おもいで
【 memories // what is gakkou gurashi? 】
I want to preface this by saying that it's almost impossible for me to talk about Gakkou Gurashi without spoiling the entire anime and the first five volumes of the manga. Personally, I think this is a wonderful opportunity for me to recommend watching at least the first episode of Gakkou Gurashi before proceeding. How you choose to do so is up to you. Unless you don't plan on ever watching or reading it, in which case, feel free to either return to the landing page or keep reading.
If you do choose to watch the anime or read the manga, please note that the anime and manga are structured completely differently in what was covered! I recommend that you start with the anime first, then skip the first five volumes of the manga (completely optional; you don't have to do this, but it'd be a little pointless considering that nearly everything that happens in the anime...happens within the first five volumes. Do whatever you want though).
On this page, I will mainly be talking about the anime, as I haven't finished reading the manga yet. Also, I will be referring the the club within the series as the School Life Club, but I've also seen it be rendered as School Living Club. There's also a sequel to the manga, though I will discuss it at a later date. Just keep this in mind as you read.
Finally, I get to talk about what Gakkou Gurashi really is. The manga was released some time in 2012 and ran all the way until 2019; it got an anime adaptation, which aired in 2015. It falls under the horror genre, however it doesn't see as much horror as you might expect. Frankly, I wouldn't say that Gakkou Gurashi is outright scary, but it is heartbreaking. I mean, sure, there are some auditory jumpscares (in the anime of course) and unexpected plot twists and whatnot, but it's more upsetting than anything. Oh, and there was also a live-action film adaptation, but it's not that relevant to the conversation as it omits and changes certain things and the fact that the manga and the anime are structured differently is already confusing so I really don't care.
The story focuses mainly on Yuki Takeya and her experiences in the School Life Club, along with Kurumi Ebisuzawa, Yuuri Wakasa, and from volume 2 of the manga but from the very beginning of the anime, Miki Naoki. But there's a twist: under the guise of being a cute slice of life where nothing ever goes wrong lies the fact that the entire town is overrun by a zombie outbreak. Not even the first episode is safe from this plot twist. The first episode starts off in a pretty normal manner with Yuki being late to class, being woken up by Taroumaru, a Shiba Inu puppy. We listen to Yuki talk about how much she's been loving school lately (said no one ever). The majority of the episode is just your typical slice of life weeb shit, until around 20 minutes in, where we discover that we've been lied to; Yuki is standing in an empty classroom with chairs and desks that have been knocked over, blood stained walls and broken windows. Oh, but that's strange, didn't we see her interact with her fellow classmates a minute ago?
What we don't realise until later on in the episode is that Yuki Takeya is delusional; she believes that her classmates and teachers are all alive and well and that the outbreak never happened. She's also the one who proposed the field trip which leads the club to finding Miki at the mall in volume 2 (this was also depicted in the anime, though not at the very beginning). It's pretty clear that she makes the other characters happy and makes them smile, as in scenes where Yuki isn't present, everything seems to be more...depressing, to say the least.
There's another character that I didn't mention, and that's for a specific reason. That character would be Megumi Sakura, affectionately referred to as Megu-nee by her students. She was a Japanese teacher at Megurigaoka Private High School, and the only adult survivor at the school when the outbreak was in its early stages. It's only revealed that she's no longer with us in later episodes; she sacrificed herself in order to proctect her remaining students from the zombies. This only occurs to us when it's made clear that, yeah, Megu-nee is deceased. We only see her early on in the series thanks to Yuki's delusions, which were most likely triggered by first witnessing the zombies chomping away at students and then Megu-nee's death.