"But our world as we knew it had already been completely destroyed."

Imagine waking up one day, going to school and then going to the roof to pine over your lost love. Then looking down and seeing a teacher's fingers get bitten off by a late student. Then seeing that teacher eat another. Then going to get your ex-love and her boyfriend to save them and fighting "not zombies". You try to call for help, but the lines are busy because of emergencies all over the town.

That's the start of ''High School of the Dead''. In a new world of surviving "them", Takashi Komuro and his group of unlikely allies must learn to change to keep living, but will others like what they become? Written by Daisuke Sato and drawn by Shouji Sato, this manga is filled with monsters both living and nonliving, guns and [[MostCommonSuperPower big breasts]]. Really, nearly every woman who's old enough to have them has them.
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!!This manga contains tropes such as
* AnimeAnatomy: Averted. See Bleached Underpants.
* BackToBackBadasses: The battles that the students fight eventually becomes this.
* BigDamnHeroes: Everybody gets a turn, it seems.
* BlackAndGreyMorality: The kids are forced to drive without a license, use guns, act strongly as individuals, rely on themselves instead of authority figures or the government and steal things to survive. It doesn't seem that bad until you remember that this [[ValuesDissonance story takes place in Japan]].
** Not to mention the time Takashi shoots a would-be mugger/rapist, but leaves him alive so he can be bait to draw off any zombies in the area.
* BleachedUnderpants: The mangaka used to draw {{Hentai}}, to noone's surprise.
**He still does.
* BreakTheCutie: Asami, oh so much.
** This troper just stared at the page after Hirano shoots down her down, her face was heart breaking!!!
* DubText: '''Do you enjoy making girls wet?'''
** Can't forget: '''I'M GETTING WET!'''
* DrivenToSuicide: The old couple in the mall.
* DyingLikeAnimals: Many people simply cannot cope to the existance of "them", and many others will take advantage of this disbelief.
* FanDisservice: The zombies at the very least, but there are also numerous examples with the living.
* {{Fanservice}}: And loads of it.
* FiveManBand:
** TheHero: Takashi
** TheLancer: Rei
** TheBigGuy: Saeko
** TheSmartGuy: Saya/Hirano
** TheChick: Shizuka/Hirano
** The TeamPet: Alice and Zeke
* GagBoobs: It puts most harem comedies to shame.
* GlassCannon: Zombies are dangerous. One bite and that's it, but you can push them over without even trying if you are careful.
* {{Gorn}}: What do you expect from a zombie comic?
* HairColours: There is a rather large percentage of blond- and brown-hairs in the cast; more so than in RealLife Japan, at any rate.
* HeroicSacrifice: Used to subvert the AdultsAreUseless trope - adults can fight just as competently, if not more so, and even sacrifice themselves so that the protagonists can live on.
* HeroicSociopath: Under Seako Busujima's calm HeirToTheDojo exterior is a sadist who only recently publicly acknowledged the delight she gets in being so much stronger and deadlier then most people. She was arrested as a young girl for being "overly enthusiastic" in her self-defense against a would-be molester and now barely hesitates to slaughter zombie children.
* KatanasAreJustBetter: {{Lampshaded}} by Hirano, who noted that katanas are only durable enough to slice through three human necks before the blade becomes dull. This starts an argument. Adverted in that everybody who is a fighter gets about the same number of kills with their weapon of choice.
* LoveTriangle: Takashi, Rei and Hisashi -- until Hisashi is infected. Later volumes seem to suggest a Takashi, Rei and Seako triangle.
* '''MaleGaze''': Seriously. This manga is '''made''' of this trope.
* MostCommonSuperpower: To a fairly ridiculous level.
* MsFanservice: Nearly every woman can be this, but Shizuka Marikawa takes the whole freaking cake.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The first lady looks like Condoleezza Rice, and the president having to decide if using nukes is simply [[ShootTheDog shooting the dog]] to protect Americans or crossing the MoralEventHorizon looks like George W. Bush.
** Surprisingly, this doesn't cross into StrawmanPolitical territory. [[spoiler: It's not the President who orders the nuclear strikes, but the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security once he becomes the executive. The American crews who follow this order are visibly shocked, with a sub's XO even beginning to break down.]]
* NotUsingTheZedWord: "Them" is the word used for the undead in the story.
* {{Otaku}}: Kohta Hirano is a gun Otaku. Needless to say, he's really useful in this manga.
* PantyShot
* SacrificialLamb: Hisashi, who is GenreSavvy and seems to be excellent main character material, but gets infected and must be put down.
* ShootTheDog: Do so often if you want to survive.
* ShoutOut: In the third chapter there is a ''ShaunOfTheDead'' shout-out. Also, Kohta Hirano. You know, ''{{Hellsing}}''?
** Don't forget Hirano's shirt.
** A really [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/highschool_of_the_dead/c023/15.html hilarious one]] of Babiru Nisei, with the characters playing Babiru's cohorts (one with a sock puppet).
* ShownTheirWork: The rifles are amazingly detailed, and are shown to have actual limitations. Kohta Hirano also makes sure that everyone who even touches one follows strict gun safety, as American gun enthusiasts are generally taught to do. The author also shows a decent understanding of how the American government works, although that's a bit more subtle.
* SmugSnake: Shidō can order people around, but anybody who can stand up to him knows he is pure scum.
* {{Squick}}: Any fanservice having to do with the brainwashed kids.
* ThirdPersonPerson: Asami the police officer.
* TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse : Averted; the outbreak covers the entire planet.
* TooDumbToLive : The protesters who believe that “them” are the result of collaboration with the American and Japanese government in a weapons development program.
** Someone had been playing ''too'' much ResidentEvil.
** The people who are utterly convinced that the dead are just people with a disease looking for help, and everybody else are just bloodthirsty maniacs should be mentioned as well.
** The US, China and Russia decide that a ZombieApocalypse would be a ''great'' backdrop for open nuclear combat. Against each other, that is, not the zombies. [[spoiler:To be fair, they probably kill a good deal of zombies too, but they end up paralyzing Japan with an EMP pulse in the process.]]
* TooGoodToLast: It's been put on indefinite hiatus for a few months. Hopefully this trope won't apply some time...
* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: Takashi started out the manga as Rei's unlucky childhood friend, but ThePlotReaper quickly put an end to that. It's implied that Saya may have a crush on Takashi, making her an example of this trope as well.
* ZombieApocalypse: This story seems to follow the Romero rules, but "they" have a ''very'' strong grip. Also the zombies start slow, but if they hear a sound nearby they can move quicker.
** The fact that it's played as realistically as possible is also notable. The protagonists test and figure out that since the dead have no circulation, their eyes can't work, so they must find things through vibrations (throwing a wet cloth against a locker on the other side of a hallway will draw them to it). No circulation also means that in Japan's humid weather, the dead will probably decompose to the point of uselessness in a little under a month. Nobody has a clue how the dead are still capable of moving, though.
* ZombieInfectee: Copied from the trope page, Multiple people have been bitten by "Them", but so far all the bitten have had the presence of mind to let other people know about it.
** Or they happened to be bitten in front of other people and therefore can't exactly pretend they haven't been.
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