School-Live! Vol. 1 TP
Publisher: Yen Press
Release Date, October 17, 2015
Price: $13.00
Creator(s): Norimitsu Kaihou (writer) and Sadoru Chiba (art)
Format: 176 pgs., Black & White, Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-3163-0970-7
Age Rating: 16+
ICv2 Ratings: 3 Stars out of 5

One anime series that seriously took off over the summer was School-Live! which features a group of girls who are living in a school because outside the walls of the building is a zombie horde waiting to kill them.  In the manga series, these girls spend chapter after chapter trying to lead something that resembles a normal life while faced with completely unusual circumstances.
 

The main issue that I took away from the first volume of School-Live is that there wasn't enough build towards the reveal that these girls are battling zombies on a regular basis and trying to stay alive.  The series starts with the main character going about her regular life; hanging out with other students, going to club activities, etc but then very suddenly it is revealed in a panel that the world outside of their school is filled with death waiting around every corner.  Had this reveal been given out a bit later, it would've had a much stronger impact on the audience.

Even more than that, the big reveal wasn't even treated as something particularly shattering which was an interesting choice.  One moment the main character is walking around talking to friends, the next thing we know we see the building in a completely dilapidated state and are left to wonder how and why it ended up in that state.

What this basically boils down to though is that the premise of the whole series isn't set up nearly as strongly as one would hope it would be which leaves the rest of the series to suffer because of it.  Without this very strong hook to guide me into the series, it felt as though it was a struggle to get through the rest of the chapters and get to know these characters.

It's not all bad of course.  The artwork in this first volume is really quite well done and makes use of excellent shading and shadowing in order to create some very spooky effects which clues the audience in on when the girls are about to do battle.

In the end, this is a series for those who aren't quite sick of the zombie fetish the world is under at the moment.  It will not blow your mind and isn't nearly as fantastic as one might hope it would be but it'll kill a couple of hours.

--L.B. Bryant