Zombie Land Saga (Review)
Zombie Land Saga is Unlike Anything We’ve Seen Before.
In all my years of mindlessly binge watching anime, I’ve never seen anything like Zombie Land Saga. The series follows a group of girls from various eras raised from the dead for the sole purpose of becoming a pop idol group. It’s absurdity at it’s finest as the heroines of the series are forced into becoming singing sensations at the hands of their inept and mildly abusive manager. Zombie Land Saga is a wonderfully crafted horror comedy with a few genuinely heartfelt moments sprinkled for good measure.
I love when two things that have nothing in common are smashed together to brings us something new and exciting. In a “you’ve got chocolate and peanut butter” type of mashup, Zombie Land Saga brings us zombies and J-pop in the best possible way. The series starts with the death of our hero, Sakura Minamoto (Brina Palencia), who suddenly finds herself back on her feet moments later. The reality is that ten years have passed since her death and now she has found herself conscripted into an undead group of legendary girls from various decades who are being forced to become a pop group by a manic manager, Kotaro Tatsumi (Ricco Fajardo). The only problem is that no one can know that the girls are zombies, which makes becoming an idol all the more difficult for our undead heroines.
Zombie Land Saga focuses primarily on the inner workings of the women that make up the group. Of course, they’re not exactly excited to be back among the living only to be forced to sing and dance on stage. However, none of them seem to adamantly opposed to it either. Instead, they seem more at odds with each other at first. Luckily, even as incompetent as their manager might seem, he’s excellent at pulling strings behind the scenes and helps to smooth over the initial animosity the women feel. From there, much of the series looks deep within the inner workings of the members that make up the group. The downside is that a few of the girls don’t have a chance for us to see into their pasts. Instead, writer Megumu Soramichi focuses on the more recently deceased characters, ones that have the opportunity to stumble across people and places that cause them to flash back to their previous lives. Because of this, it feels like Zombie Land Saga is playing favorites for much of the series.
There are times when Zombie Land Saga feels a little over-encumbered with characters. The group features seven characters, two of which don’t really serve much purpose other than eye candy or comedic effects. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t easy to pick favorites from among them. One of the reasons that Zombie Land Saga works so well is that a few of the characters have such strong personalities that clashing is inevitable. It’s not a series that relies too heavily on drama though, instead sticking to the comedic aspects that comes with such an absurd tale. Sure, the girls have emotional issues they need to work out, but that comes secondary to their heads popping off from time to time or the fact that people want to kill them when they see them without make-up. In an odd way, Zombie Land Saga seems to embrace the idea that celebrities are never as they might seem in real life. This anime just takes that to an extreme.
Despite the horror aspects in Zombie Land Saga the animation is actually incredibly cute without soaking audiences in rainbows or chibi characters. Instead, MAPPA adopts an almost pastel punk rock feel to it that feels perfect considering the themes that the series tackles. The colors are rich and vibrant, but never distract from what’s happening in the story. The only downside is that Zombie Land Saga uses CGI for a number of the musical sequences, which is off-putting in how jarring the shift is. Still, despite being a series about a pop group, the performances are relatively few and far between, which means you can sometimes go one or two episodes without being exposed to the soulless looking CGI. Still, it’s an anime trend that I can’t stand and proves to be the greatest weakness in the series.
Zombie Land Saga is a series I wouldn’t expect to enjoy given the concept at its core. It just sounds a little too absurd to work. Yet somehow, director Munehisa Sakai manages to pull it off perfectly. Personally, I felt it was a great pallet cleanser series. Something to enjoy between heavy or incredibly long series, but not one without
