Heres a question that I dont think gets asked enough... Whats the first thing youd do if you became a zombie? When the bite that infected you begins to fester and the craving for human flesh starts to develop in your brain what do you think is the first thing you would do under these conditions? Yes its true you probably wouldnt be in control of your body anymore by that point... Youll lose all cognitive function and your body will carry on without a pilot as it satisfies the terrifying hunger that it cant get rid of but that doesnt mean there isnt a little bit of you left in there. Even without direct control of your motor functions there are stories out there that would argue that your body is still likely to follow some of your most ingrained habits from your previous life. Maybe youd go to work and give your boss a piece of your mindin exchange for a slice of his... Maybe youd go to school and spread the disease to your classmates. Or maybe... Just maybe... Youll visit your favorite maid cafe. Now I hear what youre saying if youre going to find a zombie in a restaurant at 3AM its probably going to be a Dennys. But thats not the case in the anime Im reviewing tonight. In celebration of the spooky month of October Ive decided to do a short review of the gruesome threeminute anime short called Maid of the Dead which was directed by a well respected Japanese animator named Takena Nagao. If you havent heard of him thats kind of disappointing since Ive reviewed two of his projects before those being Chainsaw Maid and its successor Chainsaw Maid Episode Zero. Id recommend reading the first one in particular because I went into some background information about Nagao that I dont particularly feel like rehashing in this third review. To the uninitiated Ill give you the short version. Takena Nagao is a Japanese horror artist who creates incredibly gory short films using stop motion animation or more specifically claymation. Yeah I very recently reviewed another claymation anime called Doggy Poo but despite the obvious difference in production... That movie being presumably made by a major studio while Maid is a decidedly more amateur work... Ive gotta be honest Maid of the Dead looks way better. Well for the most part. It has more or less the same texture issues that Doggy Poo had... The skins of the models were inconsistently wrinkled from frame to frame... Maid of the Dead is quite a bit worse at this as not only does the character molding look extremely rough at times you might also notice the odd frame or two where the models actually look dirty like there are smudges on them from other models. But where Maid of the Dead excels over Doggy Poo is with the actual animation because there is constant movement in this film and it looks damn good. Theres a lot of detail to both the body language and the facial expressions of the characters herein and its all very effective. The way a newly turned zombie sways when getting back to their feet feels chillingly real as do the blank stares that they give while processing the idea that a human standing in front of them equals food. There is a very effective element of disturbing zombie horror in this film showcased both by the implied threat of one zombie maid against her coworkers and the actual gore effects that are highly detailed. But more importantly this high quality animation also serves as the perfect distraction for all of the visual issues it also has. I already mentioned the rough looking textures on the character models but one thing I also noticed after several times through there is almost no background behind the characters. Theres furniture and other characters but beyond all of that is just a vast expansive orange void. I realize Nagao was probably working with limited resources but he HAS made films like this one that didnt have this issue at least as far as I can remember. I know hes done films with a forest setting and some that had detailed indoor settings and even if he didnt have the resources to create a fully detailed cafe interior such a thing couldnt have been impossible to fake. Hollywood uses fake backgrounds all the time. Still the actual movement in the foreground is what your eyes are probably going to be focused on the most so whatever. Theres also an element of comedy in the story and while Im not going to spoil the jokes I will say they have a really casually surreal feel to them spots of levity in the middle of absolutely explicit scenes of carnage involving characters who are not treating the horror show in front of them with the appropriate amount of fear. One mild spoiler I will say I never would have thought Id see a Chekovs Gun situation playing out with a pair of knitting needles. These added bits of humor go a long way in spicing up what is otherwise a pretty standard and played out cliche of the zombie genre Some dickhead enters into a safe space full of people without admitting that hed been bitten and carnage ensues when he turns. Im sorry but didnt Weird Al tell you how tacky that is? The dickhead turns bites one maids face halfway off. Theres a ton of detail in the wound where you can see the inside of her cheek with her skull and teeth on display. This leads to what I think may actually be an original idea in this undead genre The first girl projectile vomits all over another maids face and that alone turns her into a zombie as well. I dont think Ive ever seen that before. On the other hand the idea of chaining up and enslaving zombies to do menial work is nothing new its been a thing since at least as far back as Shaun of the Dead but even that leads to a sort of amusing joke so Im not going to complain. One complaint I would like to make however and I already kinda hate myself for saying this is that the short is... Too short. Yeah I feel awful saying something like that in reference to a stop motion animation that probably took an insane amount of time and effort to put together already but when I think of a zombie outbreak happening in a maid cafe I think of a scenario where the maids and customers are fighting for their lives in a set piece thats full of creative possibilities and even if this films length was only doubled to six minutes I could see a ton of kickass maid vs. zombie action happening... But alas thats not what we got. To be clear though what we got IS fun. Its not the best piece that Takena Nagao has made but it is one of the best looking with smooth and gracious movements highly detailed gore and bright colors that pop out at you very energetically. Its probably not the first project of his that Id recommend watching but Id still recommend it. We live in a world where zombies arent just a fad theyre a fad that faded a long time ago to the point that you probably think youve already seen everything the genre has to offer. Youve seen zombies in found footage movies youve seen zombies trying to become pop stars youve seen zombie deconstructions youve seen zombies cynically parody all sides of American culture from McCarthyism to consumerism youve seen a zombie try to pass as human by working at a morgue... But until youve binged the works of Takena Nagao youve never seen what claymation zombie media is truly capable of. I highly recommend binge watching Takena Nagaos entire catalogue this Octoberexcept Shitcom almost all of which can be found on . But as for this one in particular I give Maid of the Dead a 7/10.