Zombies, settlements, steam guns, STEAM BOW, eclectic steampunk traditional japan

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress is about a group of people who live on an armored train called the Iron Fortress.
The world is one of a sengoku/shogunate-era steampunk Japan. There are also zombies, which people just call ‘corpses.'
One day, the Iron Fortress comes to a settlement. The day is fairly peaceful…until another armored train crashes into their settlement’s wall, which lets a bunch of corpses in. The settlement is lost, so the survivors gather and escape on the Iron Fortress. One of the survivors Ikoma almost gets turned into a corpse, but he manages to prevent that. However, it’s soon revealed by another survivor, Mumei (No-name), that he actually became a ‘Kabaneri’ (translated as demicorpse sometimes). These are basically vampires, blood drinking but no sunlight issues.
The first half of the series focuses on the survivors trying to survive in the world. In the second half, the series shifts to a sort of drama series, where the people of the Iron Fortress get caught in a violent power struggle. The shift isn’t too jarring, and it’s possible the survival aspect would have gotten old…hence the shift.
The animation is great for the series, I would frequently find myself practically drooling over the animation.
The setting and general worldbuilding is really interesting to me. The blending of the sengoku/shogunate-era with steampunk works incredibly well, and it reminds me somewhat of the eclectic styles of the Meiji-era.
The villain has a name I find hilarious: Biba.

• aniDB
• TMDB
• TheTVDB