The notorious Highschool of the Dead anime scene featuring Rei shooting a bullet unimpeded through Saeki’s breasts remains a hallmark of the cult-classic zombie apocalypse anime — and now finally got the official backstory from famed director Tetsuro Araki. Responding to a post on X (formerly Twitter) that suggested Araki was responsible for the scene, he replied: “This was Takayuki Hirao! 😃 I asked him to do something interesting with the breasts!” In a follow-up post, he intimated that while he asked for this, he didn’t expect Hirao to go that far, adding, “I was furious and then let it , saying, ‘What an utterly outrageous guy.’ 😤“ 1s5c3q
The post that Araki responded to was engaged in a conversation about his illustrious career, suggesting he “found Jesus” given his recent amazing work on The Dangers in My Heart (BokuYaba). Most recently, Araki & Hiroyuki Sawano’s COLORs last year. Araki was also the chief director of the first three seasons of Attack on Titan over at WIT Studio, Death Note, and the recent movie, Bubble, acclaimed for its stunning visuals.
Despite Araki calling Hirao ‘utterly outrageous,’ the two have remained friends for years since meeting at Madhouse. According to Araki’s X bio, he and Hirao have known each other for 20 years, documenting their experiences in the conversation series published in Animage, titled Bariuta no Koi wo Shiritai!.
Highschool of the Dead was animated by Madhouse and now streams on HIDIVE. They describe the series:
A small group of students at Fujimi High are fighting for their lives after surviving a zombie outbreak. It is up to Takashi to unite the survivors and escape the horrors that surround them. In this new world of the living dead…will they escape?
Source: Tetsuro Araki on X (formerly Twitter)
© Daisuke Sato, Shoji Sato/Fujimishobo/H.O.T.D. Production Committee