YMMV / School-Live!

• Adaptation Displacement: As with most manga, the anime is much more well-known. Many fans don't even know of its various changes from the manga.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Is Yuki really completely trapped in this happy self-delusion as both a defensive reaction as well as a consequence of Megu-nee's death? Or is she just pretending to be this delusional ditz, as Miki thinks she is? In the manga, it certainly started as the former. However in the wake of the helicopter crash, and Yuuri's increasing mental instability, it's now clear that Yuki's shrugged off her delusions somewhat, but seems to be content to continue playing the part, as it seems to keep Yuuri in check.
  • For that matter, her delusions of Megumi and overall school life strangely nudges her to actually be helpful to the club and moments where she pushes through several zombie related problems. Is this her mind desperately trying to snap back to reality?
  • Is Takahito remorseful about leaving Kougami alone and, as far as he knows, indirectly causing his death due to genuinely feeling sad about losing a friend and ally? Or is he only regretful about it due to pragmatic reasons {Namely losing a valuable member of the MFC who Shino, an even more important member, cares dearly about}? Considering that he usually only views other people as tools to be used in order to keep himself alive and will kill his own allies if it suits his needs, the latter interpretation is very possible.
  • Ayaka's exact reason for killing Takahito is up for interpretation. It's very likely that she did indeed kill him just to satisfy her own sadism and then just lit his corpse on fire for fun, but she also made a comment about him suffering due to the virus's effects shortly beforehand and was also pleased with his efforts at killing the other students. This combined with her giving him a quick death and how they were on good terms up to this point could instead paint her murder of him as a unwanted Mercy Kill and then burning his body as a cremation attempt, and her smiling at it would just be due to her enjoying death in general, making the whole scenario a very twisted Pet the Dog moment on her part if this is all true.
  • Similarly to Yuki, does Yuuri really hallucinate that a teddy bear is her little sister or is she pretending in order to keep herself sane?
  • In a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane case, is Megu-nee just another hallucination or is really her ghost acting as the club's Spirit Advisor, while trying to keep her zombified form at bay from harming them? Which might also make viewers wonder in a subverted Schrödinger's Cat situation if Megu-nee being present as both a ghost that only Yuki can see and interact with, as well as a zombie lurking in the basement, are each a Literal Split Personality.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: It's a gruesome and quite realistic (in the psychological aspect) take on the Zombie Apocalypse. It's also drawn in a Puni Plush art style and has a cast of characters that seem out from any of the other series published in the Kirara family of magazines. It's basically the thing that causes you to go to the other manga of its magazine to heal.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Taromaru is either an adorable Team Pet or an extremely unneeded extra who ruined the adaptation and took away much needed screen-time from other characters. Most people who started with the anime love him while most manga fans loathe him.
  • The anime's version of Miki. Much like Taromaru, the viewpoints on her tend to depend on whether you started with the anime or the manga. Anime fans tend to find her to be a cute and sympathetic character, while manga fans think she has so little in common with Miki Naoki that she's that character In Name Only, especially since the anime completely changed her personality and left out the acclaimed storyline where she questions the situation regarding Yuki's delusions.
  • The university survivors. They're either interesting characters or there are too many new characters who aren't needed.
  • The Militants are either interesting characters who are just doing what they feel is necessary to survive, good antagonists who add tension to the story, or just plain unsympathetic and uninteresting assholes who take too much time away from other plot threads.
  • The direction the manga has taken Yuuri is another point of diversion. It's either an interesting and logical progression for her characterization to go in, or it makes her extremely unlikeable and annoying and ruins the character entirely.
• Broken Base:
  • Due to the Mood Dissonance factor to the series, fans are heavily divided on the series itself. Some enjoy the dissonance factor of using the Schoolgirl Series Slice of Life genre by keeping the traditional moe and cheery elements of a traditional slice of life series while reminding the readers and viewers of the post-apocalyptic zombie apocalypse horror atmosphere. Others feel that the cutesy slice of life factor takes away the horror aspects of the series and it makes relatively difficult to sympathize with several characters (especially for Yuki's PTSD).
  • Taroumaru's increased role in the series is a sticking point for people who've read the manga, especially in the finale where he more or less saves everyone by helping Yuki get to the audio-visual room. Anime-only viewers by comparison are more accepting of his addition, particularly with regards to his relationship with Miki (which is an anime-only addition as well).
  • The multitude of changes in the plot and characterization upset many fans of the manga. Several aspects were removed or altered between manga to anime that make manga fans feel the anime is a poor adaptation. People who began anime first on the other hand often feel the anime removing certain scenes was a good change.
  • The university arc has divided the fandom as well. Some people think that it's an interesting and fresh direction to take the series in, with plenty of new characters to expand on the story, actual human antagonists and plenty of twists and turns. Others find it inferiour to the first 30 chapters, think that there's too many characters {With some further diversion on whether any of the new characters are interesting or boring}, that the Militants are flat and boring antagonists who hog screentime from other more interesting characters and plotlines, and The Reveal that the virus is possibly airborne and thus able to infect anyone at any time pushes the series into Too Bleak, Stopped Caring territory. It doesn't help that the University arc is almost entirely lacking the Slice of Life and Psychological elements that originally made this series stand out from most other zombie works.
• Cargo Ship: Kurumi and her shovel. Even Yuki notices it.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • In a retroactive way, seeing Takashige getting cornered by several zombies and practically crying for Kurumi to save him, only to be ignored and promptly torn to shreds is really satisfying after not only his attempts to murder her, but also seeing how much of a bastard he was in the flashbacks shown in the following chapter. It especially counts as this if some of the zombies who killed him were the very same teammates he and the rest of the Militants betrayed and killed.
  • Takahito's Humiliation Conga and violent death that borders on overkill also counts as this, especially since he's ultimately betrayed by both of his remaining allies and killed in the very same "Zombie Graveyard" where some of his zombified teammates he betrayed are.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Out of all the University characters, Shino is arguably the fan-favorite of the bunch. This is due to her being the only truly badass member of the Militants instead of a Dirty Coward like the rest, being a very sympathetic Anti-Villain who has a full character arc, and her ultimate Heel–Face Turn where she not only saves Yuuri and Miki right in the nick of time, but also stabs Takahito and ruins his one chance at getting something resembling a victory.
• Epileptic Trees: That the manga's arcs symbolize different aspects of life. The first arc was high school, then they graduated into university, then they left university to start their adult lives.
• Fandom Rivalry: School Live! fans have recently developed a nasty rivalry with Prison School fans, mainly because both anime have a dark take of the high school setting.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Some fans feel like the series should have ended with the girls leaving the highschool forever in Chapter 30 instead of moving onto the controversial University arc. It helps that the anime also ends at that exact point.
• First Installment Wins: The manga's first main story arc (Chapters 1-30) and the anime are far more well-known and acclaimed than the chapters that came out afterwards. In particular that portion of the series is what most fanart is based on and what most people talk about.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Cute little Taroumaru is a much more important and developed character in the anime, unlike his manga counterpart, who only appeared in one chapter and was quickly infected. Surely, surely after being such a huge and visible part of the show for the first nine episodes, he's going to survive the series, right? Right? Wrooooong. Made even more gut-wrenching in this continuity because it was Megu-nee who infected him.
  • In the manga a new character with a very detailed design was introduced. Fans were hyped for a Sixth Ranger however she ends up turning into a zombie before the others meet her.
  • Even though Kurumi has gotten a ton of death flags throughout the later half of the manga and has resulted in some people thinking that she'll die, there's still plenty of people who think that she'll either be cured permanently, find more samples of the temporary cure, or will end up becoming a zombie hybrid instead of being killed off {In fact the Zombie Hyrbid theory is a very popular fan theory}. The fact that she's arguably the most popular character in the series probably plays a role in this as well.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • HEALING ANIME. ^Explanation The production was so successful in fooling people that the show was going to be a relaxing Manga Time Kirara romp, that the reveal at the end of the first episode shocked watchers who weren't familiar with the manga's premise to begin with. The fact that it was written by a contemporary of "Butch" Gen Urobuchi at Nitro Plus, and comparisons with the latter's work Puella Magi Madoka Magica and its own use of dissonant themes became VERY easy.
  • Fanart that depicts Kurumi wearing Shovel Knight's armor is quite common, thanks to her weapon of choice.
• Moe: The girls are drawn in a deliberate, moe style, which just adds to the dissonance factor when you remember that, yes, the setting is a Zombie Apocalypse.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • While many of Takahito's actions are utterly despicable, he becomes truly irredeemable in Chapter 51, when he deliberately opens up the gate keeping the zombies out of the university, knowing full well that this could kill everyone there including his own teammates, just so he can try and get a supposed antidote to save himself. It's further cemented later on when he tries to murder Miki in cold blood and threatens to do the same to Aki. Thankfully Shino stops him, the zombies he let inside end up killing nobody, and he dies accomplishing nothing.
  • Takashige crosses this when he attempts to murder Kurumi, a young teenage girl, in cold-blood just because she's infected.
• Narm: Chapter 47 and it's backstory for the Militants comes off as cringey and unintentionally goofy due to Takahito and Ayaka constantly ranting about how "Chosen" they were and how edgy they end up coming off as. Ayaka in particular ends up seeming more like an edgy, wangsty teenager rather than a scary and unpredictable sociopath.
• Paranoia Fuel: "Sweet Dreams." Yeah....:
  • In the anime, while Yuki is in "normal" English class, one half of the board reads with normal English phrases like "I enjoyed studying with everyone.", "Let's study together.", but turns a little dark with "But it [sic] done not all come true at all." When Yuki leaves with Mii-chan we see the other half of the board. "All is in the darkness in the past." "Please don't throw me away." "Help me."
  • Some parts of the opening lyrics can be interpreted in quite a dark way due to wordplay.
• The Scrappy:
  • Yuuri in the second arc got flak for her deepening delusions about Ruu. Unlike Yuki, whose condition makes her more sympathetic and endearing, Yuuri's delusions make her outright unstable and unlikable. It doesn't help that she still believes that Ruu is still alive even after seeing Ayaka "Kill" her (In reality she just stepped on the head of the teddy bear that Yuuri thinks is Ruu). And Chapter 49 makes her even worse, as she's more concerned about a teddy bear than her actual living friends, to where she has to be reminded that Kurumi is still missing. By the time the final arc rolls around though, she's slowly starting to grow out of this.
  • Takahito isn't very well-liked either. While he is suppose to be a Hate Sink, some of the hate he gets goes beyond that, with criticism towards him being that he's a dull and uninteresting character who nonetheless takes page time from better characters. His Wangst backstory, sheer stupidity and how pathetically he's ultimately killed doesn't earn him any fans either.
• Seasonal Rot: The School Life arc (Chapters 1-30/anime) is widely considered to be the best of the series. In contrast, the University arc and those that followed are more contentious, mainly for introducing mixed or widely-reviled characters while also underusing others who had potential, increasing the Too Bleak, Stopped Caring to ridiculous levels, and playing zombie media cliches straight when the first arc sought to be a unique take on the genre.
• Signature Scene:
  • The Reveal and quick, brutal Genre Shift that was the end of the anime's first episode, cementing the series as a psychological post-apocalyptic zombie survival series instead of the cutesy moe slice of life schoolgirl series the anime/manga initially marketed itself as.
  • The manga has that scene and the scene where Yuuri freaks out after the rescue helicopter crashes, which was left out of the anime.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad:
  • Taroumaru. Multiple scenes from the manga were drastically altered to include him, these alterations caused changes to characterization, and he gets a supreme amount of focus, especially in the final episode. Most of Miki's friendship with Yuki was essentially given over to Taromaru.
  • One primary criticism that the University arc gets from some fans is that it focuses far too much on the Militants, with the actual main characters being Out of Focus aside from Miki. The fact that they ultimately end up being pointless to the manga's story {Due to Sino staying behind at the University and the rest of the group being killed off over the course of the arc} only makes the huge amount of of focus they had here even worse.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Chapter 54 is basically one long instance of this trope against Takahito, as the zombies he let inside end up killing nobody, he's stabbed, betrayed and threatened by his best former ally Shino, and he ends up limping away in sheer defeat before suffering a very brutal death at Ayaka's hands while also being proven wrong on his claims that he was "Chosen" to survive and lead.
• The Un-Twist:
  • Ruu actually being a teddy bear was something many fans saw coming almost as soon as she popped up.
  • Similarly, the reveal that Shino is pregnant surprised very few people.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • The University cast had a fair amount of focus throughout; the University arc but not much development, and they had so much potential to be interesting characters. Shino in particular had some promising development and would have made a great addition to the main cast. Unfortunately, with the exception of Asosi, the surviving University characters are all staying behind while the main characters move on to the Randall Corporation, and while they do eventually return, the manga ending soon kills any chance of them ever being utilized properly and fully developed as characters.
  • Ayaka receives a considerable amount of build up throughout the University arc, hinting at her becoming a major antagonist. Instead, all she ultimately does is attempt to lure zombies into the University, which ends up failing thanks to the Fallen Crew, murder Takahito, and ultimately die off-panel when her car breaks down near some zombies. It's made worse by how her fate wasn't confirmed for several chapters, teasing at the possibility of her return, only for her to just randomly pop up as a zombie in the middle of the third to last chapter.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Taroumaru is no longer a simple oneshot character in the anime. He's a major character now.
  • The anime switched around many scenes, removed even more, and added in more comedic fluff. Fans of the manga were not happy about most of these changes. The final episode in particular completely skipped Yuki killing a zombie, the helicopter crash, and Rii's Freak Out to focus on Taromaru's death. All those scenes were things fans were excited to see animated.
  • The fact the anime starts In Medias Res is often considered a horrible choice as it ruins the tension of scenes involving Miki's backstory, despite the fact it was a Foregone Conclusion that she wouldn't die.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • When more information is revealed about the Militants, we find out that their lifestyle and moralities are the polar opposite of the School Living Club, with the SL Club trying to do more than just survive while also still trying to live a normal life, while the Militants have resorted to brutality and have gained a Social Darwinist mentality. The story could have been very interesting if these two opposite viewpoints and ways of handling things had clashed more, but in the actual manga it only comes up briefly once, and the Militants aren't defeated in a way that directly proves their viewpoints wrong. And it's unlikely to come up again now, given how Shino has made a Heel–Face Turn and the rest of the Militants were killed off over the course of the University arc.
  • In Chapter 46, Kurumi ends up killing Takashige in self defense by luring a zombie horde to him, and is shown in tears about it. This being the first time one of the girls kills a living human, it could've been interesting to explore and delve into psychologically. But instead, once Yuki cheers up Kurumi with a pep talk, it's completely forgotten about and never brought up again.
  • The series started out as a really unique take on the Zombie Apocalypse genre, with the primary focus being on the Psychological effects the situation had on Yuki and the other girls. There was so much more that could have been done with this premise, but unfortunately ever since the University arc the series has derailed into a Cliché Storm of Zombie tropes, with very little of what made the series stand out from other Zombie fiction.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The Randall Corporation arc is so bleak, with nearly every breakthrough the characters achieve turning out to be pointless, that is just gets hard to stomach for many fans. The girls eventually do earn their happy ending, but have to go through a lot of pointless suffering to get there.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Kougami is male but looks either like a young boy or a tomboyish teenage girl. Apparently he is Older Than They Look.
• Vindicated by History: The anime adaptation; when it first came out, many fans of the series called foul on it for its Adaptation Decay, cutting out characterization and backstory of the leads and adding a Spotlight-Stealing Squad Kid-Appeal Character in the form of Taroumaru, who ended up changing the context of many scenes just by his presence. Fans nearly universally preferred the manga then, but as it entered its own Seasonal Rot with the University arc, the anime has started to be reevaluated. One of the biggest sticking points in its favor is that unlike the manga, which dove deep into Too Bleak, Stopped Caring, the anime at least gave the girls an optimistic ending by ending at the point many believe was best to end it (the equivalent of Chapter 30 at the end of the High School Life arc), and for as much of a spotlight hog as Taroumaru could be, he was still just a mascot character and nowhere near as obnoxious as Takahito and the Militants. As such, the anime has become viewed as a good series in its own right instead of a butchering of the manga.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The show looks like a sweet anime about an adorable group of teenagers and their precocious dog. Perfect show for your children to watch, right? Wrong. At the end of the first episode, it's revealed that their happy life at school is a carefully constructed delusion to let Yuki cope with the zombie apocalypse. Prepare for things to get very dark, VERY quickly. The manga is even worse as it contains more graphic gore and a lot of mental breakdowns.

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