with her friends, all of whom are in the same club… this club is a little unusual as it is the 'School Living Club'; they all live in the school building and eat the food grown on the school's roof garden. As the first episode ends we realise that we have been shown the school as Yuki sees it; in reality the windows are broken, the doors are all barricaded and Yuki and her fellow club members are the sole survivors of a zombie outbreak! They live in the school because it is too dangerous to leave. The other club members know what is happening but work hard to let Yuki remain happy in her make-believe reality. Over the course of the series we learn more about them and how they came to form the club; we also learn that one of the group is long dead but we see her as she lives on in Yuki's mind.

This is a great series; I was drawn into the story in episode one and as the episode reached its end I thought it was going to be another light-hearted series about a group of school girls. The revelation that what I had seen was really just the protagonist's delusion was a real sucker punch… even though there are hints that something isn't right; for example why is there a cross in the roof garden? Once it is established that Yuki is one of a group of survivors of a zombie outbreak the tension rises and remains high for most of the series. The revelation that one main character is just part of Yuki's delusion makes us wonder if anything else is equally imagined and the more light-hearted moments only serve to emphasise their situation when the story returns to their daily predicament. The final few episodes are particularly tense and it looks as if one or more of the group might not survive. The ending is good but leaves things open for a possible second series. The small cast are all distinctive and likable and animated to a high quality. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to anybody wanting something a little different; just be warned it gets rather emotional at times.

These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.