Manga/Gakkou Gurashi

A good ending. I'm surprised they actually managed to more or less make a transition to the next arc despite all the differences with the manga (although Rii's Sanity Slippage not happening would complicate things).

Not sure what the deal was with the "other dog" though… are they keeping that for another season too? And at the end is it that other dog, or did Taroumaru get out of his grave?

Well, to sum up the anime I would say it was… brighter than the manga overall (despite the Darkest Hour in episode 11). It's not a bad thing but, yeah… I think the manga's story and characterization flow a bit better. I'd still be curious to see how they would handle a second season though.

(… Taroumaru… ;__;)

edited 25th Sep '15 1:08:20 AM by Lyendith

Well now, that's an interesting Blink and You'll Miss it moment: Yuki's reflection doesn't actually match up with her hair (no twirly hair tendrils and hairpin for one), and what's more, lavender hair. Oh you, anime staff.

It's interesting that they'd do this, as the manga doesn't go out of its way to prove whether Megu-nee is a ghost or really just a figment of Yuki's imagination. Heck, Yuki stops seeing her entirely after they leave the school in the manga.

edited 25th Sep '15 5:30:32 PM by MyssaRei

Well, that was a good way to end the anime. And Taroumaru's send-off was just touching. I honestly thought he was gonna be just as irrelevant as he was in the manga. Proven wrong I was. Greatly. *sob*

There could be a few problems for anime-only watchers who plan on reading the manga from this point.

Mr. Teddy being left behind. He will be more than a teddy down the road. For Yuuri's sake.

And Kurumi's actual condition.

edited 26th Sep '15 6:43:22 PM by Diamite

Well, the anime was, decent. Strong beginning and ending, but a painful middle with too much fanservice while nothing happened. Still good when it tried, and the ending was sadder than I thought it would be.

Then I read the manga. So much better in regard to pacing and character development. Kurumi really got the shaft in the anime. Megu-nee was handled better in the anime though. And within all the despair there was one bright spot. They're somehow playing Splatoon even though it makes no sense. They even set up the local multiplayer with the ridiculous pro controller + Wiimote taped together scheme.

Seems to be prevailing opinion actually — the anime did better with Megu-nee, but the manga was better overall.

Speaking of the manga, 39 and 40 are out, but they're not quality scans or translations at all.

Chapter 39 is mostly about the School Life club adjusting to Saint Isidore's surroundings, but not much had changed relatively — Rii actually forces everyone to attend "classes" for example. Oh, and Yuki and Miki encounter another college student who doesn't seem to aligned to any of the factions at the school, and they meet her at the university library while they're looking for reading material.

Chapter 40 is... interesting. The implication is the college girls want to investigate Randall in depth, but they're going to try to gain the support of the college students who're the fighters and... it didn't pan out. Also Ruu starts to reply back to Yuri. Uhm. LOL at the Resident Evil reference though.

edited 26th Sep '15 6:04:44 PM by MyssaRei

And the sales figures for the first BR-DVD volume (where we usually get the bulk of sales for shows) is... only 1200~ish units. Gentlemen and ladies, the anime flopped hard in Japan.

Conversely, the manga volumes have sold 1.2 million units. That's a massive surge in purchases, something like 1500% increase I think for all six volumes out so far.

At this point I have no idea how to classify where School Live stands here. Acclaimed Flop? Critical Dissonance?

edited 1st Oct '15 5:47:04 AM by MyssaRei

I haven't really heard any negative opinion on the series − mixed at worst − so that would be an Acclaimed Flop, sort of. I'm not sure what happened here… especially if it did give a push to the manga's sales…

Although apparently, Gangsta and Arslan flopped even harder (and it's safe to assume Jitsu wa will too).

…Really, even the top raking series' sales aren't that high (6000-ish). I thought anime sold more than that in Japan. Isn't 1300 a pretty average score actually?

edited 1st Oct '15 6:17:53 AM by Lyendith

To "break even" (meaning the average target unit sales to recoup costs in a short series), the target is 3000-ish units. Anything below that is, yes, a failure.

Hilariously, 3000 units was, yes, the initial expectation for Girls Und Panzer. And we all know how THAT turned out.

Both Arslan and Gangsta were banking on manga sales to make up for BR unit shortfalls, but the low numbers surprised School Live watchers. I guess the adage holds in this case — many liked watching it, but not enough wanted to actually BUY it.

edited 1st Oct '15 6:44:19 AM by MyssaRei

Yeah, the anime numbers are really bad, but the manga boost was really good. I guess the anime being a bit of a bastardization became common knowledge in the Japanese fandom

Meanwhile, preorders show that the latest Symphogear season will probably sell 20K plus per volume in its first week.

Heh, strange world we live in.

edited 1st Oct '15 7:03:11 PM by Demongodofchaos2

Hi everybody, just finished to watch the anime (I am anime-only for now, just read a few chapters of the manga), and I must say I enjoyed it since I like these kind of shows where a cute appearance hides a horrible truth.

I think Lerche did a pretty good job visually and aurally to make an even more jarring juxtaposition between the cute stuff and the sad/creepy moments (the Megu-nee parts especially... dat ep. 9 ending). Between this and Monster Musume it is becoming one of my favourite anime companies fast. I didn't mind too much the pool episode, either, since the girls' antics weren't too absurd and usually in this kind of story the Breather Episode is the prelude to more horror (which in fact happened).

However I wasn't satisfied with the ending since I felt that it resolved the issues of the other episodes too abruptly to make space for the "graduation" part. I understand that to Japanese people it's a very important moment and it sets up lots of symbolism inside and outside the context of the series, but it did nothing for me. I was only more marginally moved by Taroumaru's passing Also all the issues about the vaccine were glossed over. I liked how they emphasized Megu-nee's importance in their lives though.

It still was a good and interesting show, after all, among ones I enjoyed more this year.

I thought the graduation was fine even in the anime. What I found "glossed over" was rather Miki's rescue in the mall.

Now you can see the manga and appreciate the differences.

edit: Oh sorry, I misread the part about the graduation.

And wait, it's the same studio as Mon Musu?!

edited 2nd Oct '15 11:22:17 AM by Lyendith

I also have three (well, 2 plus 1) questions about the final episode:

• What was the point of implying that there was another dog at the very end? What could this reveal possibly change at that point? I felt that it was meaningless and a failed attempt to reduce the shock of Taroumaru's passing.
• It's somewhat implied that both Yuki and Miki can "see" Megu-nee's spirit, so does that mean that, every time Yuki proposed to do something that was actually beneficial to the group, she was assisted by Megu-nee from beyond the grave?
• When Yuki is attacked by the zombies, they rip off one of the angel wings on her backpack. When she is in the communication room the camera lingers a bit on the backpack without one wing. Can I put that as Faux Symbolism on the trope page?

As for bullet point two, the same thing happens in the manga in a different context — a rescue chopper crashes on the school grounds, and its explosion sets fire to most of the school building, which forces Yuri and Yuki to run to the emergency shelter. Because of all the smoke, they're making difficulty finding their way, then Yuri sees Megu-nee beckoning them in the direction of the bunker. Take note, barring Miki and Kurumi, neither Yuki nor Yuri had ever tried traveling there before.

That said, the manga doesn't really say for sure whether Megu-nee's a spirit or not especially since Yuki stops seeing her once they leave the school.

edited 3rd Oct '15 4:12:02 AM by MyssaRei

1. I think it was mostly there to patch up the plot hole introducing Taroumaru to that arc caused
2. Maybe? I wouldn't think to much about it, personally
3. No, that's regular symbolism

Speaking of Yuki...

As for the topic... quite ridiculous how the anime went out of its way to make Taroumaru awesome, then spend ten minutes of the final episode having the girls speak about how Taroumaru was awesome. Kind of takes away from the ending, as it meant that they would have all died had it not been for the puppy's intervention. It's stupid, as least as far as a manga reader like me is concerned.

Anyone noticed the subtle changes happening in the OP up to episode 11? Like the "pool" becoming more red?

There was that awkward moment in chapter 31 when Yuki mentioned something she said that night when the group is supposed to be asleep, and Rii scolds her for it. I still don't understand it.

I honestly think it was about time the crisis ended. It was going on for two full episodes already, and episode 11 was clearly building up to the resolution. Making the rainy day longer would have dragged it on and left less time for the graduation. Episode 12 shouldn't stand by itself; you should be looking at the last three episodes together.

I think the ending was pretty nice, first finishing up the anime's own original take on the Kurumi arc (really the "rainy day arc"), and then being rather faithful to the manga during the graduation part. I do see Taromaru taking up a lot of attention, but still.

And the presumed Kei walking in the schoolyard had a bigger emotional impact because she was alone there, given that the school just adjourned. It made the ending quite bittersweet given that this is the season finale, whereas the manga has an immediate continuation.

I always assumed zombie!Kei headed towards the school so she could 'meet up with Miki' - she was driven by that memory, as opposed to the 'go home after school' ones.

edited 17th Oct '15 10:31:22 PM by IchigoNeko

Chapter 41: Is it me or are there homages showing up? The biker suit and helmet at the beginning of the chapter reminds me of Durarara! and the kid with the hat is reminiscent of someone too from another anime.

Ruu seems to be sort of an anti-Megu-nee. While Yuki regressed to a childish state and pushed her rational side into a hallucination, Ruu seems to be Rii's emotional, childish side that she'd been repressing

The kid with the crossbow looks like the guy from Mirai Nikki, true.

Of COURSE they hadn't cleared the university grounds completely. Of COURSE they had not only this cordoned-off "graveyard", but a locked Chemistry department with someone who seems to be experimenting on zombies (see the panel where one zombie seems to be handcuffed).

Those are guns that are just waiting to go off, yeah. I really hope that they aren't the ones that push the story towards Randall next though.

edited 29th Oct '15 3:43:33 AM by MyssaRei

It's also interesting to see that contrary to Megu-nee, whose presence progressively faded, Ruu seems to take more consistence and become more "real" as we go on. Yuki is very good at that, to boot.

Now I'm expecting Ruu to go "uryu~" at every turn.

Huh, speaking of which… that scientist doesn't plan on abducting Miki to experiment on her, does she? >.>

So it seems the English scans have caught up this time. The awkward translation makes reading a bit tedious sometimes, though…

Chapter 42 is available.

I'm really wondering what direction this manga is taking now. The cast is much larger now and there's potential to explore these characters. The college life could have been a "school 2" thing where after a high school Gakkou Gurashi, you now have a college Gakkou Gurashi with its variant of school life club.

Also the end...

…The horrendous translation makes it a bit hard to get what's going on at times but, huh, at least now we got to see everyone's reaction to "Ruu-chan".

The initial formula couldn't last forever anyway. The plot has to move forward at some point. =[

I saw volume 1 of the manga at a nearby bookstore.

From what glanced, the translation is very close to what I've read. At the end of the volume is a few pages explaining the school's history and explaining its culture.