Now this was something unexpected – a flashback episode dedicated primarily to Megu-nee, yes, but one which also incorporated her memories of the things that happened on the day the “zombie apocalypse” hit. Curiously both the beginning and the end of the episode show her writing what look to be her memories of the events as she thinks to herself out loud, but while the setting of both places are decidedly desolate, one shows the obvious results of the zombie ravagings itself (it looked like the teacher’s office to me) while the other almost looked like a … morgue. The former had (broken) windows and (torn) curtains, while the latter had … nothing.

The day for Megu-nee seemed like any other (isn’t that how these sorts of narratives always begin?) with her rising and making her way to her workplace as a teacher in school. Wonderful use of events that might normally accompany someone driving somewhere in an anime series take on a whole new light here. Sirens are wailing and ambulances are driving by, and the viewer begins thinking “Uh oh … it’s beginning to happen, isn’t it?!” My impression from the anime itself also seemed to indicate that it was happening on a local level somehow – by local, though, I mean the city. We do not know if it simultaneously hit other cities across the country (or across the world for that matter), but it definitely seems to have begun in the city proper and made its way slowly (zombies shuffle speed) out to the school towards the end of the day.

Interestingly Megu-nee finds out about it from her mother, who had apparently been actively trying to text her since the morning (urk), and even sent her scary video footage others had taken of zombies killing and eating people and people killing the zombies. She finds out at the end of the day just as she finishes giving Yuki extra lessons – and a Yuki, by the way, before her traumatization. They both make their way to the rooftop from where Yuri (a member of the gardening club) happens to be when they all notice smoke rising in the distance and see zombies dressed in the school uniforms eating corpses (also dressed in the uniforms) on the athletic field under the light of the setting sun when another teacher calls Megu-nee, frantically tries to warn her before being cut off by screams, howls and groans, shattering glass, and the rest. Needless to say Megu-nee, Yuki and Yuri are all … baffled and horrified by what they are seeing.

At this point Kurumi shows up dragging the body of her beloved senpai who had just graduated from high school and was visiting his old club after the start of the new year (if you remember from last episode there were cherry blossoms in bloom and the school season in Japan begins in Spring) on a day when the zombies attacked everyone. He was apparently only bitten (not killed and devoured) and Kurumi dragged him to the rooftop while avoiding the other zombies somehow. After shutting the door behind her, some zombies (who were presumably pursuing them) make it to the door to the rooftop and try to make their way through. Fortunately those on the rooftop have the presence of mind to push heavy things in front of the door and lean against it – both Yuri and Megu-nee are doing this. Meanwhile Yuki is scared out of her wits and Kurumi suddenly encounters the problem so well shown in the previous episode.

Essentially we discover that people who are only bitten by zombies and not killed somehow are “infected” and very shortly after become zombies themselves. With Yuki frozen in fear and the other two pushing against the heavy items thrown in front of the door to the rooftop it leaves Kurumi alone to deal with seeing her crush turned into a zombie and slowly lurch towards her with intent to devour her. In a well executed scene (no pun intended) we are shown how Kurumi slowly, wordlessly, methodically kills the zombie with the gardening shovel that was at hand next to the tomato beds. All the others watch in horror and it finally proves too much for Yuki, who throws herself on Kurumi and begs her repeatedly to please stop. Apparently after this Yuki snapped. The Stay at School club was formed and the “advisor” was Megu-nee.

Things are not that clear, though.The events seem to have taken place in April, but in the previous episode Yuki mentioned how it was time for summer vacation. So a time period of a few months has gone by, it seems. And in that time something happened to Megu-nee. Also interesting was that Miki did not show up at all in this episode, and that, combined with the fact that she seems to be wearing a different school uniform, seems to me to hint that she came somewhere in that time period as well. Perhaps next episode will show some of her memories and flashback scenes? (The preview for the next episode could be interpreted that way, I think.) All being said and done, though, this series has continued to be excellent, and in so many ways. Especially notable for me in this episode was the use of the old film noir style camera film reel footage breaking and the white noise sounds in between the dark, foggy snippets we were exposed to while Megu-nee was remembering the past and recording the events for … whoever might come across it later on.