I quite like the actors, when the script and director aren't making them take the piss. Otherwise, it's garbage. I've seen worse, but still it confirms all the bad things you've heard about Japanese live-action TV dramas.

Our heroine is Tachibana Maria, played by Yamamoto Maika (who's actually quite good). One day, she's attacked by a zombie. It doesn't bite her... but she does get scratched, and that's enough. Whoops, she's infected. Her veins are going to stand out in scary colours. More importantly, though, she fancies her childhood friend Tougo next door!

If you were Maria, what would you do?

(a) hand yourself over to the authorities, who have an anti-zombie squad called ALICE and are the experts in handling situations like this. Maybe there's a cure? Might amputating your arm do the job if you're quick enough? Alternatively, maybe there's no hope and you need killing before you bite all your friends and family.

(b) tell no one and try to cure it yourself with, er, ice baths. This doesn't work. Your zombie symptoms become inconvenient, but still you don't tell anyone. At one point, you'll go on a double date and ride on a ferris wheel with a boy. The two of you, alone. You might easily have killed and eaten him, then triggered a runaway pandemic and brought down civilisation. Hiding zombie infection from people is the kind of idiot behaviour that makes the audience scream at "too stupid to live" characters in bad horror movies.

Maria does (b)... but it works out okay. Why, I hear you ask? ANSWER: if a zombie cries while she's truly in love, her tears will counteract the zombie infection.

Half the time, it's like watching a zombie film, but worse and with weirder lore. Zombie appearances make the sky turn black and make the filmmakers switch from day shooting to night shooting. (Once the zombie's been dealt with, it'll be the middle of the day again.) Furthermore, zombies have super-strength, martial arts skills and the ability to beat up another zombie even if he's much bigger than you and running like an Olympic athlete. This film's zombies should have been vampires, although that would have meant losing the scene where Maria's eating like a horse.

Also, though, this is a romantic teen drama with heavy-handed plotting and annoying adults. In his first couple of scenes, Maria's dad is creepy and astonished by the hypothetical notion of his smoking hot daughter discovering boys. Meanwhile, Maria's schoolteacher is literally unwatchable. I don't know what the filmmakers were thinking. She'll spout gratuitous American English for no reason and overact in rants that no human being would say or do. She dies because she screamed "go home and suck your mum's tits!" as she charges towards a zombie. For no reason except that she's annoying. On her own. No one helping her, no reason to suppose that she'd survive longer than half a second. Guess what happens. (Also, I'd point out that zombification isn't only the victim's problem. It doesn't only affect you, but everyone else that zombie-you will later bite. Letting yourself get turned into a zombie belongs somewhere between time-delayed murder and complicity in genocide.)

No one here takes zombies seriously enough, although admittedly we're seeing a general low level of zombie infestation and a police/military response force that's quite good at dealing with them. (Apparently, zombies get worse in warm weather.) Maria's response to zombification is on a par with wondering where she left her phone. Also, when found lying in a bathroom after encountering another zombie, her friends don't check to see if she's been bitten.

The zombie make-up is bland. They've done nothing with skin colour and just glued on a few injuries. Also, Maria has a photo of herself and Tougo that shouts "world's worst Photoshopping job".

In short, it's bloody awful... but I liked most of the cast. (I hate Maria's reaction to imminent zombification and she keeps delivering lines directly to camera, but presumably she was ordered to do the latter.) The teen romance is quite well played. It's also horribly written, but I liked the people. Mind you, even for TV, Maria's classroom is implausibly full of beautiful people. Yamamoto Ryousuke (six foot two) looks as if he's stepped out of Takarazuka, despite being male. He also makes Yamamoto Maika (five foot one) look like a dwarf.

In short, no. Absolutely not. However, if you know in advance that the script's a half-arsed pisstake, the teenage cast might be likeable enough to carry it. I also liked the tiny cameo at the end of two zombies in love. Basically, though, the film's a joke. Watching it alongside proper zombie dramas would spoil them.