School-Live! is a Japanese manga series written by Nitroplus' Norimitsu Kaihō and illustrated by Sadoru Chiba. The series began serialization on May 24, 2012 in the Houbunsha's Manga Time Kirara Forward magazine and is licensed in English by Yen Press. An anime adaptation by Lerche aired between July and September 2015. A live-action film adaptation was released on January 25, 2019.
Plot
Yuki Takeya is a cheerful high school girl who lives at Megurigaoka Private High School and spends time with the School Living Club alongside fellow members Kurumi Ebisuzawa, Yuuri Wakasa, and Miki Naoki. After some time, a zombie outbreak overruns the city. The outbreak spreads to the school, and many students and teachers are infected, including Kurumi's upperclassman, his girlfriend, and Kei Shido, who is Miki's classmate. Yuki's classmates work hard to keep Yuki safe while she seeks out fun school activities every day. It is learned that Yuki is a delusional school girl, believing that everything is normal and her classmates and teachers are alive and well at first. Later, Megumi Sakura learns from her mother and Yuuri about the outbreak, realizing the change in the city's situation. Yuki later holds a school trip to the shopping mall which was hit by a zombie attack like the rest of the city. After the tour, Miki quickly comes to learn about her delusions, including the fact that the existence of Megumi is also one of them. She also learns from Yuuri and Kurumi how Megumi, who founded the School Living Club with Yuuri, sacrificed herself in order to protect her students from the zombies, the resulting shock of which left Yuki with the delusion that Megumi and the other students are still alive. Miki later learns a little about how Yuki's way of thinking helps Kurumi and others and in order to understand more, she decides to become a trial member of the School Living Club. One day, Yuki and friends find a hidden safe containing an emergency manual, which reveals the school was involved with a biological weapon and was constructed as a safe house in the event of an outbreak.
Characters
School Living Club
The main characters of the series are a small club of girls who prioritize being able to live while inside the school. Yuki Takeya ;Kurumi Ebisuzawa ;Yuuri Wakasa ;Miki Naoki
A university in the same town area as the School-Live club. It is one of the several designated facilities in the town with survival rations, solar panels, and an evacuation shelter. Following the outbreak, the surviving students at the school became divided, with some banding together to survive while others descended into anarchic survivalism. ;Touko Deguchi ;Aki Hikarizato ;Hikako Kirai ;Rise Ryougawara ;Shiiko Aosoi ;Takahito Tougo ;Ayaka Kamimochi ;Shinou Uhara ;Renya Kougami ;Takashige Shiroshita
Other characters
;Tarōmaru ;Radio DJ ;Ruu-chan
Media
Manga
School-Live! is written by Nitroplus' Norimitsu Kaihō and illustrated by Sadoru Chiba. It began serialization on May 24, 2012, in the July issue of Houbunsha's Manga Time Kirara Forward magazine. The series went on hiatus between July and December 2017. Houbunsha published the first tankōbon volume on December 12, 2012, with the twelfth and final volume released on January 10, 2020. Yen Press began releasing the series in English in November 2015. Three manga anthologies illustrated by various artists have also been released, the first on July 13, 2015, the second on September 12, 2015, and the third on January 12, 2016.
Volumes
Anime
An anime television series was announced on June 21, 2014. The series was directed by Masaomi Ando at Lerche, with scripts by manga writer Norimitsu Kaihō and character design by Haruko Iikuza. The series aired in Japan between July 9, 2015 and September 24, 2015 and was simulcast by Crunchyroll. The series features four pieces of theme music; one opening theme and three ending themes. The opening theme is "Friend Shitai" by Gakuen Seikatsu-bu. The ending theme is "Harmonize Clover" by Maon Kurosaki for episodes 1–3, 5, and 9, "We took each other's hand" by Kaori Sawada for episode 4, and "Afterglow" by Kurosaki for episode 6-8 and 10–11. The series was licensed in North America by Sentai Filmworks and released on Blu-ray and DVD with an English dub on June 27, 2017. A drama-CD based on the anime television series was released at Comiket 88 on August 14, 2015.
Episode list
Live-action film
A live-action film adaptation of School-Live! was announced in the January 2018 issue of Manga Time Kirara Forward in November 2017. The film was directed by Issei Shibata and stars the members of idol group Last Idol, and it was released in Japan on January 25, 2019.
Appearances in other media
Yuki appeared as a support character in a fighting game called , which was released in December 2015. Characters from the series appear alongside other Manga Time Kirara characters in the 2017 mobile RPG, Kirara Fantasia.
Reception
The first episode of the anime was well-received and sparked a ten-fold increase in manga sales. It was also viewed more than one million times on Niconico. The official Twitter account of Houbunsha's Manga Time Kirara magazines has announced that School-Live! has two million copies in print as of March 2017. The English release of the first three volumes were also included on the American Library Association's list of 2017 Great Graphic Novels for Teens, and the fifth and sixth volumes made the 2018 list.
