Zombieland Saga: Revenge – Episode 1 [First Impression]

Eva’s First Impression

Zombieland Saga is back, and the first thing we learn is that Franchouchou shortly after they found gained a lot of publicity from their concert at Arpino, which helped sell their their first CD sold like hotcakes (gorgeous album cover by the way), they ended up with a huge debt. It came about after a spectacular blunder where Kotoro got ahead of himself when he decided to book a concert at Ekimae Fudosan Stadium (EFS). Unfortunately, only 1.66% of the tickets were sold for the 30,000 seat stadium, leaving them saddled with debt. OOF. So since then, incredibly the girls have been working part-time jobs to help dig themselves out of it, all while Kotoro has been drinking in despair.

I suppose the thing that surprised me the most this episode was the unexpected early focus on Kotoro, but I was also quite happy about it. This makes me hopeful that we are finally going to learn more about Kotoro’s Zombie Land Saga Project, which is still shrouded in mystery. He pointed there is a hard deadline, and with the setbacks they have faced, he felt like the project was doomed to fail. Curiously we also see him screaming at the sky in a storm, which makes me wonder if he’s yelling at a God. So it does make me wonder if perhaps the project is actually a deal with a God of a sort, where he must achieve “Saving Saga” by a hard deadline, otherwise perhaps Sakura and the others may possibly become lifeless corpses again, or something else is due to happen, who knows. Maybe he is just yelling at himself for his own failures. Nevertheless, the deadline and setbacks are something to keep an eye out on, especially since we know there’s room for more complications should that journalist from last season reveal they are zombies!

It was nice to see the girls again, especially with how they are all going about their new jobs. Sakura and Ai seem to be in charge of the makeup while Kotoro was sulking away at the bars. Luckily it was enough to get them all by so they could all get a job without much of an issue. But it was a nice touch to see that it still wasn’t perfect, as the ladies at Ai’s work place would point out how she always looks sickly. I also couldn’t help but think to myself, “I hope that’s waterproof this time!”. It was also hilarious to see them decide to raid Kotaro’s office in hopes to find clues as to why he is so down in the dumps. Hilariously Sakura, who was worried about them breaking something was responsible for breaking his guitar! Hahahaha! However this incident with Kotoro was important in a way of making the girls think about why he is in such a hurry and distress. Yugiri also one who happened to overhear him about his fears of being “wrong”, while he was vomiting.

Sakura also made an effort to bring Kotaro back home again, as she wanted to help him as he had helped her when she went through her slump. But while she wasn’t able to reach him, the old man at the bar successfully provoked him into revealing where his true heart lies, which is his uttermost faith in the girls. Poor guy, doing his best to support them in a frustrated crowd of metal fans screaming for an encore, he got a real beating for it, which prompted the riot, but hey, it worked, eventually the crowd started to listen and they were able to perform. In the end, that was all that really mattered.

While this premiere certainly didn’t have that same kind of impact as it did in the first season, it was still fun and enjoyable to watch! Of course it is a bit of a shame we didn’t get to see a similar unexpected surprise of a sort. In fact I was kind of surprised Kotaro didn’t get hit by Truck-kun while he was sprinting off to the concert arena- or at least almost. I was half waiting for that to happen hahahaha! Even if it didn’t hit him, I think it still could have been funny to spoof the moment. Nonetheless, it was still pretty funny to see them start it off with the girls at work, Ai leading the Kojima Food Factory’s anthem with of course, a dried squid song. The riot at the concert was probably the biggest highlight for me because besides the fact I saw that coming, it was pretty entertaining to see them continue to perform amidst the chaos, not that it was anything new. After-all, they have been through more chaotic stages before, such as their concert in the Season 1 Finale at Arpino, man that was a doozy!

However I must confess, while they have established themselves as Idols now, I was a bit sad that they didn’t do their roaring Death Metal to commemorate their first Anniversary at Geil. It was would have great been to see that again, but hey, at least their new song is absolutely fantastic and I love it! But frankly it’s not a surprise why the crowd wasn’t very receptive to their idol songs since it’s not what they came to listen to. (Also who else was mildly disappointed that Saki didn’t join the fight. I get she’s an idol now, but I kinda wanted to see it, HAHAHA!)

I was also glad to see improvement in the dance CGI! I found most of the pans shots to appear the most stiff sequence, but at the very least, it certainly felt and appeared a lot cleaner than the first season’s CGI.

Man there are a lot of shows that I am interested in this season, making it really hard to decide which ones I’m going to pick up. I have mentioned due to schedule conflict I might be limited to two new titles, but I am going to see if I can squeeze a third. So I am going to give them all up to three episodes to decide whether I can cover three of them! I’m excited for this season, so I’m looking forward to the next episode! Until then, see you next time!

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