SCHOOL-LIVE! (Season 1)

School-Live! (2015) is an anime worth watching online on iFILM for one of the cruelest bait-and-switches the genre has pulled. It opens as a sweet club of girls who sleep over at their high school. Then the frame widens, and you learn the campus has been sealed off by a zombie outbreak for a long time.

Yuki Takeya keeps acting as if nothing is wrong — lessons, tea, her beloved teacher. Her friends play along because the truth would shatter her: level-headed Yuri, scrappy Kurumi with a shovel always in reach, and younger Miki. The four of them fortify the building, ration what food they can find, and weigh every day how much reality a person can stand to face.

Made at Studio Lerche from the manga by Norimitsu Kaihou and Sadoru Chiba, the series uses bright artwork and a chirpy theme song to hide a genuine horror about grief and denial. It rewards anyone who likes a story that quietly turns on you. Stream School-Live! online on iFILM.