Gakkou Gurashi ~ Episode 10 [Can I go back to last episode!?]

Remember last episode, where everything was happy and there was a nice summer day. Taroumaru and Miki started getting along, there was a water gun fight. People were laughing and smiling and the worries of a zombie apocalypse were nice and forgotten? May I kindly turn back the clock and go back to that? Because there is nothing happy in this episode.

NOTHING, not from the first minute the episode starts to the moment it ends. Not even the opening, because it’s not even toying around with us anymore. Taroumaru’s empty collar, instead of Megu-nee’s grave a static filled image of her zombie. Is that Blood on Yuki’s hat at the end!? Also, good going with the foreshadowing at the beginning of the episode.
As Miki talks about the book she was reading, she describes it as a book where girls are living in a war zone with their dog and the dog dies.
Then Yuki comes in mentioning that Taroumaru is missing.

subtle.

“I knew it was coming.. Of course the original would end the same way” Was Miki’s comment on the book, she’d already read the translated version and was somehow hoping the original would end differently. Which Is a nasty jab at those of us hoping that it would go differently. That somehow, Taroumaru would live despite the fact anyone who had read the manga had been sitting here for episodes. Waiting, just waiting for it to happen.
Considering he was never actually in the manga for more then a chapter, in which they find him and he’s already bitten.

There’s also the part when Kurumi is on the roof and she speaks to Megu-nee’s grave and says. “Taroumaru is a precious club member, please protect him, Megu-nee” Which is a piece of irony because it was Megu-nee that bit Taroumaru.

I know I said a long time ago back at the beginning of the season that I was banking on Taroumaru getting bitten in Kurumi’s place. Well I was wrong, it wasn’t in her place. It was ‘As well as’, that’s right. That not only dropped the dogs death on us this episode. They had Kurumi get bitten as well. In one episode! Did I mention that zombies are pouring into the school as well and the last image of the episode is them breaking down one of the barricades?

The most disturbing part of the episode for me was Kurumi’s fevered bite induced nightmare. Where she’s in a classroom, the zombies are outside. Taroumaru turns into one right in front of her and Megu-nee’s voice comes through the door. Telling her to open up, sensei loves her. So open the door, let them in. Which in the case of her being bitten, could be used as a symbolic meaning of letting the virus overtake her rather then fighting against it.

Miki offers to go into the basement to get the medicine, as she did in the manga. Though in the manga, she only had to deal with Megu-nee. Not also her zombified beloved dog and a horde of zombies breaking into the school.
At the same time, Rii-san is sitting there having to face the idea that she may have to kill her friend if worst comes to worst. Which begs the question, can she do it? The entire reason that Kurumi is laying there in the first place is she hesitated when presented with someone she cared about. Namely, Megu-nee. So could Rii-san hold true to the promise she made back when they were at the mall and kill Kurumi if it came down to it?

If you want my honest opinion, yes, she could. However, she would kill herself right after. There is a reason that it was Kurumi going out and killing all of the zombies, Yuki is too delusional and Yuri-san is….I don’t think she has the mental constitution for it. We haven’t really seen it in the anime and I’m not sure we will unless we get a second season but, she isn’t holding up too well.

I’m going to level with you, I’m a little scared. This has proven multiple times to be an anime original version of the events that go on in the manga. With the mangaka working on it, we can’t be certain that everyone who lived during the manga is going to live now. We can’t say for sure that Miki will get down to that basement and get the antidote for Kurumi.
I would normally call BS on there being a convenient antidote in the school. However, with the way the story has set itself up from the beginning. The plans to use the school as something of a shelter. So it’s not so far out there to think that they might be keeping an antidote down there.

I liked a lot of things about this episode, the entire tone was matched to the content. Though once again, I sort of wish I could flee back to the idea of cute girls doing cute things….too much sadness in one episode!

The preview for next episode is fairly light on information but leaves you with an unsettling feeling.

~Midnight