Zom 100: Zombie ni Naru made ni Shitai 100 no Koto

After graduating from a top university with an impressive extracurricular record in the rugby club, Akira Tendou has nailed every step of the way to securing his dream job. On top of that, a beautiful and kind co-worker always brightens his day in the office! Life seems to be going very well for Akira until he slowly realizes that sleepless nights and brutal work are his new reality.

Due to three years of mind-numbing labor in an exploitative company, Akira is unable to recognize the tired, unaccomplished person he has become. On track to losing all passion in life like several of his overworked colleagues, Akira finds his saving grace in the most unexpected way possible—the breakout of a zombie apocalypse.

With the free time he finally has, Akira decides to complete a bucket list of a hundred things he wants to do before he eventually gets turned into a zombie. Although he is surrounded by the dead, Akira has never felt more alive!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Mikazuki, Shizuka Main

Kusunoki, Tomori Japanese

Tendou, Akira Main

Umeda, Shuuichirou Japanese

Amerhauser, Beatrix Main

Takahashi, Minami Japanese

Ryuuzaki, Kenichirou Main

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

Higurashi, Kanta Supporting

Okamoto, Nobuhiko Japanese

Ootori, Saori Supporting

Amamiya, Sora Japanese

Yukari Supporting

Wakayama, Shion Japanese

Shou Supporting

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Kosugi, Gonzou Supporting

Miyake, Kenta Japanese

Kaneshiro, Nagisa Supporting

Sasahara, Yuu Japanese

Kamei, Hiroshi Producer

Kojima, Hiroaki Producer

Satou, Emi Producer

Hasegawa, Yuuki Producer

Reviews

Mar 28, 2024

EdySilva

Recommended

This anime is pure CINEMA. I waited a long time for this anime and it surprised me in an incredible way. Both the art and animation are incredibly beautiful and solid, the cinematography is insane. The direction behind each episode is extraordinary. The first episode is extremely exciting, remarkable and fun. I can safely say that it has one of the best first episodes of all time. This is a zombie comedy that uses the apocalypse in a brilliant way to show you how exploration affects you and how people steal your dreams and passions. A very entertaining masterpiece that inspires you to free yourself ... from these influences so you can enjoy your life to the fullest. Memento mori!

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 12, 2024

BeetleR19d

Mixed Feelings

Well-written

'Zom 100' is surely the most hyped and talked about non-sequel anime of this year. The first episode of this anime can probably hook anyone to give it a try. It was so damn good. But as soon as you start to pay attention to the characters and how they act, you should start noticing some major flaws of this anime, which might be the reason this falls into the 'This is not for everyone' territory.

Animation (8/10): I know that the plot is the first thing to discuss in a review generally. But all the hype around this show was mostly because of its animation. ... So let's talk about that first.
It was good. It was colorful and consistent throughout the entire 12 episodes. I never felt I had any problem with the excessive use of those vibrant colors. Although I noticed something interesting. The fact that Akira's face and expressions perfectly resemble Luffy. Hmmm... still it didn't bother me. Not that the other characters had any remarkable or unique character design to begin with. So I was fine with it as they looked good. Overall, you can't expect much better in the animation department than this from a new studio.

Plot (6/10): 'Zom 100' is not the first anime to have a setting where a bunch of people try to survive a chaotic situation where any normal human being would feel some sort of fear and sadness. Regardless of the individual, they will constantly be thinking about how to prolong their stay on this planet, even by a tiny margin. 'Highschool of the Dead' used this exact concept more than a decade ago. That anime showed the journey of a group of people trying to survive while also keeping their sanity and humanity intact. And that is the part where 'Zom 100' faces a major issue. We follow a set of characters who act inconsistently. Sometimes they act like normal people and sometimes they act like a bunch of drunk psychopaths you would find on the streets. They embark on an aimless journey. More about them in the 'characters' category.

Characters (5/10): Wouldn't you notice if the 'Good Guys' of a show can forget anyone's death just a few moments after their death and can celebrate getting a huge TV like they won the biggest lottery of their life? I personally think you should notice that. Akira and his nudist friend with a questionable personality are both equipped with very little common sense and empathy.Sometimes they crack some silly jokes which didn't hit the spot most of the time. I don't care how much one suffers handling their respective jobs, how painful it gets to keep your cool. Will you lose your human traits just because of the temporary freedom you get? (Of course, it is not temporary in their case as they survive every difficult situation just because they have plot armor, how on earth he jumps better than some Assassin's Creed characters btw?) Akira, his nudist friend, Shizuka and Beatrix continue their journey which has very few things to discuss. I think anyone will be able to tell that there is not much personality in any of the characters. So you get to see Beatrix, she is there for the sole purpose of giving us some fan-service with an added 'Samurai Woman' gimmick which makes her character even less enjoyable to watch. And in Shizuka's case, she also starts acting like Akira and his nudist friend upon meeting them. The reason: 'Happiness, freedom blah blah blah....' To sum up, you will find a bunch of idiotic characters wandering around prioritizing their desires over their survival. I know the author maybe tried taking a less serious approach while writing this. But zombie apocalypse and light hearted comedy about some people chilling and saying some idealistic things once in a while just don't go well together.

Audio (8/10): As always, there is little to complain about the voice acting, it was good. The opening and ending songs were also good. The visuals of those songs were even better.

Overall (7/10): At the end of the day, I can't deny the fact that I enjoyed watching this show(Specially first three episodes). That is the reason you are seeing that rating. Though this show suffers from lack of good writing and likable characters, most of the people will still find it enjoyable. These shows might have a higher 'entertainment value' than most, but lack some basic things that make a show memorable. I still won't recommend it to someone who looks beyond a show's 'entertainment value' and searches for a zombie survival show that handles the situations seriously and has an actual plot.

**I forgot to mention anything about the last three episodes being delayed earlier. That really wasn't any good news for this anime either. The hype has already died out and I had to rewatch all the episodes partially while writing this review (Not watching the recap was intentional btw)

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 25, 2023

Ionliosite2

Not Recommended

Zom 100: Zombie ni Naru made ni Shitai 100 no Koto has taught me that people don’t know what “dystopia” means anymore. For the last 5ish years, I’ve seen a lot of complains on why the generic isekai we get by the dozens are popular, but I find the answer to that question very obvious: escapism, as they provide an outlet for MC-kun to get free from the burdens of the real world, and enter a fantasy world where he can do whatever he wants, while the high school age viewers places themselves in his place. Zom 100 offers the same idea but for the ... working age viewer, with the zombie apocalypse replacing the travel to another world, showing our working-class MC-kun being able to do whatever he wants now that he’s free from his work so the overworked viewer can self-insert on him.

As a direct result of its escapism angle, the series isn’t actually horror, having a lot of light hearted moments and comedy to make it look like this is a superior lifestyle, which backfires on it hard because the comedy in this series is atrocious, I’m talking about “going naked is funny” and “fart jokes” levels of bad comedy, I wanted to slam my head on a wall when they unironically showed a zombie farting as if it was a punchline. This same light tone also undermines all the serious moments, not helped by the fact the series suffers from “getting character development means you’ll die” syndrome, so you get a scene painted as tragic because a character we barely knew is a zombie followed by the cast laughing at silly jokes. I’m a big fan of the style of Hiroyuki Imaishi, and one thing his series manage is to strike a balance between the serious character moments and the absolute batshit insanity going on around them, but this series clearly has no idea how to do that, as the tonal whiplash here is so jarring even Code Geass and its constant back and forth between racial politics and waifus eating pizza feels more balanced.

MC-kun, named Akira this time, is a self-insert character, as unlike any other person or even the other characters in the same show, he shows absolutely no horror or regret at the idea of the world ending in a zombie apocalypse, instead being happy that he doesn’t have to work anymore, obviously a tool to enable the escapism aspect of the premise. This behavior is just downright nonsensical, as we have no explanation or thematic point made by Akira acting like the death of most of humanity is his comfort catalyst, and in fact makes him come across as a sociopath rather than the sympathetic character the narrative tries to paint him as, something that’s very notorious in episode 3 where contrasted against his friend who has a far more logical reaction to seeing everyone around him turning into murderous monsters. A character acting in an extreme way CAN be done well, as shown by Shirou in Fate/stay night and Shu in Ima Soko ni Iru Boku, but only if said behavior is done to make a thematic or moral point, something that’s not the case here, as there’s really no clear reason for him to act like that beyond making it #SoRelatable to the viewers who also feel overworked. Also, what’s up with the fact he doesn’t even look like an adult? If you showed me his design with no context, I’d say he’s 15, and even watching the show he acts just like I’d expect an anime teen to do it.

The other characters aren’t really much better. Kencho has no character at all beyond being the comic relief, and by that I mean that he’s an obnoxiously loud idiot who clearly doesn’t know how to deliver jokes, with getting naked seriously being the best he can come up with in terms of comedy, just to put into perspective how poor the overall comedy of this series is. While I think that Shizuka was passable, given she seems to be the only sensible person here, she’s mostly used as a strawman damsel in distress despite her supposed capabilities to highlight how cool our MC-kun is, leading her to be a fanservice source at best. Bea is a westerner obssessed with Japanese culture - that's her entire character, everything around her revolves around being a weeb, and once again she's just a tool to provide some extra fanservice.

An aspect for which I wanted to give this series points, however, is the visuals. We live in an age of seasonal shows that all are filled with so much cost cutting like CloverWorks works being filled with blurriness, and the idea of what good animation is has been reduced to just “flashy visuals” rather than having any appreciation for the technical aspects with MAPPA churning out disaster after disaster that isn’t well animated to anyone who knows of animation but looks flashy so it gets called “good animation” by those who don’t know, making Zom 100 a show that stands out in this landscape because it actually tried. The first episode didn't have the generic simple shots made to save money, it had an actual visual identity, something that’s such a rarity in modern anime that I can see why people act as if this was groundbreaking, even if in reality it’s more of a minimum to look good, at least when they don’t use CGI, that still looks bad even here. However, this “carried by the animation” angle was only at first, as each episode got uglier and uglier to the point it got rid of much of the praise points I could give it, as it looked like any other anime by its later half, which very likely relates to its now infamous troubled production and grueling working crunch. Given that from what I read, this new studio BUG FILMS was created by people who felt overworked on their previous work at OLM, and the evils of overwork being the main theme of the series, the fact this new studio now perfectly reflects the very type of company the anime criticizes is incredibly hypocritical.

Overall, this series is just a failure all around, it fails at being entertaining, it feels at giving social commentary on Japanese work culture, it fails at being funny, it fails at building actual characters, and most importantly, it fails as an anime production, with its terrible development hell that postponed the last batch of episodes for months being a perfect example of the terrible state the anime industry is in nowadays.

Thank you for reading

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	Poll: Zom 100: Zombie ni Naru made ni Shitai 100 no Koto Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) KANLen09 - Sep 24, 2023	177 replies	by TheStarscream759 »» Dec 8, 6:09 PM
	Poll: Zom 100: Zombie ni Naru made ni Shitai 100 no Koto Episode 8 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Sep 17, 2023	191 replies	by TheStarscream759 »» Dec 7, 2:00 PM
	Poll: Zom 100: Zombie ni Naru made ni Shitai 100 no Koto Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Jul 16, 2023	354 replies	by animesevenbiriii »» Dec 4, 11:21 AM
	Poll: Zom 100: Zombie ni Naru made ni Shitai 100 no Koto Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Sep 3, 2023	171 replies	by TheStarscream759 »» Dec 4, 5:14 AM
	Poll: Zom 100: Zombie ni Naru made ni Shitai 100 no Koto Episode 6 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Stark700 - Aug 27, 2023	207 replies	by octobugz »» Dec 2, 2:16 AM