School-Live!: Complete Collection (2015/Season One/Sentai Blu-ray Set)

Picture: B Sound: B Extras: C* Episodes: B+

Yuki, Kurumi, Miki and Yuri are in the after school School Living Club, where love their school so much that they are living there 24-7, but beneath their thin veneer of their fun filled school days, they are really surrounded by a zombie apocalypse. Each day is a lesson, each encounter is a test to whether they can survive the zombie outbreak in School-Live!: Complete Collection (2015).

After the zombie apocalypse, Yuki, Kurumi, Miki and Yuri are the only survivors at their school, barricaded in their school they have everything. Each day, they patrol the grounds clearing zombies and what ever they need to survive, but Yuki is delusional, lives in a fantasy world where her classmates, teachers were still alive and the girls have come to accept that her fantasy has helped them keep their sanity and spirits alive. While the school was designed for the apocalypse outbreak, it was not designed to last forever and each day is a new challenge to survive to the next.

This was zombie survival horror story, like a mix of High school of the Dead and Higurashi no Naku Koro (When They Cry), cute little high school girls somehow surviving the hordes of the undead. It was a mix of high school drama with tragedy, tragedy in what people sacrificed in order to survive. This is sure to continue to grow its audience.

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 image on the episodes are heavily stylized to the point that it affects playback, but that's the look of the series just the same, while we get lesser English and better Japanese lossless DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo mixes. However, it is solid, if not spectacular. Extras include clean opening and closing animation and trailers for this release, but pictured with this review is a deluxe edition with much more that will be soon released afterwards that adds DVDs and CDs to the Blu-rays, et al.

Episodes include...

The Beginning - Yuki, Kurumi, Mii-Kun and Ri-san are in the School Living Club where they live at school each day, but their rosy school life really is hiding the fact they are survivors in a zombie apocalypse.

Memories - Kurumi remembers the first zombie she had to kill. Yuki proposes they have a test of courage, the girls use it as a chance to clear out some of the zombies inside the school.

Back Then - Megumi recalls the first day of the zombie outbreak at the school.

Field Trip - Miki recalls how she was trapped at the mall during the zombie apocalypse outbreak.

A Meeting - The girls go on a 'field trip' to the mall for supplies and that's how they met Miki and saved her.

Welcome - As Miki learns about the school, she learns of Yuki's delusions and how they have kept them alive.

Letters - As Yuki's delusions begin to fall apart, the girls send off letters on balloons that they are still alive.

Future - The girls discover an emergency manual and the school was designed as survival shelter and they knew about the possibilities for zombie outbreak.

Vacation Day - The girls take a day off and go swimming and become closer to one another.

A Rainy Day - Kurumi gets infected, as her condition worsens the girls learn of a possible antidote in the basement.

Scars - The school's power generator is destroyed and more zombies begin entering the school. Miki finds the antidote and puts 'Megumi zombie' to rest. Yuki begins to come to terms with reality.

Graduation - With the school facilities compromised the girls have a graduation ceremony and gives thanks the school for helping them survive for so long and say goodbye as they set off into the unknown future.

- Ricky Chiang