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I Hate Anime: A Guide to Watching Horror Anime – Kore wa Zonbi Desu ka?

A new weekly feature for the blog!
I Hate Anime: A Guide to Watching Horror Anime is the result of my desperate attempts to watch horror animes while at the same time hating anime of any kind with a passion. You ask ”Why do you want to watch it if you don’t like it?”

I don’t have an answer for that. After you find yourself watching ”horror” TV shows from the early 90s because you’ve already seen everything else, watching some anime sounds like an okay proposition. Have you watched the Friday the 13th TV show? Anime should be a breeze.

Why I don’t usually enjoy anime

It’s probably just aesthetics. The animation style is usually lazy and puts me to sleep. More importantly, a lot of anime is creepy as fuck and I feel ashamed after watching it. I am aware there’s ”good” anime out there, I’m not debating that. I’m just talking about large swaths of it. Most of it. You know.

But hey, enough about me, let’s get started.

 

Is This a Zombie? (Kore wa Zonbi Desu ka?)

Ayumu Aikawa is a zombie resurrected by a necromancer named Eucliwood Hellscythe after being killed by a serial killer. As he tries to make the best of his undead life, he encounters a Masō-Shōjo (魔装少女?, lit. Magical Garment Girl, a pun on “mahō shōjo”, meaning magical girl) named Haruna and inadvertently takes her magic powers, being forced to become a Masō-Shōjo (and thereby crossdress) in the process. With Eucliwood, Haruna, and a vampire ninja named Seraphim living with him, Ayumu helps battle demons known as Megalos while trying to figure out the mystery behind his own death.

577778-640x250Episode 1 synopsis, spoilers abound.

So uh…yeah. This kid is a zombie and can’t go out when the sun is up because he’ll dry out. He’s more of an undead guy than a zombie to be honest, since I don’t think he eats any flesh or brains and hasn’t rotted yet. But he can’t be killed, so I guess that makes him a revenant of some kind. For some reason he’s basically the help for a ”necromancer” that looks like a 7 year old girl in knight’s armor.

On his way home he ends up at a cemetery where a huge ass monster of some kind shows up. After being chomped on for a while, another underage girl shows up with a chainsaw and kills the monster. We see her panties a lot. It’s weird as fuck.

[HorribleSubs] Kore wa Zombie desu ka - 01 [720p][12-17-31]

Apparently her dress gives her superpowers? Whatever. She tries to heal the zombie guy (who got chopped in half during the battle) but this makes her dress disappear (because, why not). She follows him home since she is now homeless and destitute. Then more things happened but I zoned out.

Later on he’s at his school when another monster shows up, this one a cool-looking lobster guy that sounds like Zoidberg. I’m not sure what these monsters have against him, but there you go.

[HorribleSubs] Kore wa Zombie desu ka - 01 [720p][12-13-19]

The underage monster hunter ends up without clothes again, but somehow the zombie guy ends up in the dress and proceeds kicks the monsters ass. Everyone in school sees the aftermath and laughs at him, forever branded a pervert.

[HorribleSubs] Kore wa Zombie desu ka - 01 [720p][12-13-53]

 

I chuckled a couple of times at the bizarre antics, but the passive protagonist was grating on me the whole time. This isn’t really a horror anime, it’s definitely a comedy with some ”monsters” thrown in. I doubt the storyline will be at all interesting, but I don’t care enough to find out anyway. Overall, a painless watch, mildly funny but still has all the weird anime tropes.

 

Weirdness Factor: Kinda weird. Girls look underage. The usual panty shots.

Will I watch another episode: Probably not. I laughed when the guy put the dress on like a deranged Power Ranger, but I didn’t really enjoy anything else.

Music: Utterly Forgettable.

Overall: 2 out of 5 Anime Chainsaws.

 

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