Zombie Land Saga Episode 1 Review: Good Morning SAGA

Death metal and anime is a combination we don’t see very often, and when we do, it’s hard to go wrong with it. Zombie Land Saga is the funniest and most absurd anime that I have seen in a while and I am not going to lie, I love it.

Japanese Original Episode Title: グッドモーニングSAGA

Plot

The cheerful high schooler Sakura Minamoto has aspirations of becoming an idol but on her first day of school she is suddenly hit by a truck. When she wakes up, she finds herself in a mansion full of zombies somewhere in the Saga prefecture where she discovers that she has become a zombie herself. Kotaro Tatsumi explains to her that she has been dead for ten years and that she and six other zombie girls from various eras and backgrounds have been recruited by him in order to form an idol group and save Saga. Sakura is the only one that has come to her senses so in order to awaken the other girls Kotaro booked their first stimulating performance at a death metal festival. Having obvious doubts that the live is going to be a disaster the girls hit the stage and save the performance by starting to react to the music while screaming and headbanging like they have broken their necks. The next day most of the other girls have manage to regain their consciousness and feel more confused and scared than ever.

Episode Highlights

The opening scene: That was so unexpected. I mean you knew that something would go a bit wrong since the title involves zombies but that was way too sudden. I went from being startled to death to laughing like crazy while seeing the various shots of her being hit by the truck with metal music playing in the background. I felt kind of bad laughing about it but it was so random that I couldn’t help myself.

Kotaro Tatsumi: Okay I might be a bit biased on this because I adore Mamoru Miyano as a voice actor, but honestly his performance during the whole episode was absolutely amazing. When he comes in screaming ‘OHAIYO GOZAIMASU’ or being all smart at Sakura saying ‘Haven’t you seen a zombie movie before?’ or ‘FIRST LIVE, TONIGHT’ I just couldn’t stop laughing.

Death Musume: Their performance escalated as expected but honestly I was laughing so hard seeing them headbang like that, it actually reminded me greatly of the randomness of Detroit Metal City.

Themes & Trivia

Otsumami: The dried squid that Kotaro has in his pocket and feeds the dog and the girls is what they call in Japan ‘otsumami’. The term ‘otsumami’ may be used broadly to refer to any type of snack, but it typically means a snack that is consumed with beer, alcohol, or other non-alcoholic beverage. Otsumami, or beer snacks, are readily available pre-made and packaged for sale at Japanese supermarkets, which are the packages that Sakura holds during the intermission screen.

Yugiri: She is a courtesan from the Meiji era who was there during the restoration. The Meiji period is a Japanese era which extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan, during which Japanese society moved from an isolated feudal society to a Westernised form.

Saki: A former biker gang leader who conquered all of Kyushu with her gang ‘Dorami’. Kyushu, literally ‘Nine Provinces’, is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Saga Prefecture is a prefecture in the northwest part of the island of Kyushu, Japan. So I guess that Kotaro really recruited the best possible talent that he could find.

Comments

Something is telling me that the legendary Tae Yamada will be the only one who’s not awaken. Maybe she will later or maybe she won’t regain consciousness at all, leaving her as the gold mine for all the future performances to come. Also, the scene of the dog eating squid and then the disclaimer coming on screen saying ‘Let’s not feed dogs to dried squid’ had me literally saying out loud ‘What the hell?’ and then bursting out laughing. I don’t know about you but I am super excited to finally see a show with so much randomness and good humor.

Fumu fumu

The first episode was really strong and I highly anticipate seeing the following episodes, especially the next one that says ‘I love Hip Hop Saga’. This is going to be great.

NEXT TIME: I ♡ HIPHOP SAGA