High School of the Dead

[Brother Oni]

This is an experiment I wish could happen just to demonstrate the capacity of most people to kill. Take a thousand people, tell them to go over there and stomp the rabbit in the next room to death. I would be surprised if even half could make themselves do it. I would be even more surprised if a quarter could manage to do it without substantial hesitation first. It is not easy to convince yourself to do lethal damage. And hesitating in a zombie apocalypse scenario means you get bit and you get turned into something that wont hesitate to kill.

There's a difference between stomping on a defenceless harmless rabbit for the sake of an experiment and killing a lethal hostile threat in self defence.

I personally would refuse to kill the rabbit for an experiment to prove that I could kill it. I would not hesitate to kill someone threatening my family with harm.
I would kill the rabbit if I was to eat it. I have no philosophical or moral issue with eating meat and will kill and dress it with no problems (and have done). Besides, rabbit is tasty.

I do agree that this relucatance to kill has been noticed, most commonly with the military training new soldiers. However it's also been found that modern new recruits have less (or even no) restraints in being taught to kill (the theorised reasons for this are a whole can of worms that would probably derail the thread).

Keep in mind how the series starts as well. The high school was infested before they got any warning about it. Suddenly there are say, a dozen zombies in a tightly confined area, biting every unarmed and panicky student in reach, and the total of zombies expands exponentially.

Except they don't multiply exponentially - only people who get bitten and get away successfully turn into zombies. The ones that don't get away, just get eaten (one of the reasons why a zombie apocalypse can't be taken seriously - their food source is also their form of reproduction, so if they're highly successful in 'hunting', there aren't many zombies; if they're not successful, they just get eliminated by the humans, assuming the humans aren't idiots and get their bitten treated or at least quarantined).

As for tightly confined space, yes and no. I agree to the small areas, I disagree to the confinement as all schools have fire exits and a known fire drill (and in Japan, they have regularly practiced earthquake drills as well).
In a school of ~1000 students, I doubt 12 infected could cause the entire school to be locked down, without being overrun and trampled by escaping students.

And while I do agree that I wish they had mentioned the cause of "suddenly. . . ZOMBIES!" leaving it a mystery also helps me accept it, because that way there isnt some easily debunked excuse. "Pfft, government lab breakout? xkcd baby" For all we know, anyone who died in the last week just sat up and started biting. Or the graves of everything not too badly composed rose up or 15% of the population spontaneously mutated. We dont know, so its easier to believe it could happen.

I agree that leaving the source and biology of the zombies as unknown works better, since it makes them a credible threat without breaking suspension of belief.