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This article contains spoilers for the School-Live! anime.
Did you ever play Doki Doki Literature Club? If you did, remember the bait-and-switch genre switch halfway through the game? Now, imagine if an anime followed a similar formula, but with zombies. That's what School-Live is. The anime came out back in 2015 and was the talk of the town after the polarizing first episode aired, but has since been forgotten. But did it deserve to be tossed to the wayside?
School-Live is an anime about four overly cute girls surviving daily life at their school. Literally. In fact, Yuki is completely delusional and is hallucinating a normal life with her and her friends. Meanwhile, her friends that are grounded in reality are simply trying to keep each other alive inside their old school, which was nearly destroyed in the ongoing zombie apocalypse. The bulk of the anime takes place in Yuki's delusions, with the occasional flash to their deadly reality. But what does the anime have to offer past the infamous plot twist in the first episode?
The Anime Is A Unique Experience
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The first episode alone is one of the most unique anime episodes to ever exist. It starts out as a bright and cheery introduction to your typical slice-of-life anime, and waits to reveal the true intentions behind the anime until the final two minutes of the episode. What was before the most stereotypical and cliché CGDCT anime episode suddenly turned into an atmospheric horror in a matter of seconds, and played out just long enough for you to realize what you're really getting into with School-Live.
That being said, not much is talked about past the first episode. This is unfortunate, because the anime seamlessly blends the two worlds introduced in the first episode. It's an equal amount of slice-of-life delusions and cuteness from Yuki and the bleak zombie apocalypse setting. The other girls in the school all playing along to Yuki's delusions are the bridge between the two worlds, and are written very well. Although some aspects of this can be a little repetitive as the series goes on, it still provides a unique atmosphere and the haunting tale of friends sparing the hallucinating Yuki from what the real world has become.
There's More Than The Unique Atmosphere, Though
Where the plot lands and escapes from is also well done. Take the second episode for example; when exploring the remnants of the school, the girls stumble across the school's supplies store. While the rest of the girls take this as an opportunity to stock up on provisional, Yuki takes the opportunity to buy as much candy as she can. During this, a zombie makes it's way into the school. Megumi pulls Yuki away and silences her, covering her eyes so she can't see the situation being handled by the rest of the girls.
Besides showing the girl's protecting Yuki's delusions, this scene also revealed that zombies can in fact enter the school. What's worse, one was able to find the girls without them noticing until it was almost too late. Now the girls need to find out how to keep more zombies from entering the school before they're overrun.
The show's development of the girl's characters is also well-done. Returning to the second episode, Kurumi experiences events that remind her of her past, specifically of someone she had a crush on before the apocalypse. In the third episode, Megumi is revealed to have been the girl's teacher, and the episode showcases pre-apocalypse events where different girls from our main group got to know her as the new teacher the day the zombies began to appear. This episode is especially important in establishing one thing; Megumi's desire to be loved by her students. Specifically, the story begins to establish each of the girl's reasons for enabling Yuki's delusions, while also explaining their mannerisms and how they are reacting to the apocalypse in modern times.
The Infamous Plot Twist Isn't The Only Shocker
Although some people in online anime spaces have criticized for being a one-trick pony, this is only said among those who didn't finish the short one-season series. In fact, some of the paragraphs above had to be intentionally misleading to avoid revealing spoilers that come about in later episodes. The first episode's plot twist is far from the most shocking, and definitely isn't quite as emotionally impactful as later twists.
School-Live may seem like a shock-value horror blended into a slice-of-life, but it is so much more than that. It is the story of a complicated and messy friendship structure, built on supporting one of the member's delusions, an escape from the zombie-infested world the girls wish they had themselves. The story thrusts us into the unique and harrowing world of these young heroines trying to keep their friend's innocence alive while protecting her from the apocalypse she is unaware of. By the end, you will truly feel for each and every girl in the cast.