Highschool of the Dead OVA Review

May Contain Spoilers

 It’s been about three months since I reviewed Highschool of the Dead and I did plan to review the OVA Drifters of the Dead as soon as it came out but I’ve been dealing with mountains of college work and so here it is at last.

Story

Drifters of the Dead begins with a recap of the events that happened over the course of the series which as always is narrated by Takashi. After this we learn that the group have taken a small rowboat and ended up on a beach on an isolated island just off shore of Tokonosu City (The city in which Highschool of the Dead is set).

Now that the group have found a place in which the zombies cannot pursue them, they soon discover that there is a beach house which they can use as shelter and has a good supply of water stored inside.

They find that the main items sold in the beach house are swimsuits, so they take the opportunity to have a little down-time and each get a swimsuit, however most of the swimsuits are for girls so Takashi is forced to wear an extremely tight Speedo that highlights his crotch while Hirano is wearing a female school swimsuit which he seems to enjoy a little too much.

Then each of the girls step out to show off their swimsuits while Takashi & Hirano feast their eyes on them,  Rei notices this and puts on a “damsel in distress” act along with the other girls to which Takashi and Hirano are tasked with finding some food for the group since the beach house has none.

So while they search, the girls play a little volleyball, splash each other in the surf and do some sunbathing. Meanwhile Takashi has not had much luck and has somehow ended up having a staring contest with a praying mantis, Hirano on the other hand gets back some badass points by going all Rambo by tying a bayonet  to a stick and jumping into the ocean to kill some dinner.

Then with the sun going down the group gather in the beach house to learn that Takashi has come up with nothing which he is scolded for by Rei and his ego takes a beating, however Hirano returns with a net filled with fish and then talks about how he had survival training when he was in the UK to which Saya says to Rei who would she’d prefer a useless normal guy or a useful nerd which only hurts Takashi’s pride even more.

The group then gather around a campfire with leaves which were brought by Zeke to cook Hirano’s catch. Then Shizuka starts to feel a bit dizzy which she attributes to the lack of food, however soon the others begin to feel dizzy themselves.

Then Shizuka realizes that the leaves that Zeke had brought for the campfire are actually Hydrangea, a plant with intoxicating properties which induces hallucinations.

Now under the effects of the smoke, Rei and Shizuka become more sexually aggressive towards Takashi and they attempt to kiss him and Takashi is then grabbed by Saya and gets a close-up of her cleavage and she also tries to kiss him. Takashi tries to snap her out of it by slapping her to which Saya reacts “Hit me more” which suggests that she maybe a bit of a masochist.

Takashi is then lead away from the beach by Saeko who seems to be unaffected by the smoke and then Shizuka sees her friend Rika who is really Saya who in turn sees her mother instead of Shizuka. Meanwhile Takashi and Saeko have gone to a remote part of the island which is safe from the smoke only to reveal that Saeko has also been affected by the smoke like the others and she kisses Takashi.

Takashi then succumbs to the smoke's effects by pushing Saeko to the ground kissing her and he then begins removing her bikini top and fondles her breasts.

The episode then cuts to morning, when a naked Saya wakes up with her face in Shizuka's bosom and she turns around to see Hirano humping a broom shouting something about a revolution. She then looks ahead towards the beach and sees Rei and Saeko both naked and kissing and all of this is too much for Saya to witness and she screams at the top of her lungs.

They sober up from the effects of the smoke as they sit on the beach and are busy trying to convince themselves it was all just a hallucination. Saya then snaps at Kohta for pointing out that while they were hallucinating, what they did was still real.

Alice then runs over shouting something about Takashi.

The group then follows her and it appears that Takashi is having a wet dream while mumbling Rei, Saya, Saeko and Shizuka's names as he moans about them doing something sexual to him. However, the camera pans out revealing several "Them" girls in bikinis who he is fending off with his legs and arms as they try to bite him.

Horrified, Saeko and the gang pull out their weapons. Suddenly, one of "them" accidentally falls headfirst into Takashi's crotch.

The episode then fades to black with him screaming.

Following the credits Alice explains that contrary to the gang's belief, there was a tunnel connecting Tokonosu City and the island together. She then states that their mission is not over and that there is more to come. The episode ends with the text "TO BE CONTINUED".

Presentation

As with the series the animation is pretty good overall and the character designs are as good as ever. The backgrounds are as stunning as before and the quality seems to have been improved a bit.

Music

The music in this OVA is recycled from the series with the added ending song Best friends which was sung by Maon Kurosaki.

Voice Acting

The voice acting is great as always but I was a bit sceptic because Highschool of the Dead is a zombie apocalypse story and Drifters of the Dead is more of a comedy, however the voice actors I think pulled it off to great effect in this production.

Final Thoughts

Well it’s not really a full episode only lasting about 16 minutes and even though it’s non canon to the story I did enjoy watching this OVA but I did have some criticisms.

While I expected the fanservice close-ups of Rei, Saya and the other female characters in their swimsuits, the thing is that Takashi gets the same treatment in this OVA because after the group get their swimsuits they kind of make a point of getting his ass in the scene which can be off-putting to people watching it.

I did however laugh at a few scenes like when Hirano was humping the broom mainly because of the sound effect that was added to it and seeing Zeke in his own little suit.

Overall I think that only die-hard fans of the series should ever watch this at all.