#Right away, I just need to straight up warn that for one, this review is going to be FULL SPOILERS. Secondly, this series has absolutely ridiculous amounts of gore, and I'm sure this review is going to include at least a fraction of it. Thirdly, ~~this is probably not gonna resemble an actual review because of what I have to work with this time.~~#
___
#Introduction#
Before we just dive right in, some background information on this... ONA. It is an adaptation of a two volume novel series written by Ryou Ikehata and the studio GONZO are the ones responsible for adapting it and releasing it into the world.
GONZO: _Hey, you FUCKERS. LOOK AT WHAT WE DID._
The World: Oh jesus, why.
Pretty much every single thing about this ONA is just... completely fucked. Pardon my french, but there's just really no better way to put it. It made way more sense when I read that the original novels were described as "a violent survival comedy" but that still just...
Don't get me wrong though, I laughed at this series a huge amount. It was, in the moment ~~and even a little bit looking back on it now~~, amazing.
At the time watching it, I just couldn't wrap my head around it. And I still can't, kind of. As horrible as this was, as fucking awful looking as this, and as how wrong everything in this was... I genuinely really loved and still kind of love it but with a gigantic fucking asterisk attached. The only reason I could see explaining this adaptation's existence is that someone at GONZO just wanted to animate some fucked up and weird shit, and this is what they picked.
While on the other hand, for most other recent horror series, I can see a clear audience or market for those shows. Mahou Shoujo Site for people who just want to see magic girl battles but with blood and some goofy overdone tragedy stuff thrown in there. Devil's Line for people who want vampire action but generic vampire romance thrown in. Ousama Game for the ecchi crowd who also wants some blood thrown around. Happy Sugar Life for those people who like
Spoiler, click to view
yanderes and/or deeply psychologically damaged characters.Those shows there is a clear audience that will watch them and probably even enjoy them. But personally, I found more or less most of them just kind of boring. That's why when this came along fully uncensored and there was just like limbs being ripped off and brains getting splattered around all uncensored, I just... I just couldn't help myself.
That being said, despite my own ~~borderline insane~~ personal enjoyment of this series, I could only honestly see myself ever recommending it to people who like myself, enjoy the process of performing autopsies on absolute disasters.
So let's get started. And I should just say right now that this is basically just going to be an overview. Because there is just way too much for me to ever feasibly exhaustively break it down.
"Plot"
Okay, this is the description of this ONA.
The story revolves around a beautiful girl named Euphrosyne who is regretfully a zombie. Euphrosyne wakes up in an underground archive of a university, where a maid named Alma tells her, "Madam, kill the students and retrieve the 'Secret Stone.'"
...That's literally the entire plot right there. You don't even have to watch the ONA now. College students steal a stone from zombie girls that are for SOME REASON being kept in a university, the zombie girls come back to life, and then want their stone back and kill the students who ARE GENUINELY IN THE WRONG AS THEY DID STEAL THE STONE AFTER BREAKING INTO THE UNIVERSITY'S STOREROOM OR WHATEVER IT WAS IN SEARCH OF "TREASURE".
"Characters"
With the complex plot covered, let's jump to the characters.
There is not even a single fucking notable or interesting character. Hell, there are not even any remotely LIKABLE characters. There's just the college students, a professor, and the zombie girls. The college students are all complete assholes or just brainless horror characters that make the absolute worst decisions ALWAYS.
Like if you wanted to, you could nitpick almost every single decision they make, every single thing they do and say. They're an occult club or something, but why are they breaking into this place to steal treasure? Why would they assume there's treasure in a coffin? Why would they open the coffin? Why are these college students totally fine being around a mummified corpse? Why would one of them say it smells like BEEF JERKY? A CORPSE THAT HAS BEEN MUMMIFIED FOR HOWEVER MANY YEARS SMELLS LIKE PREMIUM BEEF JERKY.
How did the one that pulled a stone out of the abdomen of one of the mummified corpses know that there was a magical stone embedded in the abdomen of the mummified corpse? If they did not already know about the presence of the magical stone beforehand, then
#WHY THE FUCK DID A COLLEGE STUDENT PUT THEIR HAND INTO A MUMMIFIED CORPSE? "LET'S SEE HMM, THERE DOESN'T SEEM TO BE ANY TREASURE IN HERE. JUST ROTTING ENTRAILS. THAT'S WEIRD. EVERYBODY KNOWS YOU STORE YOUR TREASURE INSIDE OF YOU FOR SAFEKEEPING."#
The fucked up thing is that statement is actually true for the zombie girl. But still, I guarantee you, if you just break into a morgue and start shoving your hand into dead bodies, 99.999999999999998% OF THE TIME, YOU'RE NOT GONNA FIND MAGICAL STONES
And literally all of that is not even like ten minutes in. It's like an hour and twenty minutes. Like the sole college student I actually remember is the girl who kept bringing up kung fu.
Because it turns out, she actually knows kung fu. What an amazing character arc! Some quality writing right there! There's a set up and then a pay off! Her entire character is her mentioning kung fu and then she does the kung fu! And... it ended up saving literally no one. Whoops. Can't win every time, I guess!
Then the zombie girls, there's really no character to them apart from the fact that they want their stone back and the idiot college students that 100% deserved what was coming to them wouldn't give them their stone back. There's like a brief flashback way later on about their past but it comes so late and out of nowhere that it's just like... what was the point of that? Why even include that so late into the thing? What was the purpose of it? What?
Additionally, what the fuck sort of society did these zombie girls come from? Like I get that the main zombie girl was like basically a princess or something but like... it's just fine to literally rip a guy's arm off if they even touch you? And then to call that guy a coward when he realizes what just happened and fucking takes off running screaming in absolute terror? Like is she just supposed to be a princess who happens to be undead, or is she a reanimated monster that just roams around massacring people? Because like in the flashback scene it shows other people looking at her in disgust as if they know she's a walking corpse. A princess and a walking undead monster with brute strength. The two just don't mesh and in like some scenes, she's acting polite, but then bam the murder just starts out of nowhere.
A character who basically has no qualms about brutally murdering people... you can't sympathize with that character because they're actually legitimately, a walking monster. And yet eventually when almost everyone is dead, the zombie girl who killed a PRETTY LARGE PORTION OF THE CHARACTERS OF THIS ONA, basically becomes the "good guy"??? Or like, she's portrayed to be the less worse of the three zombie girls there are by the end of the series.
Fuck, am I still on the characters??? NEXT.
___"Pacing"
I think probably up to like the first fifteen minutes of this, I thought I was just in for an absolutely fucking terrible time. It was fucking horribly boring and it was just the human characters just talking and I instinctively looked at how long this was gonna be and saw I had over an hour to go and I think the exact words that came out of my mouth were:
"Ohhhhhhhhhhh fuck."
But when the zombie girl is finally awake, she just shoves some old guy against a book shelf and it bashes in the open of his head and you can see the brains and my attention went from immediately from 0 to 100. Like right as I was steeling myself to sit through a fucking slogging miserable hour of human characters, there was just splattered brains.
Of course as it turns out, from this point on, it just fucking keeps escalating and it never stops. When like thirty two minutes in, it just switches to the professor guy taking a sledgehammer to a dog's head for... at that moment, SEEMINGLY ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING REASON, I was just... I was all in.
I was fully emotionally invested in this series. I can basically already hear the judging that's gonna be coming my way even as I'm typing this. ~~These horror reviews really do make me seem like a monster.~~
"TGG, you... you want to see dogs have their heads smashed open?"
#GORE#
Gore is unmistakably an inseparable part of the horror genre. Don't get me wrong though, I'm a firm believer that just gore alone doesn't make interesting horror. There's gotta be something behind all of the blood and viscera. However, if you're outright making some schlock B-movie horror and you're purposely trying to push the boundaries as far as you possibly can, this certainly fucking accomplishes that.
And when I finally realized that this was just gonna be a lot of that and not much else, my enjoyment increased considerably because the gore is just fucking so ridiculous and over the top that it's just hilarious to me as a horror fan. The Friday the 13th movies, AKA, the Jason Voorhees series is like one of the biggest horror franchises I can honestly say I've never seen a single movie of.
Now even though that's true, I've of course seen the infamous scene where Jason basically kills a camper by swinging them in a sleeping bag against a tree. AND WHEN ZOMBIE GIRL PICKS UP KUNG FU GIRL BY THE LEG AND JUST STARTS SWINGING HER AROUND AGAINST TREES, I CANNOT HELP IT BUT START LAUGHING AT IT.
No matter how horribly gratuitous that fucking scene was. It's just fucking absurd. Speaking of absurd and that scene...
"Consistency"
The power level or effectiveness of the zombie girl as a horror monster is just fucking terrible. Like okay very early on, you have it set up that the zombie girl is basically weakened without her magical stone that I guess is what is keeping her alive but… like she’s been asleep for a century or multiple centuries WITH the stone? It’s only when she has the stone taken away from her that she’s actually awakened?
Alright whatever, pushing that aside…
We’re almost immediately shown that she can just rip a person’s arm off without even thinking about it. But yet she fights the kung fu girl for like twenty minutes or a seemingly ridiculous amount of time and the entire time I was just…
WHY DON’T YOU JUST KILL HER? IF YOU HAVE THE STRENGTH TO JUST RIP LIMBS OFF WILLY NILLY THEN WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU HAVING LIKE AN EXTENDED SERIOUS ONE ON ONE FIGHT WITH THIS GIRL WHO LIKES KUNG FU?
~~Also, I was not at all expecting that girl to actually start using kung fu and/or actually fight the zombie girl. I also completely forgot that she just started juggling bottles. That's not fucking kung fu, that's like a goddamned circus act.~~
And then sure enough, they fight for all this time and then like their fight even moves outside, and then the zombie girl I guess just decides she’s had enough for no reason and just kills her. It is just so blatant. It’s not that the zombie girl gained the upper hand, it’s not because the kung fu girl ran out of stamina… the zombie girl just decides she’s had enough because kung fu girl said something about the maid zombie girl and just brutally completely breaks her arm and the way it is executed is…
Like they had to have known what they were making. This has to be intentional. But yet I was still laughing like a madman. Like she just grabs the kung fu girl’s arms and like holds it for a second and like the kung fu girl clearly has more than enough time to react but no she just does absolutely nothing until zombie girl breaks it.
WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST DO THAT FROM THE START. HOW ARE YOU GONNA “NOT FORGIVE THEM” WHEN YOU’RE ALREADY BRUTALLY KILLING AND TERRORIZING THEM? YOU RIPPED A GUY’S ARM OFF JUST BECAUSE HE TOUCHED YOU. ACTUALLY, YOU SHOVED THE OLD GUY SO HARD HIS BRAINS CAME OUT ALSO BECAUSE HE TOUCHED YOU. YET NO, YOU CAN'T JUST IMMEDIATELY KILL KUNG FU GIRL.
Then like immediately after that is the students’ brilliant trap to kill the main zombie girl. See, all you have to do is just pour out a sizable puddle of gasoline, get her to stand on it, and then set it ablaze. Then, confused, rather than just trying to immediately get out of the flames, she’s just going to try and stomp the flames out giving you the perfect opportunity to have her impaled by… sharpened metal poles?
…how did they have enough time to rig a trap in which sharpened metal poles would be launched at her at the pull of a rope? Where did they get the metal poles? How did they create this idiotic trap? I guess it doesn't fuck matter, let's just move on from it.
The point is obviously since there is still an entire half hour left, this doesn’t successfully kill the zombie girl. Why? Is it because she’s just that strong? No, it’s because she had a spare headless body the entire time. No, really. Because that’s fair. So like what, is the power from the magical stone that’s keeping her alive stored in her brain…? Because the stone was in her original and now burned up body. Also, she was originally mummified. Why is the spare body just good as new? Rules in horror are a necessary thing! Without them, this is the type of nonsense you end up with!
So basically the SOLE reason why she just does not immediately kill every single human character to get her stone back is just… well, then you don’t have an hour and a half long ONA/two volume long novel series.
Well okay, but what about… what about the final battle of this entire thing? The explosive climax, if you will? Was… was she at least effective then? She spent all this time fucking around with humans maybe she’ll actually have an effective and badass fight with the EVIL zombie girl, right?
Like this is the lowest point in the entire thing. All the humans except for literally one are dead, the maid zombie girl had her throat cut, and this psychopath girl has the all powerful secret stone and just ate her brother’s heart for absolutely no reason and the good (???) zombie girl can do nothing to stop them! They leave the bloodied cathedral, but they’re really off to have an amazing and serious battle, RIGHT?
...RIGHT???
...................................RIGHT???????
#WRONG.#
I cannot think of anything in the last couple of years that has made me laugh more than the sudden scene transition from the camera showing the cathedral with all of the dead characters and the sudden cut from that, to both the good and the evil zombie girls standing on a FUCKING BASKETBALL COURT.
Why. No, really. WHY. Were there scenes between that transition in the original novel that they didn't include or... like why and how did they end up on a motherfucking basketball court?
The one who ate her brother’s heart for no reason was chasing the main zombie girl but then they're just there. Like if there was still any doubt in you, the viewer, whether or not Gonzo just wanted to animate some goofy shit, IT SHOULD BE GONE AT THIS POINT AS SUPER EVIL ZOMBIE GIRL WITH A BASKETBALL ALREADY IN HAND SUGGESTS TO THE ORIGINAL ZOMBIE GIRL THAT THEY SHOULD PLAY A GAME.
Why does the original main zombie girl actually even entertain the idea? Why is she not still running? Why does the evil zombie girl actually fucking dribble? Why are they doing this? Why does evil zombie girl say pass when her clear intention of launching the basketball at the main zombie girl is a violent one? Why didn't the evil zombie girl START OFF THE FIGHT WITH LAUNCHING MAIN ORIGINAL ZOMBIE GIRL INTO THE BASKETBALL HOOP RATHER THAN POINTLESSLY LAUNCHING ONE BASKETBALL AT HER?
Also, I swear to god the entire purpose of this was that someone wanted to animate that scene where main zombie girl's head rips off as she's stuck in the basketball hoop.
Why does evil zombie girl say goal when main zombie girl's head falls through the basketball hoop? Shouldn't she have said score? Goal is like more a soccer thing, that doesn't really... sound right to me. Why does evil zombie girl just walk away with the clear purpose of giving main zombie girl enough time to pick up her severed head? Why just... go back to launching basketballs at her?
Then when main zombie girl runs away to use some good old instant glue to attach her head back to her neck, oh yes, literally INSTANT GLUE CAN FIX DECAPITATIONS, why does evil zombie girl just show up again with a FUCKING BASEBALL BAT?
YOU CAN'T JUST SWITCH FROM BASKETBALL TO BASEBALL. WHERE'D YOU EVEN GET THAT BASEBALL BAT? IT WAS A FUCKING BASKETBALL COURT.
But you know what tops everything? You know what tops literally fucking everything? The insane scene transition, the decapitation via basketball hoop, the instant glue...
...What tops it all, is that they end up going back to the FUCKING CATHEDRAL. After all of that shit, they just end up where they left from.
"Oh okay, I'm gonna chase you to this basketball court and we're gonna have this goofy gory slapstick sports themed fight, but then we can come back to the cathedral with all the corpses and have this out for REAL."
And again, for fucking absolutely no reason despite basically having to do nothing but running or getting the shit kicked out of her and literally thrown around by the evil zombie, main zombie girl just suddenly decides for no reason, "NOW I HAVE THE UPPER HAND." The evil zombie girl had the secret stone, though! Isn't that the fucking source of your power and life???
...NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE, AND IT'S NOT EVEN THAT COMPLICATED TO BEGIN WITH. YET IT'S JUST COMPLETE AND UTTER NONSENSE. ZOMBIE GIRLS WANT A STONE THAT WAS STOLEN FROM THEM BY STUPID IDIOT STUDENTS, THEY KILL THE STUDENTS AND GET THE STONE BACK, DONE. THAT'S ALL IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE.
BUT IT JUST FUCKING DERAILS INTO COMPLETE AND UTTER LUNACY.
~~Though, it really was never on the rails from the very start, was it? So it couldn't really derail. It was already just completely fucked but then it... went further.~~
#Horror#
At some point, I guess someone who was involved in the process of making this remembered that oh yes, this is horror! We are making a horror ONA! But... well there's gore, but there's no atmosphere or any creepy things. Oh yeah, didn't we just finish a scene where one of the characters is just flat out killed via fucking TOILET???
Yeah, this isn't very scary at all.
...LET'S ADD A JUMPSCARE! That's horror! But let's only add exactly one (~~two if you count the pathetic after credits one~~) of them. Okay how about... I know we already had a goofy scene where the human characters already saw the zombie girls running past them, but how about a spooky scary scene where like you see like the shadow of a zombie girl runs by a human character in the background!
That's really fucking spooky, isn't it??? It'd be even fucking spookier if this wasn't like over halfway through the ONA. And if WE HADN'T ALREADY SEEN THE ZOMBIE GIRL IN FULL VIEW CONSTANTLY AND CONSISTENTLY.
WHY TRY AND DO JUST ONE SINGLE JUMPSCARE FOR THE ENTIRE THING THAT'S JUST FLAWED IN ABSOLUTELY EVERY FUCKING POSSIBLE WAY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?
The cat shows up like very briefly in like the beginning and by the time you get through all of the shit in this thing and make it to the credits, you've completely forgotten that there was a cat. And even if you remembered the cat, it's not like we saw the cat get experimented on and turned into a zombie like we did with the dog so what the fuck even was the deal THERE? WHAT WAS THE POINT? WHY?
#Conclusion#
...It's a masterpiece, truly. A 99 out of 100.
In totality, if I include just like watching segments of it, I've actually watched this somewhere around four times. But admittedly, others may not receive as much... amusement, out of this as I did. Even though I can with a straight face I actually enjoyed watching this and probably will watch it again in the future, that one hour and twenty minutes straight up felt like at least two hours that first time I watched it unaware of what I was getting myself into.
Personally I very much recommend to watch this if you are... well:
1) Not averse to gore.
2) Not averse to watching ridiculous ~~and arguably horrible~~ shit.
But beyond that, once you have finished watching it yourself, I recommend either talking or tricking one of your other anime acquaintances into watching it themselves so you can feed off of their misery.
Then, you can rewatch it yourself! And then when time passes, you can rewatch it again! You should watch it over and over again!
Again and again! Again and again! Again! Again! Again!
