Now is the time for the final look at Kore wa Zombie desu ka?! time to conclude the review with the final step, an evaluation !
Animation & Art:
I really liked the art style of Kore wa Zombie desu ka?, while art and animations were standard for most episode, the art involved in the “Epic” episode was simply put amazing, the scene were well designed, the animation were beautiful and there was this constant epicness in the visual put in front of us. If the show was made only of those epic moment, I would have given the show a 9/10 for this category, but unfortunately it was mostly made up of half-boring episode with standard art, this leaves me with no choice but to give a 8/10 for art.
Rating: 8/10
Characters:
I really liked the character development in Kore wa Zombie desu ka?, there were multiple girls like in any harem, but most of them had a good background story and had to make difficult choice to make that changed their view of the world during the show. The only two characters I feel were lacking were Maelstrom and The King of Darkness, both of them appeared near the end of the show and neither of them had a lot going for them in the story, yes Maelstrom is now Ayumu’s wife and we saw the terrible power that is dormant in her, but after these event nothing new happened to her and she didn’t changed much from what she was to begin with. But even if those two characters were not perfectly explored, I feel that the other main characters were really well designed and explored during the whole storyline, this is why I give the show a 8/10 for characters.
Rating : 8/10
Original Sound Track & Opening/Closing theme:
For the music involved in the show, I don’t have much to say, I barely remember any of the songs only a week after the show ended, so while I remember that I really liked the Opening theme for adding a different character every time they appeared, I found it really innovative and dynamic, the music itself was not the strong point. I must say that I need an awesome piece of art to have a song stuck in my head, or something that really fit the anime, I guess for Kore wa zombie desu ka?, that simply wasn’t the case.
I give a 5/10 for this category.
Rating: 5/10
Storyline:
The show was not made for its awesome innovative storyline, it is a satire. It had a generic, over the top, filled with randomness story. So while the story was absolute shit for a regular anime, it is actually brilliant for this satire, since it was even more awesome than some regular anime at some point. But the story, even if awesome at most point, was also really sucky at others. This all comes down to the biggest flaw with this show, it was a real roller coaster in term of quality. The first, 6th and 11th episode were the most epic and entertaining episode of them all, but just as awesome those episode were, the midpoint between them was so lame I felt like I was watching the script of a 5 years old who ran out of motivation for his own story.
So unfortunately, even if some episode were worth a score of 9/10, the one worth 4/10 make it so I can’t give much more than 7/10 for the story component of this anime.
Rating: 7/10
Overall Entertainment Value:
This show was just a goldmine of wtf moment. From the very first episode to the last, every week brought us something completely unexpected and coming from who knows where. The enemies are Giant Crabs/Bears/Flying Whale? Haruna ultimate ability being called a kick even if in reality it is a hit from her chain saw? Having the main character transform into a Mahou Shoujo and have crotch shot of him every times it happens? Those things are what made Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? such an enjoyable show.
It is also important not to forget the emotionally strong moment involving Ayumu and Eucliwood, while it was not Clannad, it was some great serious deep moment that made you feel immerse into the show.
For all those reason, I give this show a 8/10 for this category
Rating: 8/10
Conclusion:
While this anime will not be to everyone’s taste, it sure is a great one to watch if you can see all the meaning behind each scene they present to you. The shift from random humour to serious emotional scene to silly harem scenario might give some people a hard time figuring out where the anime is at now and leave then confused and uninterested in the story. But if you are able to follow the story and the atmosphere of each episode, you will do just fine in appreciating the deepest enjoyable hidden deep in this show.
The Final Rating for Kore wa Zombie desu ka? shall be… 7/10
Final Rating: 7/10
Why does everybody rate the story so low? I liked it…
If the show was more compressed and the story had a bigger presence in half of the episode, the story would indeed have been great. But there was many episodes that were basically storyless, episode where nothing important to the story happened and made you forget about the overall storyline.
The story would have been perfect if the show was 8 episodes long instead of 12. But the main point of this show was not the story, so in most episode only half of the 20 minutes was story telling and the other half was random stuff/silly humour. I guess the best way to explain it is that Kore wa zombie desu ka? did not focus on the storyline and therefore even if the story was quite interesting, there was not enough focus on it to make it shine.