Manga/Gakkou Gurashi

Either way those fish are likely dead. Same goes for the dog that got left behind at the school.

Chapter 54: Well, Takahito finally died because he made the utterly stupid mistake of still trusting Ayaka even after she had already betrayed him earlier. Meanwhile, Ayaka gets stranded out in the middle of the zombie infested-city, and while I don't think she's dead it might be a while before we see her again.

Gotta say, as a whole this arc is vastly inferiour to the first half of the series. It had good ideas, but the execution was mediocre at best, most of the newer characters haven't gotten much development, and to me it feels like the author watched or read The Walking Dead and tried to copy the "Humans are the real monsters" theme of that franchise without putting much thought or effort into it. This chapter also feels rushed, what with trying to wrap up the MFC, Insane Yuuri and Zombies in University subplots really quickly, with the best parts mainly being the Shino stuff and Takahito's overkill death. Thankfully it does look like the next couple of chapters might return to the more emotional, character-driven aspects that made School Live so good to begin with, especially since boring mc-edgy blonde douchebag is finally dead and can no longer steal the spotlight from the actually interesting characters.

edited 28th Jan '17 12:43:08 PM by marston

I… actually liked this chapter. It gave as much closure as it could to Takahito's character (unlikeable as he was), and I liked its quiet "calm after the storm" atmosphere. Also Ayaka had the decency of burning Takahito's body, which is probably the most compassionate she can manage to be. X)

Some people said that Jojo part 5 mostly suffered from a bad English translation at first, and honestly I think GG's second arc is a similar case. Rereading the arc in Japanese made me appreciate it much more. Though I also think it's the kind of arc that easier to appreciate in volumes than in individual chapters. Is it as good as the first arc? Nah, but it's still pretty good in my opinion.

I'm honestly not a huge fan of the second arc either. The translation might have exacerbated the issue, but I think the main problems are things that a translation wouldn't really fix.

First off, the second arc basically abandons the premise of the first arc. At the beginning, the premise and setting were more or less unique as far as zombie-driven stuff goes. Yuki's delusions gave it an interesting spin and allowed for a mix of psychological drama and humorous hijinks. It focused less on the danger of the apocalypse and almost entirely focused on the psychological side. The zombies are dangerous, yeah, but the real conflict was the girls fighting not to lose hope and be driven into depression by the situation they found themselves in. There aren't a lot of zombie works that come at the subject from that angle.

Then they leave the school, and most of that goes away. The whole balance of "everyday life contrasted with zombies" tips really hard to the zombie side, the whole "living at school" thing vanishes, and while Yuki still has some mild delusions, it gets almost no focus despite being like the series' main hook. It drops most of the focus of psychology in favor of the "oh no, there are other survivors and they're worse than the zombies!" thing that a bunch of series have done already.

Second, while the shift wouldn't have been so bad if it had been well executed... honestly I don't think that they pulled it off very well. The author introduced like 9 new characters, who have maybe 2 characters' worth of development between them, and most of them end up being mostly irrelevant to the plot in the end. It feels like the author wanted to expand the cast but didn't know what to do with all of them. The antagonists' motivations are minimal, and they ultimately ended up being on the bland side.

That said, there were a number of good moments throughout the arc, but I felt like they were the exception rather than the rule. Stuff like Kurumi dealing with the fact that she still may be infected, getting more info on the Myth Arc from the scientist, the fact that Shino actually had a character arc. There was good stuff there, but it felt like all the drama with the MFC was just filler between the interesting bits rather than actually being the interesting part.

I do like this chapter in particular; it wraps up most of the loose ends pretty well. Takahito is gone (finally) and the number of layers of irony in his ultimate demise was great. Ayaka's fate was a little anticlimactic, but in an oddly fitting way. All that ranting about being the chosen one, and she ends up falling victim to car trouble. It's great seeing all the girls together again. I'm also hoping that Yuuri giving "Ruu" to Shino is symbolic of Yuuri beginning to get over her issues, but I'm not holding my breath for that one.

edited 28th Jan '17 5:52:02 PM by JapaneseTeeth

^JT here sums up my thoughts perfectly. And to clarify, I do like the new chapter for the same reasons he listed. It's just that the arc as a whole, aside from the good moments, was very eh to me, and the iffy translation only played a small part in that. One of my issues is Takahito himself. He's suppose to be the Arc Villain, but aside from being hateable he pretty much lacks any of the other qualities of a good villain. He's pretty much the exact kind of character who, in any other setting, would be the annoying Big Bad Wannabe who gets his ass handed to him by both the heroes and the actual main villain {And in a way I suppose that's kind of what he actually is}, and he's not anywhere near as interesting enough to warrent all the focus he ended up getting. Plus the fact that he survived a long while after getting infected with the airborne virus despite Kougami getting the same thing and dying within minutes of his infection is a major plot hole {And even then the virus isn't what kills Takahito in the end, but rather a combination of his own stupidity and Ayaka being a total sadist}.

Plus, out of all the new characters the only ones I actually like are Touko and Shino {And to a lesser extent Rise}. The other Fallen Girls are severly underdeveloped, Takashige and Kougami are just plot devices who are killed off as soon as they outlived their purposes in the story, and Ayaka's basically a mixture between an emo teenager and a generic serial killer {I'm not counting the Scientist here for now because she's delibritely suppose to be shrouded in mystery}. Plus the whole "Humans are even worse then zombies" thing is a tired cliche that this series didn't need. A Human vs. Human conflict would have likely worked far better if the other side was more morally grey and not outright evil, but aside from Shino the MFC was entirely composed of either evil bastards or complete paranoid idiots {Or in Takahito's case, both at once}.

I am hoping that the next few chapters will be a return to form and finally bring back the main focus to the School Living Club. In particular I want to see Kurumi's infection subplot finally get more focus as well as a return to the mixture of Slice Of Life humor and Zombie Survival Horror that the older chapters had {And what originally made this series stand out from most zombie fiction to begin with}. I hope that at least a couple of the University characters will go with them to the Randall Corperation Building though, because if all 6 of the supporting University characters stay behind without getting further development then this arc will have been a complete waste of time in the end {Not to mention that the Fallen Girls do have potential, it's just that so far the manga isn't making good use of that potential. Aki and that one shy girl in particular are in serious need of development}.

edited 28th Jan '17 10:16:52 PM by marston

In the high school arc, the central plot was very much driven by Yuki's mental state, and having that as the synopsis was something interesting. The college arc should've similarly focused on the mental state of either Yuki or Yuuri. But Yuki's condition in Saint Isidore was muddled, kind of ambiguous (recovering, but not entirely so you don't quite feel the difference) and generally uninteresting. And Yuuri's condition with Ruu-chan didn't drive the overall story as much as it should have. It was just a side element in an arc where the main plot was the conflict between the fallen crew and melee crew. The chapters actually focusing on Ruu were interesting, but most of it was inconsequential at the time, as the conflicts in the college could have turned out the same without her.

And in the Megurigaoka High School, I feel that all the important characters (there's only a few) have significance and play key roles. That's what drove the strong slice-of-life feel to it, and the School Living Club tried its best to create a high school life feel within the conditions. The survivors in the college felt like they were just trying to survive as opposed to create a more concrete culture. And the melee crew in particular didn't feel like a cohesive group. I was quite disappointed at how chapter 49 turned out because the members were all doing different things. I would have preferred if there was one main college group that tried to preserve a real college atmosphere, so it actually feels like school life, with maybe other characters distributed along the campus.

You know what I would like? A spin-off alternate story that's more comical and maybe in yonkoma format. And with Kei.

^Another thing that bothers me about the University arc is precisely how inconsequencial the main girls feel to the main plot {Except for Miki}. It felt more like the focus was on the Fallen Girls and the MFC, neither of which are interesting enough to warrent that focus {Though again the Fallen Girls and Shino do have some serious potential to be interesting characters, and the latter has made use of some of that}. I would have rather seen more of, say for example what was going on with Kurumi instead of almost anything that happend with the main plot after she had left. This recent spoiler-free review of the series just about sums up why I prefer the first 30 chapters over the rest of the series. https://terrenceswiff.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/gakkou-gurashi/

I like your spin-off idea though. Especially if it still had the zombies and the MFC but portrayed both of them in a more comical light.

edited 28th Jan '17 10:41:11 PM by marston

Alright, it seems like I'm in the minority. I do hope it returns to a No Antagonist formula for the next arc but… it there's an evil multinational involved, that's unlikely. But we should get a bit more development for the Dissolution Crew at least.

…Right, and there's still that fishy scientist.

Yeah, it would've been really interesting if they had focused on the differences a college culture vs a high school culture. Like, there still could've been conflict between the groups, but I think it would've helped for the ideological differences between them to be a bit more defined than what ultimately ended up happening.

^^Hey, if you enjoyed the University arc then that's perfectly fine. I just really didn't care for it much. And your not so much in the minority as you think, it's moreso that the University arc is a Broken Base issue. Honestly I thought I was in the minority until I looked around and eventually found plenty of other people outside of here and Reddit that dislike or don't care for the new arc.

Kurumi vs. Resident Evil's Nemesis

Oh no, the zombies got Miki!

A whole bunch of adorable Kurumi/Miki pictures

If you ever wanted to see a Kurumiki pic where Kurumi finally achieves her dream of being a cute bride, here you go. It's another pic that I paid Lupeylycan to draw.

Waiting for the next chapter to be out, and in the meantime I'm reading one of the anthologies.

Anyone else check them out (or even aware of them)? There are three as of now.

I've read all 5 of the translated Anthology chapters at least. Had a lot of fun with them and enjoyed them immensely, though the Hat one was just weird. One of my favorite parts was how in the first chapter Yuki, in her sick state, calls Yuuri and Kurumi "Mom and Dad" and Kurumi's baffled reaction as she wonders which of them is which.

Can anyone help out find who are the voice actresses who played as Akiko Kamiyama, the teacher who warned Megumi about the zombie attack on the phone and Takae Yuzumura, the punk girl in Yuki's delusions from official sources?

My Anime List has them both listed among the other characters. https://myanimelist.net/anime/24765/Gakkougurashi/characters

Chap 55 out. It's been a while since we had so much levity. Also interesting to see how Yuki's role has completely changed within the group. Touko is almost filling her old role now. Aaand Rise is in cahoots with the scientist?

But it's still too damn short.

edited 30th Mar '17 4:20:16 AM by Lyendith

That was the best chapter in a while. Needed some funny stuff in there.

At least they seem to be getting around to the main plot. Hopefully that'll give the other girls who haven't gotten much screentime some things to do.

This and Chapter 52 are by far my favorite newer chapters thus far. Really liked the humor in this chapter, and once again I feel tempted to ship Yuki and Kurumi even though Kuru Miki is OTP. The cliffhanger was just kind of weird. Don't know what to make of it, so I guess I'll just wait until we find out more.

Also, while Takahito is dead, something else occurred to me about him due to this chapter: Touko says that she plans on growing a garden in order to have more food around. The MFC had trouble with running low on food, and yet Takahito never considered this solution at any point, instead opting to kill most of his own people and thus having far less people on his side. Yet another reason why that guy was a moron, I suppose.

I commissioned two more GG fanart pics

…I don't get the first pic. What's it about?

Chap 56 is out. And we have a new party member! Who may or may not be the same age as the others... Apparently she is... She doesn't really look trustworthy though… Interestingly the two zombies in her room were strangely quiet, implying she found a way to neutralize them.

We alsoget a shot of an aircraft carrier in the middle of the sea. Its crew members don't look too fresh to say the least. We don't get a close up, but it seems like they're zombified.

I think the first one is the Anime and Manga version of Miki meeting each other.

^^It's about the Anime and Manga versions of Miki interacting. They're pretty much entirely different in terms of personality, especially with Manga Miki early on, who was kind of a jerk. Anime Miki is more of a shy and timid moeblob by comparison. Manga Miki calling Anime Miki a pushover is just an exaggerated way of showing both of these traits.

Also, yeah I don't trust Asosi either. I want to give her the benefit of doubt and assume that she's just really quirky and doesn't have great social skills, but she's really creepy too and is rather bizzare. If she is evil though, so far she's a far interesting antagonist then Takahito and Ayaka ever were.

Adorable KuruMiki cat girls, which is based on this official artwork picture◊.

edited 29th Apr '17 10:25:51 AM by marston

So some clips of the upcoming official School Live dub have been released, showing off the main cast and a bit of Kei. For the most part the voices and acting fit the characters pretty well. I particularly like Kurumi's dub voice and acting. The main problem though is Yuki. Her dub actress, while still good, just doesn't fit the role very well IMO. Here's the clips so you can judge for yourself.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OWoGz3oOueg

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cnlQzbEuvrw

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BrFF05xsxrI

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vvrLX5Icz80

edited 19th May '17 1:16:02 PM by marston

Chapter 57: Well, not very much happened here, other than in-universe speculation and the girls leaving the University. But it looks like we'll be moving on to the next main arc. Still wondering when Ayaka is going to pop up again, since I highly doubt she's​ really dead given how ambiguous her fate is and the fact that all the other dead characters had very unambiguous deaths with no room for potential survival.

But yeah, the University arc is finally over. Here's hoping that the next main arc will be way better.

edited 30th May '17 5:23:27 PM by marston

I hope they bring in Randall Flagg, he'd certainly be much better as a villain.