Every season there is always for me this one great anime, for those who remember season before last, it was none other than Ano Natsu de Matteru. For this season that was none other than Sankarea, and I know this review is a bit late but.. oh look! a smileyface!  😉

The story revolves around Chihiro Furuya who has an obsession with zombies and dreams of having a zombie bride (to each own I suppose). He then has an encounter with the ever so popular Rea Sanka (see what they did there?… innovative right?). Whose life turns out to have its own fair share of problems. They begin talking and over time grew closer until her dad steps in, tradegy strikes and by a series of events she turns into a zombie. Aided by her new-found friend, Rea now struggles to live the life of an ordinary girl while battling her quickly rotting body.

The overall artwork was great and consistent throughout the show, there was hardly any spectacular scenery but I doubt that is going to bother anyone in the slightest. A point to note though, was that while there was quite a bit of fan service involved it was so meticulously intertwined into the plot that half the time you don’t even notice that you’re seeing a naked girl on your screen.

Plot, this is where the show divides its viewer base into two equal halves. The first being annoyed that the story became a bit of a cliché after the first 3 episodes. And the second who couldn’t care less about the plot but rather enjoyed the comical aspect of it. I personally am the latter. True the plot wasn’t all that great (failed potential) but it was more than made up for in the unique comical style that it brought forth (effectiveness 9/10!). And lets be honest, with the thousands of anime out there its pretty difficult to come up with something completely new and that’s just something one has to accept after a while. For example, lets say every show has an aspect A, B, C and D. For a particular show A is unique while B, C and D is similar to aspects found in other shows. I think that hey, If 1. The combination of all parts were done well, and 2. Aspect A was entertaining, then that show deserves not quite a standing ovation but at least a round of applause.

An interesting observation I made was that while Sankarea was branded as romance/comedy, I found it to be more slice-of-life/comedy as it was more about the day to day challenges that being a zombie brings. Don’t get me wrong, there was some romance involved (its a normal part of life) but it would be a lie to say that it was the primary aspect of the show.

You know you should run but… she’s just so cute!