Zombieland Saga Ep. 1 – Snow Annihilation

Just in time for Spooktober, we have another anime show about zombies but this time, with a hilariously dumb yet surprising twist.

I only came into this knowing about the infamous opening scene from the twitter and reddit circles. By the way, it goes without saying, I literally can’t talk about this episode without spoiling the entire premise, so be warned.

With that said-

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Truck-kun crashes into the competition!

So, our bubbly and naive Chiaki expy gets a crash course in how to get Isekai’d, only this time, she ends up not in another world, but ten years into the future.

Basic premise: A zombie idol group founded by a manager voiced by Okabe work together to save Saga from obscurity through the power of idol music. It is as stupidly awesome as that sounds.

This show loves to shift in tone so often that it feels like a genre rollercoaster. From idol show to horror show, and back to straight-up horror again. The horror parts are well-done, mostly thanks to the fun, bone-breaking movements of the zombies,while the idol parts have that whole “bubbly girl” aesthetic you see in shows like LoveLive!, BaNG Dream, and so on and so forth.

This first episode was non-stop, fast-paced comedy, and a lot of the jokes hit for me. The humor isn’t solely from the ever-bombastic voice acting of Miyano Mamoru, as there’s a lot of subtle jokes here and there that just get funnier on a rewatch. One such joke is this flippable chalk board having the Zombieland Saga logo upside-down. It’s a small detail that says a lot about the hyper personality of the manager, and I love it.

I also like that they’re keeping the mystery by way of the manager literally stating it doesn’t matter, you’re zombies now, deal with it. While I’m sure we’ll get snippets here and there throughout the season, I am pretty satisfied with the lack of annoying exposition. This makes it an introductory episode that can stand on it’s own, and doesn’t fall into the trap of being a pure setup episode like most other anime.

The episode does introduce the girls as being entertainers or icons from some point in time, ranging from an idol from the 80 to a concubine, all presumably having suffered the same sudden deaths that our MC experienced. I assume we’ll be getting more backstory as the season plods along, because they seem to have a case of incomprehensible moaning preventing them from sharing it.

The second half of the episode, focusing on the group’s first “concert”, is my favorite part. The girls’ deathly screams and broken necks and spines make them the perfect headbanging death metal idol group you never knew you wanted but always have.

As with every anime that has a sizeable cast of girls, I need to pick a waifu, and I am torn between the biker delinquent Saki Nikaido (because yankees are my jam) or the LEGEND Tae Yamada!

I’m leaning towards Tae Yamada because she’s been the most adorably vicious this whole episode,like a flesh-eating puppy, even though there’s already an actual flesh (well, dried squid) eating puppy with the group.

Overall, the show leaves me thoroughly entertained and intrigued the whole way through, and I definitely recommend following it this season alongside me. It’s a dumb show that is aware of how dumb it is, and has fun with that idea!

– TLM

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