So you want a list of anime like High School of the Dead? Fine, I’ll give you a list.
Higurashi When They Cry
This series lacks lewdness (thank God) but is heavy on horror. Set in a rural Japanese village, Higurashi centers around five school chums who are preparing for a summer festival. Perfect, you can pretend they’re the childhood friends you never had. However, something is off about these kids. While most of the time all they want to do is play adorable little games, every so often they are possessed with the desire to murder one another. Something strange is going on that coincides with the coming of the festival, and the dark god it honors.
Elfen Lied
These middle schoolers aren’t like other girls. In fact, I’m not sure they’re “girls” at all. Elfen Lied is a story about a group of humanoid beings called Diclonius. They resemble middle school aged girls, albeit with little horns on their heads. However, they also possess a pair of invisible, psychically generated limbs that are able to tear apart flesh and steel. After a particularly murderous Diclonius named Lucy escapes confinement from a top secret research facility, she is discovered by an unsuspecting young boy who promises to protect her.
Hellsing Ultimate
No high school girls were involved in the making of Hellsing Ultimate. Instead, this series is about a gunslinging vampire named Alucard who works with the government to eliminate supernatural threats. He’s assisted by the young Seras Victoria, a vampire and soldier herself. I wouldn’t go around leading her if I were you. She’s both a law enforcement and a government agent. On second thought, go ahead. She’ll clean you off the street quickly.
Zom 100: Bucketlist of the Dead
The teenagers of Zom 100: Bucketlist of the Dead start the series in a similar predicament as the ones from High School of the Dead. But unlike kids of the latter series, who prioritizes getting their hands on weapons, ammo, and each other, the Zom 100 cast use the apocalypse as a chance to scratch some things off of their collective bucket lists. They eat at fancy restaurants. Ride roller coasters. Ogle each other while visiting the hot springs. Sounds like you’d fit right in.
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Gantz
The main character of Gantz starts of the story like many of the characters in High School of the Dead: by dying. He awakens in a small room with a group of equally confused people and a mysterious black orb that identifies itself as Gantz. Gantz tells them that in order to survive and win their freedom, they must participate in a series of death games where they face off against supernatural entities.
High School DxD
Unluckily for the forces of good, a man wakes up in a magical world and is adopted by a devil named Rias Gremory. She offers him the chance to become a devil by serving her in her battle against angels and other devils, as if he wasn’t one already.
Kill La Kill
Kill La Kill is about a young girl who travels to a totalitarian high school in order to kill the school president who she believes had a hand in her father’s death. And she’s gonna do it by wearing a blood-sucking sailor suit that gives her more power the more skin it shows. Filthy. And she’s not the only one with a tragically twisted garment like this. The entire school is lousy with them. At least the show has positive messages about overcoming shame.
Prison School
Uh-oh. A formerly all-girls school has decided to become co-ed, and how do they make it official? By inviting five pervy high school boys to become students. In Prison School, some boys get arrested by the girls after they’re caught peeping on them while the girls are changing, and they are thrown into a prison inside the school. They then have to bear the torture of the all-female school council, who are determined to put them through as much pain as possible.
Angel Beats
Another dead high-schooler in the afterlife. In Angel Beats, Yuzuru Otonashi wakes up in the afterlife world with no memory of his past life or how he died, and finds himself in a high school that serves as a limbo for the recently departed. He discovers that the rest of the school’s population is in an afterlife-or-death battle with a wickedly powerful girl called Angel.
Hellsing Ultimate
Hellsing Ultimate is about a gun-slinging vampire named Alucard who protects humanity from the forces of hell. Which are the exact forces you’re gonna WISH you had protection from the moment you die, you sinner.
Attack on Titan
Oh look, more fit teenagers fighting for their lives. Attack on Titan is about a group of young soldiers who have to defend humanity against flesh-devouring monsters. Unlike you, these monsters don’t devour young flesh with their eyes, they do it with their teeth.
Akame Ga Kill
Another worthless young man is somehow picked by a female-led group of assassins called Night Raid. Their mission? To whack the ruthless Prime Minister and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity. Akame Ga Kill has all the action and bloodshed you crave, and more than enough fan service for you to shake a stick at.
Shiki
Shiki takes place in a quiet town in rural Japan, where life is simple. People don’t sit inside all day shaking their sticks at animated characters on the internet. They breathe the fresh air, go for walks, and do all the things that your mother never taught you to do. All that changes when a mysterious force causes people in the town to turn into Shiki, which are vampire-like beings that crave human flesh.
Tokyo Ghoul
I’m sensing a theme here about unlucky first dates between hapless boys and violent, powerful monster girls. In Tokyo Ghoul, Ken Kaneki wakes up in a hospital bed after nearly being torn apart by a woman who he thought was just a nice girl next door your mother would approve of but was ACTUALLY a flesh-devouring creature called a ghoul that I’m sure you would approve of. He discovers that his encounter with the woman has turned him into a half-ghoul, and now he’s gotta feast on the flesh of the living to survive.
Deadman Wonderland
Ganta Igarashi is wrongfully accused of murdering all his classmates, and is sent to an amusement park prison called Deadman Wonderland. Inside, he meets a quirky gal named Shiro. Now the pair have to solve Ganta’s mistaken identity problem while avoiding the brutal, gory punishment that awaits them at the facility.
(featured image: Madhouse)
