From a huge list of anime that was aired in 2010, I could have easily picked what I thought was going to be selected as Best Anime of 2010. However, despite all the gaga over K-ON!!, I feel that in the overall picture, Highschool of the Dead fits the bill better. 

I’m not a big zombie fella and but with all the talks about these undead things terrorizing the world, I couldn’t ignore it.

I was actually disturbed when I heard from a close friend of mine that the director/producer really wanted to focus on breast movements. (Source unknown so for all I know, this could be a lie.) Well, Highschool of the Dead did showcase unabashedly the buoyancy and NSFW jiggles of each girl except Alice, so in that regard they were majorly successful. I think the best example of how over-the-top it got was when Saeko did some major matrix evasive maneuver as Takashi fired a sniper bullet. 

But what I see in Highschool of the Dead is a lot of meaningful action that has been lacking for me. On top of that, you got varying intensity levels of drama, betrayal and jealousy, the will to survive, and lunatic manipulation. The lead characters in Takashi and Rei aren’t too impressive for me but the secondary wave of leads are key factors. Saeko’s gentle exterior vs. her sadistic mental capacity, Saya’s “I’m-a-genius” chant and tsun-tsun unrequited love for Takashi; and Kohta’s gun-nerd perversions stabilizes the otherwise generic troubled would-be couple while tackling the end of the world. 

I can go on about why I think Highschool of the Dead is the Best Anime of 2010. Before it turns out to be an analytical review, it is safe to say that this series got an amazing amount of hype and when I first started watching it, I quickly claimed it as the best series of the year. While it ended rather slowly — and no thanks to a slower manga release — this season itself is worth the acclaim and the potential is still there now that the escape plan goes into phase two.