ZOMBIE LAND SAGA by Urizen

 You know, last year I stumbled on a clip on YouTube. I knew nothing about the anime it was from. All I knew was it featured a rap battle between two zombie girls. From there my curiosity was piqued. As time went on, I kept seeing more and more clips from this show used in various videos and compilations. I repeatedly told myself I would have to watch this show. As per usual for me though, I put it off more and more until one day I got bored and finally gave in. With that, I found myself sitting back and being taken on this wild ride that is Zombie Land Saga.

   Produced by anime studio MAPPA, and being licensed by Funimation and Crunchyroll, Zombie Land Saga is a fairly recent anime, running from October to December of 2018. It currently only has one 12 episode season, but considering its popularity and the way the show went, I assume we will be getting another in the near future.

   The show centers around high school student Sakura Minamoto. Sakura is a huge fan of idol groups, wishing to one day be in one. One day in 2008 on her way to an audition, Sakura is struck by truck and dies. Ten years later, Sakura wakes up in this old house,  unsure of where she is and unable to remember her past. While exploring the house,  she is ambushed by zombies,  causing her to run away.  While out though, she discovers the truth;  she too is one of the undead. Getting brought back to the house by a mysterious man named Kotaro Tatsumi, she is told that she was brought back, along with six other legendary girls from Japan’s history to form an all zombie idol group and revitalize the Saga prefecture.

   The show is exactly as weird as it sounds. For the beginning of the story, only Sakura has some awareness of what is going on. The others are mindless zombies. As things progress though, they all begin to remember who they were and regain control of themselves. Sakura is a clumsy, but likeable and caring character. She tries her best to help the others and get the idol group, known as Franchouchou, to succeed. Her name in the group is Zombie 1. Zombie 2 is a delinquent biker gang leader named Saki Nikaido. Her attitude has her and Sakura butting heads a bit at first, but the two do warm up to each other, with Saki even becoming the leader of the group.

   For Zombie 3 we have Ai Mizuno. Ai was formerly the lead of an idol group that Sakura loved. With her experience, she works really hard to try to hold the group together and get everyone ready to perform. Junko Konno is number 4. She was a Showa period idol who was quite popular. Having been from such a different time, she finds it hard to embrace the modern age of idols. Her not wanting to have social interactions with her fans leads to a few issues throughout the story. She and Ai seem pretty close throughout because of their idol pasts.

   Number 5 is an oiran (essentially a prostitute) from the 19^th century. Her name is Yugiri. She often criticizes people for things they didn’t actually do or say, leading to a lot of funny moments. Then number 6, Lily Hoshikawa. Lily is a transgender child actress who died from a heart attack brought on by occupational stress. She is all about cute things and is generally pretty funny and great, but also leads to some of the shows most emotional moments. Finally is 7, my favorite, Tae Yamada. Tae is the only one who does not get her memories back by the end of the series, and I am okay with that. She randomly attacks people, her limbs fall off and she doesn’t care, and she spends her time sitting on the roof with the zombie dog Romero and howling. She is even the one who came up with the name Franchouchou. It was her sneezing and everyone decided it sounded like a cute name, but she did it! I would totally be okay with her never getting her memories back honestly.

   There isn’t much in the way of side characters, but the ones we have are excellent. The first is a random police officer that occasionally runs into the girls while on patrol. He is pretty funny and Austin Tindle does great as him. Then we have the most important one, the producer and necromancer of the girls, Kotaro Tatsumi. There are few words that can describe Kotaro. He goes from being a nice respectful person to a screaming maniac in the matter of seconds. There wasn’t a single moment that Kotaro was on screen that I didn't enjoy.  Even when he is being a complete jerk,  it is just so over the top and entertaining.

   Now, my experience with the show is the dub cast, so that's all I can really speak of here. Sakura is voiced by Brina Palencia. She has always voiced so many characters I love and has always done a great job. That continues in this as she does a great performance.  Saki is voiced by Caitlin Glass, who again really nailed the performance and continues to do excellent in her roles. Ai is played by Brynn April, who I honestly had never really heard of before this.  I don't know much about her other roles,  but she did a good job as the more serious, yet kind idol. The biggest surprise for me was Amanda Lee voicing Junko. I have listened to her covers of anime songs on YouTube for a while now and I keep forgetting she does voice work. She nails the standoffish, reserved Junko. I’m happy to be seeing more from her. Yugiri is voiced by Stephanie Young. She doesn't have too much compared to some of the other cast, but that doesn't mean she doesn't do great.  Lily is voiced by Sarah Wiedenheft, who I know nothing at all about.  She nailed the cutesy and heartbreaking aspects of Lily very well though. Then Tae is Dawn Bennett. Not much to say there as it is mostly growls and such. Finally we have Kotaro, voiced by Ricco Fajardo. Again,  not much I know him from,  but he does such an amazing job and has me hyped to hear him more as Mirio in next season of My Hero Academia.

   As I said,  I’ve only watched the English dub, and while the cast did perfectly,  there is one problem I have,  and it isn't anyone's fault. The version I watched is the simuldub version on Funimation. Now a simuldub is when they dub it to be released the same day, or close to the day it is released in Japan, getting audiences the product much sooner. The problem with this is, while it gets it to you sooner, sometimes corners might be cut a bit and things will be polished up for the blu-ray release. Zombie Land Saga is an example of that.  At least I hope this is something that will be fixed later.  All of the songs are still in Japanese. I enjoy the songs. While not perfect,  they are enjoyable and get stuck in my head.  It just takes you out of things a bit when they will go from speaking English to singing in Japanese with a completely different voice,  back to English for talking for a moment then to Japanese again. What's worse is that they have such a talented English cast with singing backgrounds. I really looked forward to seeing what they can do together.  Hopefully dubbed versions will be released,  but for now it is one of my biggest disappointments.

   On the topic of songs, I wish there were more moments of them performing different genres of music.  It made things even more unique and fun. We had metal,  rap, and a commercial jingle before settling with normal idol music.  It could have been interesting to see them outside their element while also incorporating stuff they learned into their normal music.

   My biggest problem, and everyone’s from what I can tell is the idol performances in the show. As I said, the songs are all pretty good. The problem really comes down to the dancing. When it is animated, it looks just fine,  unfortunately those instances don't happen often. Most of the time,  especially for the big performances,  the bright, colorful, cute animation is replaced with emotionless, plastic looking, stiff CGI models. It has the same issue as the Japanese songs for me where it really takes away a bit when it will switch between animation and CGI a few times in one scene. It is especially frustrating because as I said, when animated, the dancing is great, but most of the time it is replaced by lifeless, stiff models.

   Thankfully what really makes this anime are the character’s interactions with each other,  their development, the heartfelt moments and the comedy.  It is all enough that despite my big issue with the terrible CGI, I couldn't recommend this anime enough. From start to finish it is a wild ride that will have you crying from laughter and also just the emotion of some of the moments.  With a season 2 announced very recently,  I hope some of the problems are corrected a bit, but even if it just stays on par with season 1, I will be happy.  So take the dive sometime,  you certainly won't be disappointed in the thrilling adventure that is Zombie Land Saga.