WARNING: The following review includes spoilers involving every episode of Gakkou Gurashi! so far. Despite my best efforts of trying to think of a review that didn’t include spoilers, this episode just made it too hard to do so. For this reason, I highly suggest that you get fully caught up before continuing to read this review.
You know what I was thinking? This show is too cutesy. This show better scare me like a good horror series before I drop it! Except that’s exactly what this episode did (and I’d never drop this show, it’s glorious). I honestly should have expected something like this episode to roll around eventually but on episode three? Good god. So now let’s talk about how this show is the greatest zombie apocalypse anime to grace the Earth, shall we?
This episode was something different from everything else we’ve seen so far. Up until now, the show has only been giving us small doses of horror mixed in with the cutesy elements we’re given thanks to Yuki. But what if we no longer had to be chained to Yuki and what if the characters didn’t need to cater to her delusions for just one episode? For this episode we follow around Megumi Sakura, the faculty advisor for the School-Live club and the only surviving teacher in the entire school, for the main character of the episode rather than Yuki. In addition, this episode doesn’t pick up chronologically where the last show left off until the last quarter. This time around, we get to see how it all started (more or less).
What was school like the day of the apocalypse? How fast did it spread? What was Megumi’s life like before? Well no need to continue wondering because this episode gives you all the answers why! I must say now that I absolutely love how this episode was executed. As we follow around Megumi there are little elements scattered about showing how the sudden murderous outbreak is slowly spreading throughout the town and throughout Japan. They become more and more abundant and closer and closer to Megumi just as the infection is getting closer and closer to the school all the way up until the staff room is attacked and Megumi gets a phone call from a teacher warning her of the danger. I personally think this was a nearly perfect way of showing the progression of the zombies without ever leaving Megumi’s side. Since she’s the adult of the series she was the perfect character to follow around and constantly be receiving texts about the horror building up not too far from where she works.
Finally, what I find the most interesting in the entire episode is that we didn’t reach the point when Yuki started seeing the world in a different way. Kurumi’s murder of her love and the beginning of the apocalypse didn’t do it so I’m still awfully curious to see what happened to Yuki that made her have to see the world as if the apocalypse never happened. So far the series is getting more and more tense as episodes go by so I’m hoping that the horror is cranked up to 11 by the time we get to the last episode. Larche is executing this story beautifully so far and I can’t wait for more.
Pixiv artists best make more fan art pronto or I’m going to end up running out of these (Pixiv link)
As usual, if you’d like to see what I’m up to when I’m not doing my part for this blog you can follow me on Twitter. I’ll be back next week for the next episode of this amazing show; I wish there was already more so I could marathon it. See you all next week!
-Tsuyuki Arumaya
Tsuyuki
devenluca
josefcd904
Nick
Ydna
July 24, 2015 at 7:24 pm
I love this series so far, especially this ep, kinda shows how Yuki got her mental breakdown and somewhat shows (about half?) of how did the zombie apocalypse happened. Kinda scary tbh.
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July 24, 2015 at 7:39 pm
After 3 eps I’m retracting my statement I made earlier saying it’s too soon to call this Anime of the Season. Honestly I’m a bit jelly of you for picking something so amazing to review, my picks are very hit or miss each season. Man I’m enjoying this anime far more than I expected and it’s blown away all my expectations by far. But this ep, man this ep was like you said, perfectly executed. I loved how they showed the outbreak from Megu’s perspective as it felt much more real and chilling. Also your point about how this wasn’t what made Yuki create her dream world to escape reality, so whatever did must be quite dramatic. Overall this anime has amazed me with it’s characters, story, emotion, and execution of it all. This totally deserves a nomination for Anime of the Season and if it keeps up this level of sheer brilliance each week, I’d put this down for Anime of the Year in a heartbeat.
Great review, I look forward to next week!
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July 24, 2015 at 8:03 pm
One thing that I really liked this episode was how they did the major back story for most of it. I read the manga to chapter 30 and there are only 35 out now, and although they did do bits and pieces here and there they did not put it all together and in Megu’s perceptive and in so much detail that was not in the manga. At the same time this series already stepped away from and is doing it in flashbacks, which is fine and I like how they are handling it. A part of me wishes this was the second episode, but this episode was still well placed.
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July 25, 2015 at 11:56 am
I still want to believe Megu-nee’s fate is not what we think it is. Obviously I greatly commend the show for its hints and approach to horror. No jump scares, just well coordinated frights and the more violent scenes are not shown because what is scarier than what one cannot see? The aftermath can be more disturbing than the cliche “oh look at this zombie’s crushed organs or mutilated face!”
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July 25, 2015 at 6:32 pm
Hey. Your blog is excellent. So I’ve nominated your blog for a Liebster Award! https://otakuorbit.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/liebster-award-nomination/
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