Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?

Any show that prominently features a Dyson Air Multiplier bladeless fan in the background immediately deserves a second look. Not because it's necessarily good, nor interesting, but because it inherently has a love of the weird and eclectic. In the case of Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?, that penchant for the nutty might be a case of Trying Too Damned Hard, but at times it does succeed.

Stop me if you've heard this premise. There's a high school boy who lives in a house with two cute gir—oh, wait. Okay, try this one. There's a zombie who lives in a house with a “necromancer of the underworld” and a snaggle-toothed magical girl who slays giant animal monsters with a chainsaw. It's a riff off a zillion other shows, and it borders on desperate fan pandering, but eventually the absurdity wins over. By the time our hero ends up donning a frilly dress to battle a giant blubbering crayfish, it's over the top enough to be funny. It's not clever and it's not wholly original, but it's quirky, and sometimes that's all you need.

For anyone who's asking, the zombie in question isn't your typical brain-eating, foot-shuffling Hollywood zombie. He's a high schooler like any other, only he was brought back to life by a necromancer so that he can track down who murdered him. Conveniently, because she lives with him, he doesn't have to worry about trivialities like getting his bones shattered or being torn in half or being impaled by a giant bear. All in the first episode. However, there should be a boo and a hiss to the necromancer's name, Eucliwood Hellscythe—apparently it's now the anime norm to name all gothic lolita characters a jumble of English Halloween words.

Watching Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? is somewhat like watching a bad comedian with no comic timing deliver a poorly written joke with no punchline. At first, the only response is silence. Then there's some uncomfortable fidgeting, and maybe some coughing. Then, because the awkward silence has nowhere else to go, the tension erupts into laughter. The audience sits back and realizes, “Man, this is really terrible. I can't stop laughing.” And for some reason, there's a Dyson Air Multiplier.

Originally posted by Bamboo Dong of animenewsnetwork.com

watch streaming episode at animedreaming.com or animeultima.tv