Zombieland Saga

Zombieland Saga is unironically the best anime of 2018. Let me tell you a little story. Once Upon a Time, I got hooked on the idol genre, and descended into what is commonly referred to as idol hell. However, contrary to popular belief, I was able to snap out of my zombie like trance and escape from idol hell, and I can happily say that I’ve been clean for over two years. No longer having an interest in idol anime, I had no inclination to watch Zombieland Saga, and had planned on skipping it. What a sad, misguided fool the me before watching this anime was…anyway,I eventually got around to watching it thanks to my weak mind being influenced by Youtube videos that told me to give this anime a shot. In this review, I’ll explain to you why Zombieland Saga isn’t just great for it’s drop-dead hilarity and entertainment value, but for its unexpected complexity that you might just miss out on if you just skim the surface of this surprisingly great anime. That’s right, this is actually going to be a somewhat intricate review since Zombieland Saga is totally worth analyzing. So if you don’t have much time and have to Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!, here’s a little tl;dr for you: I came for the quirky idol shenanigans + zombies combo, stayed for the amazing comedy, and left absolutely loving the diverse and both figuratively and literally fleshed out characters (Get it? Cuz they’re zombies?) This anime really hits like a truck in how quickly it transitions from a seemingly typical idol anime opening sequence what with our heroine Sakura’s upbeat and energetic disposition to an intense and hilarious death scene backed by heavy metal music after like 30 seconds into the first episode. I was instantly hooked after this unique beginning, and the anime just got better from there. It’s no spoiler to say that our protagonist is as dead as someone who, well, died. However, she is revived via necromancy by a sunglasses wearing manager dude named Koutarou who also brought back six other SUPER LEGENDARY girls from the dead all for the purpose of them forming an idol group with the monumental goal of saving a declining Saga. If that sentence long synopsis doesn’t get you to tingle with excitement in anticipation to see where the heck this anime goes, then I don’t know what will. It’s no secret to say that I didn’t watch this anime hoping to find something with a compelling narrative and developed characters and was instead looking for something that would make me smile in amusement. And I can happily say that Zombieland Saga made me die of laughter (Don’t worry about me though, I was brought back to life…Though sadly not as a LEGENDARY zombie idol) This is the funniest anime that I’ve seen all year. Each episode contains a plethora of comedic moments, and there was always something new and creative so it never felt like I was watching the same routine with each passing episode. Now if the good comedy was all Zombieland Saga had, I would have been perfectly content with the anime and left satisfied. However, there is so much more to this anime than that, and its greatest strengths revolve around the cast. You really can’t go wrong when your characters are a bunch of LEGENDARY girls in an idol group called FranChouChou. Outside of Sakura, who suffers from memory loss, a typical anime trope that Zombieland Saga actually executes better than literally every other anime that utilizes memory loss, our girls include my personal favorite, the LEGENDARY Saki Nikaidou, a fiery, outgoing girl whose voice and character design are so hot that they make me catch on fire. Plus she’s a rapping biker girl who likes chicken and goes down in a blaze of glory TWICE. I guess the perfect girl does exist. We also have Ai Mizuno, a girl who was a successful idol in life who had a simply LEGENDARY death after giving one last electrifying performance. Let’s not forget the soft spoken yet powerhouse vocalist Junko Konno, whose LEGENDARY rise to stardom may have been cut short by an unexpected crash and burn, but she lives on in our hearts…and as a zombie. Lily Hoshikawa is a kawaii girl who was a LEGENDARY child actress who unfortunately ended up in a hairy situation that her little heart just couldn’t take. Still, she’s a true star, and her cuteness is infectious. Next, we have the ever enticing and LEGENDARY Yuugiri, who is the most experienced of the girls in more ways than one~ Finally, we have THE LEGENDARY TAE YAMADA, and thanks to her inclusion as the star of the show, I was practically mandated by the animu gods to bump up my score for this anime by a full point. So yeah, the girls in this anime are just so…Illustrious. You’ll notice that the girls all lived in different eras, so they obviously were exposed to different cultures based on the times that they lived in. A lesser anime would have glazed over this fact, but not Zombieland Saga, and this was the point that I realized that this anime was something special. Junko and Ai were to first to go through compelling character arcs, and their stories were pretty engaging, and set the stage for the upcoming character arcs. The episode dedicated to Lily was, to put it bluntly, LEGENDARY. Zombieland Saga had done it. It became the first anime I’ve ever seen to make me laugh hysterically AND be brought to the verge of tears thanks to an incredibly well produced character driven episode. I didn’t think anything could top the epicness of the rap battle, but the emotions I felt thanks to Lily’s story certainly did. I was trapped in a sea of emotions throughout the entire episode, and I could probably write an entire review just dedicated to that episode alone. Seriously though, I have never seen an anime handle Lily’s character type nearly as well as Zombieland Saga did, and at the end of the day, Lily is Lily. And of course, it goes without saying that Saki’s episode was pure greatness. Saki is just that good. A strong demonstration of camaraderie between characters is something that I rarely see sufficiently executed in anime. So imagine my shock when I realized that Zombieland Saga of all things was able to pull it off. The bonds that these characters have with each other grew from constant arguments and not being on the same page in the first few episodes into an in sync family who would do anything to help each other out. This is demonstrated the clearest near the end of the anime. I won’t spoil exactly what, but something happens to Sakura that causes a rift between her and her fellow zombies. The way that all of the girls try to get her back to her old self is extremely heartwarming, and it really goes to show how far these girls have come. And thanks to their positive relationship with one other, they’re able to put on some spectacular performances. And now we get to the other great part about this anime. Its music is hella good. For the past several weeks I’ve been listening to the opening theme song, Adabana Necromancy, constantly. I play it when I eat. I play it when I sleep. I’m playing it as I’m writing this review. It’s a pretty damn good song. And you know what else is good? Literally every insert song in this anime. I’ve already mentioned the rap battle, which was pretty off the chain. Lily’s song and Saki’s song are two personal favorites of mine, and every musical number in this show is just really catchy. If FranChouChou ever put on a show irl, you better believe I’d buy tickets to go and see them, and I would be screaming and crying at the awesomeness alongside those two heavy metal guys who’ve attended every show that the girls have put on. Seriously though, those two guys really are the unsung MVPs of this anime. When it comes to the voice acting, as Phil from Hercules would say, I’ve got two words for ya: Frickin Miyano Mamoru! This boi is my favorite male seiyuu, and his performance as Koutarou is simply LEGENDARY. Some of the best comedy from this anime comes from the combination of Koutarou’s absurd lines plus Mamoru’s expert delivery of them. And of course, the ladies voicing our lovely zombie idols do an exceptional job. And they even got the LEGENDARY voice actress of Usagi from Sailor Moon to voice the LEGENDARY Tae Yamada. I didn't expect anything less. Visually speaking, this anime is animated quite well. I love the character designs, and the fluidity of their movements during scenes like the rap battle and Lily’s song is very impressive. But there’s one glaring issue with the visuals, and I’m sure you know exactly what I’m referring to. You guessed it, I’m talking about none other than the CGI. Which is an acronym that I made for Cute Girl Idols. That’s right, as I said before, these cute girl idols are drawn to look pretty attractive, but they’re, you know, rotting corpses, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not into necrophilia. Yet the girls’ cutesy designs have consistently tempted me throughout the anime’s run time, which has been problematic since it’s called into question my morality and…Oh wait, you thought by CGI I meant the Computer Generated Imagery that this anime scarcely deploys? The CGI implemented during some of the dance sequences that is literally used for less then ten minutes of the entire anime’s run time and doesn’t look nearly as bad as people make it out to be? Well personally, I have absolutely no qualms with the CGI. There’s definitely worse out there, trust me. Zombieland Saga impressed me. It put a fun twist on the idol genre that not only made it incredibly entertaining to watch, but also allowed it to develop some truly great and unique characters. I haven’t enjoyed watching an anime this much in a long time. And if you haven’t watched this anime yet, you really should Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! and watch it as soon as possible. It just isn’t right to miss out on such a LEGENDARY anime.

It’s pretty clear that in today’s society, anime seems to be churned out in droves. You bare witness to the regurgitation of carbon copies, causing the medium you hold dear to fade into the bleakest grey... And then Zombieland Saga busts in through the fucking window in a speeding minivan going 156 mph, shouting “FUCK YOU; GET IN” before flooring it faster than you can say “The Legendary TAE YAMADA!” It’s fun, it’s quirky, it’s loud as all hell, and most importantly, it’s as vivid as a sunset. Sure, your weeaboo mancave of a room is busted and your waifu collection is in pieces, but weall know you’ll replace that with a shrine dedicated to a bunch of zombie idols in no time. You’ll get used to it anyway. We should probably get the most colorful, charming parts of this show out of the way. These visuals pop. The colors strike like God’s lightning, especially in both the opening and ending. These character designs are as bombastic as the personalities of the girls when they’re off doing weird hijinks. Their facial expressions and clothes are so glorious that it’s easy to forget that you only give a shit about like half the characters until their pasts get revealed. Sure, there are some fugly CGI idol models in a couple of dance sequences early on, but then we get oil paintings for menus and real-life footage. Studio MAPPA poured their blood, sweat, and tears into injecting nothing but style into this show. Speaking of hijinks, there’s a ton of variety in these spectacles. Horror movie/game parodying, playing hot potato with Tae’s severed head, fucking chicken performances and rap battles?! How can anyone object to this?! This is a perfect venue for vibrant character chemistry, as evidenced by the two best characters in the show, Saki and The Legendary Tae Yamada! These two embody the best aspects of the show, with them getting a majority of the best gags. Saki’s loud and abrasive personality makes for perfect chemistry fodder with the rest of the cast, and the inner machinations of Tae Yamada’s mind are an enigma. She is a joy to witness. The rest of the characters took a while to become even remotely interesting, and this is for a few reasons. For one, several of the main characters are often more drama focused. While this isn’t a bad thing on its own, not only are the personalities of characters such as Junko and Ai not very interesting, but given the limited time spent on drama in comparison to everything else in the first 4 episodes, the drama often feels like a detour. Admittedly, very few of these characters are that great when they aren’t dealing with absurd scenarios, but some are especially dull early on. The latter half thankfully has episodes designed around fleshing out the characters and giving them an emotional arc, but not every character gets this luxury. Granted, none of the main 7 idols are as grating as their manager Kotaro (cuz that guy can get fucked by a cactus more than half the time) but the show still has a hard time giving everyone the spotlight. Thankfully some of the side characters introduced in some of these character-centric mini-stories are written and explored efficiently. Without them, the drama-centered focus of the second half would have felt like an agonizing shift considering how lackluster the more serious portions of the show felt beforehand. The only thing left to touch on is the music. The background tracks are catchy, with neat jingles to compliment the lighthearted and comedic moments. However, the real meat comes in the form of the songs by everyone in this idol group: Franchouchou. The OP "Adabana Necromancy” is as vivid as the visuals that it plays over, and the watercolor visuals really help sell the emotional ED "Hikari e”. As for the insert idol tracks, several of them are pretty nice to listen to as well, with the only real exception being the ear-piercing Vocaloid-esque song that plays at the end of the 7th episode. It would be rather ghastly if these performances sounded dead, so thank the maker this ain’t the case. It’s refreshing to have an anime run you over, screaming. It calms down, and there are some growing pains, but I’m happy to see some life here. There’s a vivid pulse to this one, a wild and unique expression so charming and sincere that I nearly overlook how uneven and easy to break this show can be. With this performance now over, it’s your turn to take part in the saga. What are you waiting for? Do it while you’re still alive! Also, Tae Yamada dabs in episode 7, so that’s an Easter egg to look out for. Written/Edited by: CodeBlazeFate Proofread by: Peregrine

If there was a word to describe Studio MAPPA it would be disappointing. Being the spiritual successor for Studio Madhouse many of the shows least, in my opinion, fell flat in they face mainly because MAPPA loves the play the field spell card called style over substance where the writing for these shows seemed to fall by the side in favour of pretty colours and flashing scenes. Because of that I grown to dislike MAPPA as a whole as they seem to prioritised flashing visuals over storytelling. Zombieland Saga is, unfortunately, no exception to this as despite the show being advertised as a parody idolanime that had a lot of potential to be good. Unfortunately it the end it ended being another generic seasonal anime that you will easily forget once the anime season is over. If I had two words to describe the story of Zombieland Saga it would be missed potential as the series had potential to be this fun parody of the idol genre as a whole would made me laugh for days. Unfortunately as the series progresses the series starts falling apart as it eventually showed it's true itself where it ended up being a generic idol anime that barely doesn't do anything different apart from the zombie-idol gimmick. Before I talk about the problems with Zombieland Saga I'm going to talk to quickly talk about the things that I liked about Zomebieland Saga. The one thing that sold me watching Zombieland Saga is that it was a nice parody of the idol genre as it showcases all the tropes and elements that were using in the idol anime genre and no surprise the first 4 episodes actually did just that as it never took itself too seriously. The best and most memorable part of Zombieland Saga was the rap battle in episode 2. Not only the rap battle was very hilarious and entertaining to watch from start to finish, but it was very well set up and timed narrative and visually If only the rest of the series was as consistently good as the rap battle in episode 2 and with that said it's times to dive into this show problems. Remember when I said that Zombieland is a nice parody of the idol genre. Well the second half did something that it should have not done and that is devolved into a generic copy and paste idol anime where not even the zombie idol gimmick can fully save it. Many character drama aspects in this show were copied and pasted from other anime of it's generic and the dialogue just became trying. It did have some story moments with Saki and Sakura but other than that the show complete loss of what it made it unique in the first as it sadly devolved into a generic idol anime. The worst thing about Zombieland Saga is that simply not all that funny as many of the comedy comes in the form of characters doing dumb things and screaming. The comedy timing was terrible for the most part and many of the jokes ended up becoming forced and boring. Overall, despite the show being a decent parody of the idol genre that has an interesting zombie gimmick it ultimately ended falling apart into this generic style over substance anime that lost a lot of charm. The characters in Zombieland Saga were just okay. Not memorable but at the same time they are not bad. This may come off as an unpopular opinion, but I don't like the producer Tasumi all that much. Yes, he had some cool moments every now and then but a lot of the time I found him pretty irritating especially when most of his dialogue is consistent screaming and screeching at set idol. As for the zombie-idol girls themselves well I thought there was one note. Yes, there was 2 expectations being Saki and Sakura (which I will talk about in a bit) but other than that the zombie idol girls are nothing more but idol cliches on screen. Saki was by far my favourite character in Zombieland Saga as well being the most entertaining. She may appear to a typical badass jerk at first especially to Sakura as the series progresses she slowly starts open up to Sakura after proving that she isn't as completely gutless. I really liked her character development in the series and it really shows in episode 9 where she meets up with her old best friend and biker gang. She proves to Reiko daughter that if she contiines acting the way that Saki did when she was alive then she would end up falling in the same fate that caused Saki to die. What really made Saki my favourite character happens in episode 2 during the rap battle with Sakura " Who cares if you've got memories" "you won't get to see your friends and your Tamagotchi's long dead" We're done got it?! Sakura herself was a pretty good character. She as this typical idol protagonist archetype at first however as the series progresses she becomes more of an interesting and somewhat relatable character that we can relate. Her backstory in episode 11 was the prime example of this as perfectly showcases of what Sakura would have been as a person if she didn't get hit by truck kun and as a result, she starts going into heroic BSoD. The visuals in Zombieland Saga are a mixed bag. While it had a solid colour art-style that fits well with the setting of the series I feel the animation especially the CGI moments hold the visuals back from being great. The models both the human, and zombies are nicely drawn appealing to look at. The background scenery was decent, and lighting was solid. The animation itself ranged from pretty good to okay. That's about it really. The only thing left I say about the show visuals is the use of CGI which was horrendous. I understand the show was meant to parody CGI in idol anime but there's a difference between actually parodying the CGI and actually making worse than thing that your parodying. For a show that mainly focus of music I thought the soundtrack for Zombieland Saga to be underwhelming at best. It's not a soundtrack I consider to be awful, but it failed to impress me especially when many of the tracks in Zombleland Saga just comes off as generic background idol noise. While the soundtrack was lacking the insert songs completely make it up because they are actually pretty damm good. My favourite insert songs in the show would be Mezame Returner and Dance. The opening theme Adabana Necromancy sung by zombie idols was a decent opening theme. While I really liked the opening visuals for it, I cannot say the same thing for the song itself which I found to be pretty forgetful. The ending theme Hikari e sung by the zombie idols was a pretty enjoyable ending that has a nice clamming song that contained good-looking visuals art. The Seiyuus in the sub did a pretty good job with the roles that they were given. As much I don't like Tatsumi I thought Mamoru Miyano did a fantastic job voicing the character. Asami Tano as Saki was a also another great performance as she really made this hot headed badass girl come to life. The dub, on the other hand, was pretty bad as it's filled with mediocre to bad performances that actually ruins key scenes in the anime. Not only that but the comedy in the dub version is pretty insufferable to listen. Also let's not forget how Funimation was incredibly lazy when they decided to do the rap battle episode 2 because frankly they didn't bother to dub at all. Zombieland Saga is a bizarre series to judge. There were some strong areas that I really liked like Saki and Sakura, the rap battle in episode 2 and the idol parody stuff unfortunately the flaws in Zombieland Saga outweigh the good. Not only that but the same the series got to the second half the series devolved into this generic flashy idol anime that has a zombie gimmick that contains repetitive/forced comedy and underwhelming characters. If the series actually stocked to of idol parody routes than this show would have been one of the better animes of 2018 but we ultimately didn't get that and what we got instead is a typical idol anime that could have been a lot better. It's not a bad series by any means but at the same time it's not all that memorable outside the rap battle and Saki's character development.

Zombieland Saga is a comedy about a group of zombie girls being marketed as idols by a red suit-toting weirdo through unconventional and sometimes embarrassing means of gaining popularity. Zombieland Saga is an idol drama about a group of zombie girls on a quest to become idols but are held back the the implications of their deaths, their past traumas, their memories and the era they lived in. Zombieland Saga works great as either show. Zombieland Saga doesn't work at all as both.By trying to juggle these two ideas, it becomes a tangled up and comes short of fulfilling either of those premises satisfyingly. It's not that the show transitioning between these ideas are jarring (in fact, it does that just fine), but rather, by trying to keep the first half of episodes comedy then leaving all the heavier stuff for later kind of chokes the pacing of those. As a result, character arcs and story threads, while fine, leave so much to be desired, especially with regards to Sakura. The animation is fine. I enjoyed a lot of the comedic storyboarding, the hilarious character acting and expressions in early episode (1-5), as well entire sequences of Tatsumi Kotarou's screentime and dialogue. Music is kinda shit. I didn't remember a single track, much less the BGM, so not much comment there other than forgettable. The voice actors did a splendid job and, again, a ton of the script from the comedy episodes were fantastic and the did a good job with those. Overall, it's a fine show. It's freaking hilarious when it wants to be and the writing is pretty alright, if not really unsatisfying. I recommend it if you have the time. (6/10)

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