It's surprisingly good. After Koisuru JK Zombie, I'd been expecting another Japanese live-action TV zombie special to be garbage, but no. Its script won the 6th Dorama Koshien and it's taking its premise seriously. There's a zombie outbreak in a rural mountain high school, with lots of killing, gore and messed-up behaviour. Some of these people are selfish, shocking or self-hating. The undead don't have a monopoly on murder.

The cast's impressive. They're all good actors and they're all doing a proper job. They're charming initially, in the happy scenes before the killing starts, but then they go all the way with their characters' emotional journeys. Tina Tamashiro is the biggest name here (Chasuke's Journey, Sadako vs. Kayako, Sagrada Reset and soon a much bigger zombie TV project in Love You as the World Ends), but I'd happily watch all of them again in other things.

A laughing psycho thinks zombie outbreaks are hilarious ("my life was worth it to see this!") and deliberately sends survivors into what will become a zombie pit. She has access to the TV cameras that were planted in the school by a perverted teacher, especially in the girls' changing areas, and has no problem with this. I hated her. Another girl is determined to go to university no matter what and was already seeing that as a life-or-death struggle. Embarrassing personal problems (incontinence) can kill. Students will prioritise their own survival above that of their friends, sometimes to a ruthless extent. Sometimes they hadn't really been friends ("I always hated you") even though they'd appeared to be.

Previously, they got on fine. One bad day shows their true colours.

There are interview segments in which students talk to camera against a white background about their lives, futures, motivations, etc. (The interviewees might be dead when these are played.) This puts a stronger focus on characterisation, themes, etc. This isn't just a zombie flick. It's an evil, cold-blooded character study that happens to have an undead-related body count.

The zombies are done well, except for the green blood from even freshly-turned ones. Sometimes they run, albeit clumsily. (Personally, I prefer the atmosphere in a world of slow-moving zombies, but running zombies are undeniably more threatening.) They kill a lot. They look as you'd expect from fresh murder victims. This film has plenty of gore and some gruesome special effects, but it tends not to show knives, teeth, etc. penetrating flesh. (Also, the first zombie kill could have been done more convincingly.)

If zombie films were all this good, I'd be delighted. It's a strong, shocking, well-written story... and it also contains zombies. Compared with the expectations I'd had when watching it, it's off the scale.