Zombieland Saga

If this had been my first idol anime, I would have been gravely confused when watching the second.

Zombieland Saga is a story about these cute anime girls who die, then come back as zombies and start making badass heavy metal music / stand up comedy / rap battles in a comedic manner.

The creativity of this series pretty much ends with its idea for main characters. Outside few nice ideas, such as diving into the audience before the music even starts playing and the Hunter x Hunter parody seen in episode 02, I can't say many scenes have made me laugh or felt satisfactory. Vast ... majority of the events that occur and scenes that play aren't nearly as bizarre or weird as they have potential to be. It's pretty basic stuff which pretty much anyone could have written. For example, the rap battle lyrics are pretty much just filler.

Much of the comedy is executed with and relying on voice acting. The guy who voiced Okabe is here as the main dude and once again offering zero personality, all yelling. It's not entertaining the least, just stupid. Same thing occurs with great many side characters who realize that our girls are actually zombies. Cop yells, other side characters yell, our female main characters yell. End of story. I am not personally finding much enjoyment from scenes such as these. If I want to watch people yell, I watch shonen anime.

The character design from heavy metal audience to the main chicks gets a plus. This is pretty based MAPPA production for that matter. It looks glorious outside the weird lipsync issues that are over exaggerated mouth movements to a point that it comes highly visible. Or that's what I thought before I saw episode 03 and that god awful CGI dance scene they used there. Beyond ugly.

Overall this series doesn't have much to say nor do I have much to say about it. It relies on the slice of life side of being a zombie, it is already getting old because it's lacking in content, becoming repetitive and the cast isn't strong enough to carry anything with their miniscule personalities. Yamada is pretty hot tho.

The first 2 episodes are decent. But beware, they're just a jebait

The rest of the episodes are utter garbage and those who claim different have watched too much anime that they can't differentiate between something that's just awful and something that they find "okay"

I really don't have much else to say, the first scene of the first episode is 10/10 but it's just downhill from there.

I sincerly would recommend at least watching that first scene due to it's comedic value the way it's set up, but other than that I wouldn't recommend wasting your time on this anime.

There's 6 episodes out currently, and only the ... first 2 episodes were enjoyable in the slightest. The comedy goes from "haha okay that's kinda funny" to "just shut up, is there anything interesting at all anymore", not kidding either that is my sincere view on this anime.

I was originally planning on giving up just right away after I saw that third episode, but I gave it another episode and pretty much just skimmed through episode 5 and 6, there were moments that could have been done different that would have served great for comedic purpose and been in the same kind of flow like the first two episodes.. But no, just.. Basic idol stuff

And just incase you're wondering, no I absolutely hate idol animes, they're usually just slight fanservice and garbage combined into one.

Story, it's trash, it's just made up on the spot.

The art is decent but I'm not going to give it a higher mark since it literally doesn't matter if everything else is shit.

The sound is.. Meh, as I said I really dislike idol animes so I wont like the songs in this for obvious reasons other than the first 2 episodes as previously stated.

Character, it's just bad, it's just stereo types, one screeching idiot and a couple of whiners.

Enjoyment, if I only watched the first 2 episodes I would actually give it a good score, but seeing as the majority of the episodes that are out makes me rather watch Boruto should speak volumes. There is no enjoyment to be had.

Overall, trash anime with 2 jebait episodes that it wont be the typical trash idol anime. If you're going to watch more than 2 episodes anyway, I really do apologize that you have to suffer for your own curiousity.


With that said, I'm pretty much dropping this in the trash where it belongs. I wont be watching anymore episodes, it's clearly a waste of time.

Zombieland Saga was a huge disappointment to me. What started off as a brillant slap in japanimation clichés quickly became a huge cliché itself: an average idol anime.


STORY
A guy who somehow can revive people decides to use dead girls to make an idol group and make his town popular. Now that's an awesome plot! They try to mix up zombie stuff with idol stuff. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, here is what could go wrong:
- the series could try to take itself too seriously.
- Or it could simply give up on that inappropriate mix to become a classic idol series as there are plenty others.
- ... Or it could also fall into flat comedy.

All that did happen. They did try to put up a serious story with a plot about ZOMBIES BECOMING IDOLS. The idea itself is stupid as hell!
They did give up a lot on the zombie side to make it an average idol story.
And they did fall into dumb comedy, while it started off brillantly.

I am no fan of idol series. I watched Zombieland Saga because the very first scene was a brillant slap into japanimation industry, as it takes a cliché introduction and turns it upside down. Then, the story quickly became about teenage girls doing their best to become famous and doing cute stuff.
Basically, this series is a trap. It makes the viewer believe it will see something uncommon (mixing two genres that could not possibly go together), and then makes it an average idol series.
In this series, the protagonists try to make idols famous again. Maybe that's actually what the writers try to do: make the idols popular by reaching a new public. It certainly didn't work for me...


ART
I am no fan of cutesy art. It's not badly done, it's just that bright shining eyes and pinky stuff everywhere is not really my stuff.

As every idol series nowadays (yes, this IS an idol series, there's no denying), the dance scenes are made in CGI. And as every idol series, the CGI is horrendous and doesn't go well with the other scenes (drawn, in 2D).

Then, there is the opening. Now, that's something to watch. It is badly drawn, it is a huge mindfuck... and all that makes it so funny! We may say it is badly drawn, but I think it is on purpose: the kind of stuff that is "so bad it's actually good".


SOUND
The music didn't really catch my ears, but at least it didn't ruin the series to me. It blends in the scenes very well. The opening is catchy.


CHARACTER
First of all, Hououin Kyouma is in that series. Yes, I am talking about Stein's Gate protagonist. A character in Zombieland has his seiyuu, his character, his ways of doing stuff (shouting everywhere, giving dumb nicknames, naming stuff with "temporary name" in it, ...). And that was just awesome to discover, it really surprised me!

Then, there is the LEGENDARY YAMADA TAE! I don't really like the character itself, but she is indeed legendary for no f*cking reason xD.

For the rest, they're just average characters that can be found everywhere else: the cute MC, the rebellious rival, the lolita, the way-too-serious girl, ...

Nothing really memorable here, except YAMADA TAE!


ENJOYMENT
This anime is a trap. It tries to catch people with zombie stuff and make them watch an idol anime. And they did catch me, well done. Sadly, it barely has anything else to offer. I really liked the first two episodes, some of their jokes are hilarious, but I didn't really spend a good time in front of the rest of the series...

First off, I want to say that I really wanted to enjoy this show. I really did. But when I found it a chore to watch the next episode, I just couldn't

Let's start with the premise of the story. 6 girls that died in different periods of time are revived by Tatsumi Kotaro to become idols and save the town of Saga. Sounds interesting enough right? That's what I thought in the first episode. I was thinking "alright this is gonna be pretty good and funny." Instead I got a boring show with boring characters whom I all despise besides the manager, Kotaro.

Speaking more ... on the characters, I didn't like any of them besides Kotaro, but most of his punchlines were HAHAHAHA I'm being mean and yelling at the zombie girls!!!!! All of the idol characters annoyed me and none of them were that interesting to me

Now let's get to the comedy part. Now I understand that comedy wasn't really the main goal of the show but it was pretty obvious that they were trying to land jokes and just failed miserably. I spoke about Kotaro's jokes but "The Legendary Yamada Tae's" jokes through some of the show were just her making noises and OMG ZOMBIE GIRL ISNT AWAKE YET AHAHAHAHAHAHA and it just really got on my nerves that they would sink to such low levels of comedy.

Now to the infamous episode 3 where they used atrocious CG to "make fun of" other idol shows but it just came across as them using horrible CG. It made it look worse than the stuff they were trying to make fun of.

All in all, I gave it a 4 just because I wanted to get it done but it felt like such a chore watching the next episode, purely because of how much I didn't enjoy it.

At first, I really liked Zombie Land Saga, but my affection for it became lower and lower as the series went on. Very little was done to differentiate the girls from each other. I liked the episode that focused on the transgender idol. I just wish the others got that extra bit of characterization she did. That does not mean they all had to be transgender or had to have a secret, but the other idols did not get much development beyond, “she’s from a long time ago” or “the angry one.” The novelty of ... the girls being zombies faded as it went on. It seemed as though the production team used up all of the best zombie jokes early on.
The last three episodes were the worst for me. Without spoiling anything, the main character went backwards just go to back to where she was before the last arc. It was so counterproductive, like going back to episode one. You’ll know what I mean if you’ve seen the show. The last arc was too schmaltzy and, “all you have to do is believe in yourself” for me. Overall, having the girls be zombies was a nice gimmick and it did make me laugh a few times, but it was nothing special. I was done with the show long before the last episode.

The first episode had me SO ready for this show to kill it. I freaking choked with the opening scene with the bus; it was so unexpected for me. I made three people individually sit with me and watch that first episode, and they and I lost it every freaking time. But sadly, the impactfulness of the first episode didn't hold out for the rest of the season. Kind of just flopped. Sad ;( Also loved the cutesy screamo gap moe. I was thinking I would be more into this show than Aggretsuko but sadly for me it felt like it couldn't keep up ... how epic it was in the first few episodes. Also, their manager is so stupid and annoying and one-dimensional. Did not like seeing him in charge.

"Zombieland Saga" brings to the table one of the most electric group dynamics i've ever experienced in anime. It's a shame it offers little else.

If you're here for spastic comedy with a fun group dynamic of half a dozen or so characters this is a show for you. Every character brings something to the table and much of the show is light and fun. As episodes wear on however the show begins to run out of luster as it fails to make any of its characters truly interesting. There's some slight changes; some intrigue, but for the most part the show ... failed to truly endear me to much of the cast.

The humor is good but not great. Group dynamics are fun but characters don't really grow or evolve with each other and as the show goes on you begin to see the cracks: rancid CGI for dance sequences, heavily varied song quality and a "plot" that is mostly shoehorned into the last three episodes, making character arcs feel rushed and emotional moments fall short.

"Zombieland Saga" is fun and fine (i do love the character designs) but it fails to truly be hilarious before bungling a long form story. Things do improve in the 2nd season but unless you are a big fan of light comedies with a female group dynamic this first season might not worth sitting through.
4/10

Man, call me a hater, but this anime doesn't live up the praise I was reading about. The story doesn't exactly go anywhere, and I was disappointed about that. It's pretty flat the whole time, and I found the manager annoying to the point I wanted to just mute or skip through the scene until he was gone. I probably wouldn't be too picky about the show if it was moving along, but it didn't. Also, it does take some getting used to if you're watching the dub, since all the singing/rapping is done in japanese and isn't translated, so all the voices change. Mind ... you the songs themselves are pretty alright, and are enjoyable. However, the 3D animation during the dance scenes are really out of place. If season 2 ever drops, they should stop that. Unless the season 2 trailer looks really good and different than what I saw in season 1, I won't be looking to continue the series. Personally not worth watching.

While in the beginning it was interesting and the more character focused episodes were intriguing, the show felt quite boring and disjointed. I almost dropped it a little under halfway through.

While it feels like it is trying to be a satire of the idol genre, it doesn't do much to distinguish from them and just plays into it outside of a few gags and design choices.

Also the lack of cohesion in the music is really strange as they're supposed to be a music group. First you think it is going to be some form of metal, then rap, but it eventually devolves into the ... normal idol songs but without any of the goodness that comes from it.