May 28, 2012
In Defense of the Indefensable
I have a confession to make.
I...
I...
I actually liked High School of the Dead.
I may be the only human being for whom that is true.
Allow me to defend this most indefensible of opinions.
First, it must be acknowledged that most of the criticisms of this show have valid points. The fan service is a bit over the top. I sure as hell could have done without the damned panty shots. It is a grim show. It is aggressively and flamboyantly excessive. It is disrespectful to physics.
The early episodes in particular do a better job than many zombie movies (even Romero's own) of conveying the actual horror of the whole zombie apocalypse situation. They handle that bit really well. This is all the more remarkable because of the breakneck pacing of the early episodes. The show manages to combine non-stop action with a sense of genuine dread as the characters realize just what is going on and the implications of it.
It is a horrific show, and at times hard to watch, but the admittedly excessive fan service actually mitigates this somewhat. It is sufficiently silly to act as comic relief and thereby break some of the tension.
In fact, the two most gratuitous episodes regards cheesecake, 6 and 7, (where the show managed to work in sort of a bathhouse episode), were in some ways the saving grace of the series. Both actually had some neat, even thoughtful, character bits. They also added a bit of humanity and decency that saved the show from becoming the nihilistic exercise so many stories in this genre are.
From that point the show becomes not so much a horror show as a show about retaining ones humanity in the midst of a societies collapse. The cheesecake is somewhat toned down in later episodes as well.
In any event the show is never boring.
For all that, I probably would not have liked it had I not first seen the dub, which is superb, and is delivered with the staccato pacing of a Howard Hawks film and with just a bit of snark. The voice acting is really well done Mark Laskowski and Maggie Flecknoe in particular do a superb job. The nurse in the dub has a voice that can grate cheese...but that actually fits. As I type this there's a 12 minute spoileriffic excerpt from ep2 of the dub here which gives a good overview of the pacing of the early episodes.
The show is indeed aggressively and flamboyantly excessive.
It is also, despite it's exceedingly grim nature, a show that manages to be surprisingly upbeat and I frankly found it rather fun.
...and now
Well, now you know that about me.
#Regards...that .gif
The bullet is traveling in the vicinity of 2700 feet per second.
The bosoms in question transit back and forth during the time that the projectile passes through the area of interest and thus are moving at least twice as fast as the bullet itself. This gives a breast speed of at least 5400fps.
The speed of sound at sea level is roughly 1100fps. 5400 fps is just under 5 times that or approximately Mach 4.8-Mach 4.9 so a conservative reading of the available evidence would indicate that in addition to her levelheadedness, well developed sense of ethics, athleticism and general competence, Saeko possesses hypersonic tits.
The above analysis was originally posted here....where spoilers and snark dance the tango together.
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Post is locked.
I have a confession to make.
I...
I...
I actually liked High School of the Dead.
I may be the only human being for whom that is true.
Allow me to defend this most indefensible of opinions.
First, it must be acknowledged that most of the criticisms of this show have valid points. The fan service is a bit over the top. I sure as hell could have done without the damned panty shots. It is a grim show. It is aggressively and flamboyantly excessive. It is disrespectful to physics.
Physics and her friend Anatomy called...They're pissed!#
All that being said this show has some real strengths. The early episodes in particular do a better job than many zombie movies (even Romero's own) of conveying the actual horror of the whole zombie apocalypse situation. They handle that bit really well. This is all the more remarkable because of the breakneck pacing of the early episodes. The show manages to combine non-stop action with a sense of genuine dread as the characters realize just what is going on and the implications of it.
It is a horrific show, and at times hard to watch, but the admittedly excessive fan service actually mitigates this somewhat. It is sufficiently silly to act as comic relief and thereby break some of the tension.
In fact, the two most gratuitous episodes regards cheesecake, 6 and 7, (where the show managed to work in sort of a bathhouse episode), were in some ways the saving grace of the series. Both actually had some neat, even thoughtful, character bits. They also added a bit of humanity and decency that saved the show from becoming the nihilistic exercise so many stories in this genre are.
From that point the show becomes not so much a horror show as a show about retaining ones humanity in the midst of a societies collapse. The cheesecake is somewhat toned down in later episodes as well.
In any event the show is never boring.
For all that, I probably would not have liked it had I not first seen the dub, which is superb, and is delivered with the staccato pacing of a Howard Hawks film and with just a bit of snark. The voice acting is really well done Mark Laskowski and Maggie Flecknoe in particular do a superb job. The nurse in the dub has a voice that can grate cheese...but that actually fits. As I type this there's a 12 minute spoileriffic excerpt from ep2 of the dub here which gives a good overview of the pacing of the early episodes.
It is also, despite it's exceedingly grim nature, a show that manages to be surprisingly upbeat and I frankly found it rather fun.
...and now
Well, now you know that about me.
#Regards...that .gif
The bullet is traveling in the vicinity of 2700 feet per second.
The bosoms in question transit back and forth during the time that the projectile passes through the area of interest and thus are moving at least twice as fast as the bullet itself. This gives a breast speed of at least 5400fps.
The speed of sound at sea level is roughly 1100fps. 5400 fps is just under 5 times that or approximately Mach 4.8-Mach 4.9 so a conservative reading of the available evidence would indicate that in addition to her levelheadedness, well developed sense of ethics, athleticism and general competence, Saeko possesses hypersonic tits.
The above analysis was originally posted here....where spoilers and snark dance the tango together.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
01:03 AM
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Post contains 600 words, total size 7 kb.
1
I may be the only human being for whom that is true.
If I didn't like it, I wouldn't be doing 2000+ word episodic reviews of each episode. Actually, it was my favorite show of 2010. Maybe not the BEST show, but the one I looked forward to the most.
If I didn't like it, I wouldn't be doing 2000+ word episodic reviews of each episode. Actually, it was my favorite show of 2010. Maybe not the BEST show, but the one I looked forward to the most.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Mon May 28 07:36:13 2012 (q2lfL)
2
Yes but...you are a duck.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon May 28 10:18:10 2012 (EJaOX)
3
He claims to be a duck, but we have no direct evidence that he has webbed feet, let alone feathers...
Posted by: Siergen at Mon May 28 14:39:35 2012 (PuIGa)
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