Otherwise known as "Aru Zombie Shoujo no Sainan", this ONA is a total of 79 minutes long and consists of a lot of gore and violence, and the occasional nudity. Please be warned that this post is picture-heavy and there might be some NSFW content and spoilers below so proceed at your own risk!
Characters 5/10
There are three main groups of characters in this show.
First, the zombies: Euphrosyne Studion (left, a rich young lady from the esteemed Studion family) voiced by Hayama Saori, and her maid, Alma V (right), voiced by Ogata Yui.
The second group of characters would be the teacher Takanashi Shuichiro voiced by Sugita Tomokazu, and his younger sister, Takanashi Mako, voiced by Shiraishi Ryoko.
The last group in the main cast would be the five students of the Occult Research Club staying on campus during summer break:
Kamoshida Sayaka voiced by Sawashiro Miyuki
Abe Masahiro voiced by Suzuki Tatsuhisa
Minagawa Yui voiced by Ichimichi Mao
Sudo Noriko voiced by Kubo Yurika
Azuma Hiroshi voiced by Miwa Takahiro
There is limited character development throughout the episode. In addition, characters were killed left and right, and most of these instances were due to their own and/or a result of another character's stupidity. This made it a little frustrating to watch.
A good point about the characters, however, were that they were all twisted in their own way and all had a clear motive for doing what they did. For instance, Sayaka loves the teacher, Shuichiro, and is willing to go to any lengths just to get on his good side. On the other hand, Abe is a selfish coward and would do anything in order to stay alive, even at the expense of the other club members. The zombies want to retrieve their Stone of Life (which Sayaka stole and passed to Shuichiro),
Plot and Pacing 6/10
Putting the whole story into chronological perspective, Sayaka was in love with Shuichiro and wanted to help him further his research. On the other hand, Shuichiro is in an incestuous relationship with his psychotic younger sister, Mako. Shuichiro is also a scientist interested in zombies and the Stone of Life which appears to be able to keep corpses moving, and hence staged a plan together with Sayaka to retrieve the Stone from the unmoving undead Euphrosyne Studion, which is a coffin placed in the warehouse on campus.
She spread rumors on a site about the Tokugawa Buried Treasure being in the same warehouse, to get the President of the Occult Research Club, Abe, as well as the other members interested and participate in the raid. Shuichiro's role during the raid was to keep the janitor away, as well as to set off fireworks as a distraction. Sayaka managed to get the Stone, which she later passed to Shuichiro, while the rest of the club returned empty-handed and grouchily settled back in their own rooms.
Meanwhile, Alma and Euphrosyne awakens after the Stone was stolen and made plans to retrieve it as it was a "gift" from Euphrosyne's beloved father.
Here we get introduced to Euphrosyne's durable body and supernatural strength...
... as well as Alma's metamorphosis abilities as she transformed into the janitor after eating a small amount of his brain matter.
Their target was to find out which of the students had the stone, but as the zombies delve into the matter, and in the process, killed many of the students...
They realized that the mastermind of the whole debacle was Shuichiro, who is a descendant of the Studion family and the next rightful owner of the Stone. Unlike the previous heirs, Shuichiro only wanted the Stone and had no wish to keep the zombies alive. For this purpose, he transplanted the Stone into Mako to turn her into a weapon to kill off Euphrosyne, as well as killed Alma.
However, he miscalculated the depth of the love yandere Mako had for him and this oversight resulted in his death as Mako wrenched his heart out from his chest and ate it, believing that this would mean that they would stay together forever.
His corpse is later shown to be useful in helping Alma heal from her injuries, so at least his death wasn't in vain...?
Following Mako's murder of her brother, she then launched an all-out attack on Euphrosyne who was at a disadvantage due to the depleting amounts of energy left in her body. Mako showed immense skill at using the powers of the Stone, and even managed to corner and injure her (tearing off her head and bashing her skull in).
However, the lesser amount of experience turned the tables as Euphrosyne was able to keep Mako stuck to the ground by penetrating Mako's stomach with the same baseball bat and drop a church bell on her, thus severing Mako's body into two.
She retrieved the stone from Mako's abdominal area and regained enough energy to easily overpower Mako when she tried a last, albeit futile, attack against Euphrosyne.
Frankly, the plot on a whole does make sense, but the execution in the ONA does leave a lot to be desired. My main gripe would be the pacing, as it was terribly slow in the beginning and lead-up to the climax, but the ending was rather abrupt. This was probably due to their attempt to expand on the characters during the first one-third of the show, but that failed terribly as the characters still appeared one-dimensional. Also. the animation was not always smooth, though still tolerable.
Possible improvements
The whole plot ties back to the Stone of Life, which Sayaka stole from Euphrosyne and passed to Shuichiro to aid him in furthering his research. This Stone was made by the first Baron of the Studions (Euphrosyne's father), and upon its removal, resurrects the zombies. With the unfolding of the plot, we understand that the Stone acts like a sort of powerhouse where Euphrosyne (and likely, Alma) draws energy from to move. Even after the removal of the stone, Euphrosyne is seen to still be able to move well for a period of time due to the residual energy of the stone left in her body. However, she feels her body steadily getting heavier as time goes on.
Unfortunately, this is also a jarring plothole. The story does not cover further about how the Stone came about and what it actually is, other than suggesting it has some magical origin, as the Baron dabbled in magic, and Euphrosyne's body would perish without it.
If the Stone was a source of energy for the zombies, why did they only awaken after the energy source was removed? Besides, when Sayaka removed the Stone from Euphrosyne, we see that the maid was the first to awaken instead of Euphrosyne, who had the Stone in her initially. On the contrary, at the end of the movie, after Euphrosyne claimed the Stone back from Mako, they do not go back to sleep and instead, seem to be planning on living in modern Japan. This doesn't add up with the idea that the Stone is the cause of their resurrecting/sleeping cycles.
Also, Euphrosyne said the line in the image above, suggesting that while Alma is a mummy while she is a zombie. However, the ONA didn't delve into the specific differences between the two beings other than the obvious difference in strength and durability.
Overall rating 5/10
The poor pacing and lack of character development was definitely a blow to the show. This is definitely not a show that I would recommend if you are expecting something crazily good, however if you want to watch something where the zombies are shown as the good guys, this is one of them in the small proportion of shows which you can consider watching.
The amount of gore and occasional badly-placed comedy also makes it a very good show you can check out on a movie night with your friends, just be sure that they are alright with unclothed female breasts before you press the play button!
~ Reina-rin
