Irina and Crow in Zombieland (Saga) ep7: One More Time with Feeling

Is it just me or is this season better that we thought i would be? I am having fun with the few shows I’m watching and hearing great things about a lot more.

Anywho, Crow (crowsworldofanime.com) and I are back to discuss the surprisingly likeable Zombieland Saga. Because this is my blog, I have decided to use standard text and Crow will be in bold.

I hope I don’t get confused and forget which I am!

I think it’s safe to officially call it – Zombieland Saga is an idol show. It’s the idoliest idol show I’ve seen in a while in fact. And although having them argue over costumes and dance sets is a lot less interesting to me than figuring out how they rose as zombies in the first place, the show has put in the work and made me care just enough about these girls to want to cheer them on. Till I would prefer a bit more horror comedy. How about you Crow?

You know, I watched the episode thinking I was going to be disappointed exactly because of what you said — we didn’t learn more about their zombie mystery! And then I saw myself cheering for their show at the end! I baffle me sometimes… But yeah, I would like to see more moments like Ai practice to hard that she literally fell apart. Or the manager kicking in Junko’s door (after yelling “Kicky blammo!”) and looking aghast that he’d accidentally kicked her across the room! Can’t do that with living idols! At least not without the risk of legal intervention…

There were a few nice touches. Mushrooms growing out of Junko head because she’d been sulking for so long (is that why they need the medicated shampoo?) and manager using shoe leather sealant on their makeup to make it waterproof. Lifehack kids!

Of course there was going to be a thunderstorm during their big performance!

This said, the thunderstorm did serve one nice purpose. The performance was boring old idol pop but the electro remix at least gave it a bit of personality.

That was a cool effect! They were positively glowing with confidence, too! Well, okay, they were positively glowing… But it was still more zombie horror comedy!

So the rift between Junko and Ai is sealed and Franchouchou are a hit (even the metal fans agree). Basically by the numbers idol stuff. I’m a sap, I teared up a little. Still found it super cliché though.

Did you hear how strong Junko’s voice was? Maybe it was the contrast with Ai’s fearful whimper, but Junko just belted out her lyrics! She seemed to uplift the whole group. I thought that was a great touch.

I did. It was a little wasted on me. Seemed like I’ve seen that a dozen times before.

There were however some really nice elements that I enjoyed a lot.

For instance, Saki wasn’t very present but whenever she was on screen she brought this wonderful energy. I simply enjoyed having her around this week.

Like when she got impatient waiting for Junko to stop sulking, and she said, “What a difficult girl… Okay! Let’s just drag her ass out!” Sakura said, “No, I think that’d just make it worse!” Saki sat back down and said, “Okay! Forget it!” Kinda nice seeing she’s listening to the feedback from her team!

Following up on the trend started in episode 5, manager was once again surprisingly caring and

nurturing towards the girls. If he could always be this way, it would be perfect!

Mostly — but he did call Sakura a “dumbass zombie,” so he wasn’t all sweetness and light! But his speech to Junko was powerful stuff.

And then, he completely plows into Junko with the van, not only calling back to episode one and one of the best scenes of the show, but also ensuring the tone never got too sappy or saccharine.

The manager encouraging her to get up and not let something like that this stop her — and Saki reminding him that “something like that” was him hitting her with the freaking van — was hilarious!

This is a small thing and I potentially imagined it, but on several occasions the soundtrack gets overwhelmed by the sound of cicadas and I could have sworn they were reproducing the famous “Halloween” creepy music. I don’t know if I imagined it but it was still really cool!

We don’t actually know when Zombieland is set. It seems to be in modern times but Manager mentions that Junko dies 30 years ago. That was 1988. I was under the impression that her heyday was at least a decade earlier.

It’s looking more and more that the group Sakura is having flashbacks about was Iron Frill — do you think I’m interpreting that right, Irina? I think so too.

Idle speculations aside (idol seculations!!!!) I would say I generally liked this episode but it had a few boring moments for me.What do you think Crow?

The show’s fighting me. Like you mentioned earlier, I wanted more zombie horror humor! We got a good dose of that, but you’re right — this was the most idol-like of all of the episodes we’ve had so far. But there’s something about glowing electrified zombies triumphantly singing a previously lackluster song that was really cool!

Sakura’s tears were just too endearing.

We’re probably past the point where we can make predictions, but do you think we’ll ever get back to the mysteries? Were you a little disappointed that Iron Frill didn’t stick around and wonder why their dead lead singer was fronting Franchouchou?

They foreshadowed the discovery of Zombie Ai (and Junko) way too much to just drop it. I was disappointed too but I think they need to get back to it. There are plenty of episodes left to do so!

I only have a few more caps