Gakkou Gurashi! 12: Graduation – Beeble Reviews

Yuki, on the scene with juggling club.

Whipping out her special zombie tricks.

Realizing she has no zombie tricks because nobody taught her anything.

Bookie, not having fun either.

The rest, sad.

Also the dog is still dead. Let’s jam.

So within two seconds, Yuki gets engulfed in zombies. But then out of the blue, Dead Dog comes in, starts tackling these skinny-ass zombies to the ground and knocking them all around, because zombie dogs are super strong. Just the dogs. Then what does Yuki do? 

YUKI CATCHES HIM. ZOMBIES BEAT YUKI, DOG BEATS ZOMBIES, YUKI BEATS DOG. YUKI WINS EVERYTHING

Taking advantage of her natural dominance, Yuki locks him in the closet. Her reign begins.

Hiding inside the PA room, she sends out a message to everyone: School’s over for today! School’s really cool, don’t break the windows or anything. Keep in mind that all the zombies for the past, um, eleven episodes were noted to have patterns of activity based on their old lives.

Remember the mall episode? These kids used to sit up on their computers all night anyways. I bet they never even left the theater.

And yes, there was an actual time when she didn’t love school! It was a time before apocalypses or fluffy clubs.

Damn, now if that ain’t the kindest bullying I’ve ever seen! I’m GLAD they’re dead.

And so school is closed for the night.

The next day nobody is dead!!! THEY DID IT!! THEY FOLLOWED ALL THE SLICE OF LIFE CLICHES DOWN INTO HELL EXCEPT FOR THE ZOMBIE STUFF, BUT THEY DIDN’T DO THE ZOMBIE FRIENDKILL!! WE DID IT!! WE ALL DID IT!!! FUCK YOU ALL THE OTHER ZOMBIE STORIES!!!!

Alright fine, sorry, Zombie DRAMAS jeez mang you’re not even a GOOD anime

(“Shhh quiet you were too late lemme get a bite before she wakes up!!”)

Also guess who’s back from being killed two days from retirement

Well that’s not quite accurate, he still gets allowed to love the girl after the bulk of the series, but he’s not doing too well. There’s still a chance he could die again!! Oh, wait, one season, last episode? Darn, nevermind. I guess that not all dogs have to go to heaven to be symbolic and important to people and stuff 

He was JUST TWO SECONDS FROM RETIREMENT!!!!!

They bury him in the garden next to Sensei’s de-ribboned cross and re-ribbon it. Ah, at least Bookie gets to keep that broken music player to remind her of her friend. 
 

“It’s not like I’ll be wearing this anymore after all.”

“No, I’m not okay! Now I’M possessed!  YOU’VE GIVEN IT TO ME, YUKI!!”

The girls have their funerary words and we get a very good monologue putting things to rest: Things aren’t always okay, and you don’t always need to feel alright. It’s okay to let it all out whenever you need to.

“YUKI SHUT UP!! YOUR JOKES ARE RUINING THE EPISODE!!”

Then before you know it, it’s moving day! All the mysteries are solved...sort of, but hell, did you expect the girls to learn how deep into the government all this stuff goes? Yeah, didn’t think so. They’ve got themselves a map with notes from Sensei herself, and it’s gonna lead them out to possible survivors?

“Yes, and if we go into a second season like this we’ll be losing that distinct ‘childhood innocence’ we worked so hard to build up this summer...”

Anyways Yuki’s smarter now but still the fun one so she’s all ‘fuck it let’s graduate gais' for symbolic meaning and profit.
 

Yeah yo, you’re the same but better than before.

Hey! Swank title. Good on you, Yuki.

Well no wonder they learned jack shit this year, except how to not die n whatever

“I don’t know...should I give her back the CD player now or wait until next time?”

oh fuck you just stay down why don’cha

And then they drive down the road to fame friendship and fun. Unless, like, the story from chapter 31 is actually full of the evil of the human condition? That could happen, there was a helicopter in the manga earlier and it EXPLODED. We had fun times in the manga.

"Woah. Babies still exist in this world...and they still can't draw."

I dunno. Some of me keeps thinking this won’t be the kind of show that’s remembered for a long long time, but on the other hand what if, I dunno, that Madoka Magica everybody and me’s been secretly trying to compare this to loses all moneymaking traction in 5 more years and people still somehow like Clannad? This is a good show, all that flashbacking in the first half can’t kill it, but the level of straightness played with the slice-of-life shtick wore thin often. It’s good to have them get a breather now and again but it’s painful to know ‘okay, the teacher is dead.’ Then be hit with the realization ‘okay, the teacher is dead.’ Then be hit with the realization ‘okay, the teacher is dead’ and then get a special ending sequence devoted to her being dead and then Yuki still doesn’t get it for a while until it’s her turn to be beat over the head with it.
 

And I’m not letting them go for this. These girls are EIGHT YEARS OLD and this is DISGUSTING.

Regardless, the music helps nail in the GOOD emotional developments, the drama of the second half isn’t overbloated, and nobody went violent-crazy in the end? Great! ½ of anime for teens of the 10’s has been surpassed. If there was more of the darksad world getting translated by Yuki into things she could understand, making a sort of ‘3^rd kind of world’ different from the past or the present involving more conversations with the people she remembers (who are now dead), that would have made her develop into something far more interesting but this is moving away from reviewing and into fan fiction. ½ of the show was excellent but that’s more than most of the summer 2015 season could ever lie about. For sure though, if there is a sequel, it’s NOT going to have that Madoka ‘you think it is this show but then it was secretly THIS show ALL ALONG’ hook.

This show gets a

out of