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"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 big breasts. Really, nearly every woman who's old enough to have them has them.
Has been given the go ahead for an anime. WOOT!
This manga contains tropes such as
- Anime Anatomy: Averted. See Bleached Underpants.
- Back To Back Badasses: The battles that the students fight eventually become this.
- Big Damn Heroes: Everybody gets a turn, it seems.
- Black And Grey Morality: 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 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.
- Bleached Underpants: The mangaka used to draw Hentai, to noone's surprise.
- Break The Cutie: Asami, oh so much.
- This troper just stared at the page after Hirano shoots down her down, her face was heart breaking!!!
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Anything and everything involving Takashi is pure awesomeness, regardless if it's a fan service scene or an action scene.
- Dub Text: Do you enjoy making girls wet?
- Can't forget: I'M GETTING WET!
- Driven To Suicide: The old couple in the mall.
- It seems more like Better To Die Than Be Killed. At that point the people in the mall seem to believe they're doomed and with the old woman's sickness...
- Dying Like Animals: Many people simply cannot cope to the existance of "them", and many others will take advantage of this disbelief.
- Fan Disservice: The zombies at the very least, but there are also numerous examples with the living.
- Fanservice: And loads of it. The artist draws hentai doujins as his "night job," so it's to be expected.
- Five Man Band:
- Gag Boobs: It puts most harem comedies to shame.
- Glass Cannon: 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?
- Hair Colours: There is a rather large percentage of blond- and brown-hairs in the cast; more so than in Real Life Japan, at any rate.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Used to subvert the Adults Are Useless trope - adults can fight just as competently, if not more so, and even sacrifice themselves so that the protagonists can live on.
- Heroic Sociopath: Under Seako Busujima's calm Heir To The Dojo 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.
- Katanas Are Just Better: 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.
- Love Triangle: Takashi, Rei and Hisashi — until Hisashi is infected. Later volumes seem to suggest a Takashi, Rei and Seako triangle.
- Male Gaze: Seriously. This manga is made of this trope.
- Moe: Even in a Zombie Apocalypse and even when she's pointing a gun at someone, Asami is so moe that it hurts.
- Most Common Superpower: To a fairly ridiculous level.
- Ms Fanservice: Nearly every woman can be this, but Shizuka Marikawa takes the whole freaking cake.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: The first lady looks like Condoleezza Rice, and the president having to decide if using nukes is simply shooting the dog to protect Americans or crossing the Moral Event Horizon looks like George W. Bush.
- Surprisingly, this doesn't cross into Strawman Political territory. 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.
- Not Using The Zed Word: "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.
- Panty Shot
- Sacrificial Lamb: Hisashi, who is Genre Savvy and seems to be excellent main character material, but gets infected and must be put down.
- Shoot The Dog: Do so often if you want to survive.
- Shout Out: In the third chapter there is a Shaun Of The Dead shout-out. Also, Kohta Hirano. You know, Hellsing?
- Don't forget Hirano's shirt.
- A really hilarious one of Babiru Nisei, with the characters playing Babiru's cohorts (one with a sock puppet).
- Shown Their Work: 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.
- Smug Snake: 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.
- Tearjerker: At the end of several chapters there are pages containing pictures of several characters, be they minor or main, showing how they were before the Zombie Apocalypse (for example the early mugger/rapist happily washing his car, Alice swinging between her parents arms and Asami being chided by her CO). The picturres are generally lighthearted but can turn into tearjerkers if you stop and think about them too much.
- Third Person Person: Asami the police officer.
- Tokyo Is The Center Of The Universe : Averted; the outbreak covers the entire planet.
- Too Dumb To Live : 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 Resident Evil.
- 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 Zombie Apocalypse would be a great backdrop for open nuclear combat. Against each other, that is, not the zombies. To be fair, they probably kill a good deal of zombies too, but they end up paralyzing Japan with an EMP in the process.
- Too Good To Last: It's been put on indefinite hiatus for a few months. Hopefully this trope won't apply some time...
- Unlucky Childhood Friend: Takashi started out the manga as Rei's unlucky childhood friend, but The Plot Reaper 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.
- Zombie Apocalypse: 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.
- Zombie Infectee: 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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