This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. You have been warned. https://i.ur.com/atJr1uo.jpeg Alice in Deadly School is a 35minute OVA about nave teenagers stuck on their high schools roof after zombies took over the first floor. Alice causes a Fukusaku Battle Royalehttps://letterboxd.com/film/battleroyale/ like inversion of tropes by capturing the essence of anime stereotypes and imposing individual trauma onto them. Here the student council president is not the one with the glasses the delinquent doesnt smoke and the funny girl feels lonely because shes weird. While Alice in Deadly Schools main conflict is its zombie apocalypse its underlying theme is about a younger Japanese generation disillusioned with their failing authority. At some point the army crashes a helicopter because zombies overwhelm them after which a girl stoically remarks no one is coming for us.. These teenagers are left stranded by their role models imperfections and with nobody to look up to they struggle to embrace maturity themselves. Their abandonment issues cause such a distrust that even the student council president and softball captain crumble under the pressure of assumed authority themselves. The zombies arent horrifying until we realize each of them was a bundle of aspirationshttps://i.ur.com/fpt2aLd.jpeg whose lives were forcibly cut short as nobody supported them through their ultimately futile struggle. Director Shigeyasu Yamauchihttps://anilist.co/staff/101459/ShigeyasuYamauchi Casshern Sins isolates his living characters in open spaceshttps://i.ur.com/9ioNxGz.jpeg because these girls feel too smallhttps://i.ur.com/J9zl4lR.jpeg and alonehttps://i.ur.com/XwKeahZ.jpeg trapped in the massive world they inhabithttps://i.ur.com/QVYxrHe.jpeg. The girls only place of comfort the high school has an oily filter as if their happy memories are physically melting away.https://i.ur.com/z8OKMTi.jpeg https://i.ur.com/47KdOFn.jpeg Yet rather than nihilistically succumbing to their predicament the girls decide to take matters in their own hands. In an antiestablishment bent they decide to confide in each others individual strengths instead of waiting on an army that wont arrive anyway. Despite most girls meeting an unfortunate demise Alice in Deadly School finds catharsis by arguing we only have each other to rely on: the science clubs last effort is devising a bomb for an escape route the softball pitcher receives one final throw to save her schoolmates the piano girl and aspiring pop idol fulfill their dreams as theyre heard in their ultimate performances and one part of a manzai duo lets her partner know shes always there in her heart no matter how lonely the world is. https://i.ur.com/HFW8nG7.jpeg Yamauchi bolsters Alice in Deadly Schools permeating sapphic anxietyhttps://i.ur.com/16XZLrv.jpeg comingofage tragedy and antiestablishment rebellion with dramatic lightinghttps://i.ur.com/OJ4zpY1.jpeg and color palettes changing along the scenes tone. It revels in moments of soft surrealism where a girls perception alters the environment either offering her escapismhttps://i.ur.com/UoxfRQV.jpg or amplifying claustrophobiahttps://i.ur.com/pDAdp1C.jpeg. The director uses exaggerative perspectiveshttps://i.ur.com/SEC2AfF.jpeg and offcenters his characters into big suffocating spaces of lonelinesshttps://i.ur.com/voPrwoC.jpeg which are juxtaposed by closeupshttps://i.ur.com/Muxn6Zt.jpeg. Kiyoshi Tateishihttps://anilist.co/staff/138272/KiyoshiTateishis character designs intensify the tragedy as the casts faces are the only soft thing lefthttps://i.ur.com/wqMEYpu.jpeg in this apocalypse. Yamauchis aesthetic flourishes cover up the OVAs somewhat cheap look but if anything the thriftiness evokes the sensation of late90s Japanese undergroundhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkfilm which sought to maximize the power of every frame by coalescing character and location into a feeling without telling you what youre supposed to feel outright. Its confusing that Alice in Deadly School is... this. It was dead on arrival as a tangential prequel to Gekidolhttps://anilist.co/anime/124131/Gekidol/ a poorly received idol show with none of its cast or staff appearing here. Yet Yamauchi manages to squeeze out the years cinematic highlight in 35 minutes of anxiety. Alice in Deadly School is panned and might not be your cup of tea but its sympathetic core of antiestablishment teenagers resonates so deep with me I cant help but consider it my anime of the year. https://i.ur.com/MTGY3yZ.jpeg