Zombieland Saga Revenge

Zombieland Saga is a show that you wouldn't think twice about girls that have passed away in one form or another, and then given the Jesus Christ "resurrection on the Third Day" treatment as zombies to save a land that's largely been purged and disappeared since time millenia...by being an idol show with much of the hysterity. And look how far we've come into the 2nd season of the show, dubbed "Revenge", because literally, it's that and much more.

With that said, GOOOOOOOODA MORNIN' ZOMBIES, LET'S BEAT THE LIVING **** OUTTA THE **** WACK TO SAVE OUR ****ING MOTHERLAND, SAGA! GODDAMMIT YOU FRIGGIN MAGGOTS!

To come back ... almost 2.5 years since Season 1 that slowly usurped the throne as the dark horse of Fall 2018, director Munehisa Sakai and his production team at MAPPA have been slowly concocting another marvellous follow-up season to continue where the story of SAGA is left behind with the epic bomb and failure that is the less-than-desirable 10,000-people concert crowd at the huge EFS stadium arena...and carry on IT DID. Other than the attention-grabbing promo poster of Kotarou along the seabed with his signature move, as is with kickstarting this year right with Season 2's main PV on January 1st, 2021 (in Japan), if you've watched Season 1 back in the day, you know that this series is anything but typical. And with the in-your-face "Revenge" theme being a centralized topic, this journey to exact revenge will be a tough one for the zombie girls of Franchouchou and their wack manager Kotarou (God I still LOVE Mamoru Miyano's voice).

As is of the story (or most appropriately character-driven) narrative of Zombieland Saga, each girl has their own story to tell, and since Season 1 covered the biker girl Saki, the Truck-kun-ed Sakura and the LGBT representative Lily's backstories, Season 2 tops that up with the rest of the girls that haven't had their backstories foretold...plus even down to Kotarou himself, and how and why Saga is a place that should be left preserved and brought back to its former glory: TO SAVE SAGA. Not gonna spoil anything, because secrets are the charm to this magnificent and tightly-paced show! This time, nothing was left untouched, and to that effect, Season 2 ups the ante of which Season 1 had already solidified its foundations with, and with a huge impact (just like how Kotarou becomes a cussing Eren *WHOOPS*). Franchouchou has largely stayed the same from Season 1, so you can easily expect a lot of the usual enjoyable and hilarious hijinks that this show has to offer up from these zombie girls that the general public hasn't caught onto them being legit zombies (close, but not close enough). This is a family bond so strong that as time passes, SAGA becomes all the more important, more than just an ingrained dream for the girls of Franchouchou and wacky Kotarou to see the light of day in saving SAGA. Glory, glory to SAGA!

Everything else is what you should expect and more coming out of Season 1: from story and characters (that are given a HUGE upgrade), and even right down to the visuals and music, which are still the *chef's kiss* excellente pairing of Franchouchou songs with MAPPA's constant and consistent greatness. While the OST this time isn't as bedazzling and bombarding as the prequel, it's still great to hear the comeback of this fully zombie girls idol group that immediately raises nostalgia for how much time has passed since then.

BLOODY HELL, if you made it all the way through this review, I should raise the question: "Have you watched Season 1? If not, then WHY THE **** are you reading this review!? Go back to Season 1, finish that, then come back here to experience somemore, you friggin' maggot!"

This is one fine outstanding sequel in the world of zombie girls and idol music of a big-brain mish-mash-ing potato.

Alright, so to start with, I like Zombieland Saga's 1st season as much as the next guy. So I had high expectations from the 2nd season... which unfortunately never met after watching this second season.
The 1st season, although it's very low quality with it's animation, had the heart and soul without stooping as low as copying the generic idol-anime formula. It had the general theme of being able to do the regrets that people had when they died. It was a great premise that was executed very well.
But what does the second season did that I didn't like? Well, nothing much really. They just ... continued to where they left off. But that's my problem. They didn't do anything outside of that. They took a much safer route that is too safe that it's boring. They only did the things that already worked in the 1st season without taking too much risk.
It had new addition and new background stories for Saga and some of the characters, but it was introduced so late to the season that the first half of this season seems like it's a waste of time imo.

The story, just like I said, was pretty lackluster. It took what worked before and didn't risk new things. It's decent at best.

The characters are decent. They are likable and memorable, but I really don't like some of them as well as the side characters. It's not like they are bad, just a bit inconsistent at times. jk, they are also pretty bad lmao
Let's talk about the main characters. Their developments are pretty much non-existent. It's not them that develops, it's the one-off side characters that gets barely develop because of them. That's not bad, but it's really cheapens them as characters because of how focus they get, yet they don't really do anything. I probably worded that wrong, but it's really hard to explain.
It's not that they are bad, but just really lackluster and probably one of the weaker main cast in the recent times.

The animation is pretty disappointing. The 1st season is pretty low budget but it still managed to be interesting in direction-wise. But here, there's really no stand-out scenes. And the CG models are abominable. It's just not something that should exist in 2021 (as well as coming from MAPPA).

The music is also quite a letdown. The 1st season had so many bangers that I expected some bangers in this season... but sadly, there wasn't that much bangers in this season. It had some great ost and insert songs, but that's about it.

Overall, just a disappointing sequel for a series that I actually cared about.
(4.6/10)

Very poorly executed and lost sight of itself.

Season 2 of ZLS attempts to make more plot without committing and more spotlight on new supporting characters.

After a very strong start ZLS 2's episodes lose structure and meander constantly while taking out the main characters almost completely. A great example is the biker gang episode with Yamada where she kind of just shows up around the supporting characters and doesn't do anything. Compared to the yakitori episode from season 1 the execution is devoid of stakes, compelling characterization, humor, setup+payoff and the horror references they liked to play around with. The only reason the episode even feels ... like it was worth it was a throwaway scene showing a grave with possibly Yamada's ancestor that goes on to mean nothing. This goes double for the Yuugiri flashback two parter where they spend two episodes shoving a plot you don't care about down your throat but making her completely passive. As the most underutilized character in the show, for 40 minutes of anime to do nothing for the character both moving forward and in hindsight is unacceptable.

Artwise ZLS 2 is also a big downgrade from its predecessor. The opening is Mappa saving budget with minimalist premiere pro graphics and again we pretty much never get extensive horror segments like the bathhouse section of season 1. The animation gets choppy and the CG doesn't innovate much either. As for music we also downgrade to poppy crap. The season 1 rap wasn't even attempted to be topped as ZLSR settled into a comfortable bubble.

This is a great show if you have no experience with good idol shows like Idolmaster and Idolmaster Cinderella Girls or Super Sonico and can tolerate the CG but if you have the time just rewatch season 1.