Summary: Aikawa Ayumu is a normal high school boy. One day he is killed by a serial killer and revived as a zombie by a necromancer named Eucliwood Hellscythe. He starts to serve Eu as her guard but he happens to deprive the mahou shoujo Haruna of her magic power. Haruna orders Ayumu to fight against the anti-mahou shoujo system “Megalo” in her place.

Review: The show is a slapstick comedy that again dips into the “meta” humor that has plagued the medium since the success of Haruhi Suzumiya. The shocking element of Kore wa Zombie Desu ka is that the insane premise is the normal. The story starts with Ayumu already turned into a Zombie and the narrative springs from him inheriting the powers of Magical Girl Haruna. I found that kind of premise extremely bold, if it is simply combining as many genres as possible in order to please the maximum number of fans.

There isn’t much to this show. It’s filled with clichés, panty shots, and absolutely no shame. There isn’t much here we haven’t come to expect from Ecchi with the exception of a lot more slapstick humor than one would normally find, plus the Moe element of having many different types of cute young girls gathering together, an obvious attempt to pander as wide an audience as possible.

I found myself mostly unimpressed because I’ve seen this type of show a hundred times before. It’s still meta-humor no matter how differently it is presented. There is some hope in Ayumu himself. Living as a zombie has given him a dry wit that makes him a funny character but that is wrapped in a comedy that continues to exploit the fact that he can be continuously maimed and suffer no consequences. Going back to that one joke again and again became tedious in the first episode and I fear it will be more severe as the series goes on. It was also enjoyable seeing a Magical girl dig into a monster using a chainsaw, and in fact going right through Ayumu in order to get to her pray. Those gags have a lot of potential as they play with familiar images and twist them during the slapstick gags. There are some twists I could have done without, such as the abundance of male panty shots when Ayumu transformed into his Magical Girl form.

Verdict: Kore wa Zombie Desu ka Is an anime created by committee. The number of tropes and character types jammed into even the first episode made my head spin. There are some pretty good sight gags that play with standard anime tropes well, these are small gags stand out in a sea of mediocrity. If you’re a fan of intense slapstick and some bizarre images you may enjoy Kore wa Zombie Desu ka, but if you’re looking originality or any kind of substances I suggest keeping far away.

(Summary from myanimelist.net)

• First Impressions