What appeared to be the best anime of Autumn 2018, turned out to be anything but. 

Zombieland Saga is a huge disappointment.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't the worst anime out there. It's just extremely underwhelming, and does not deserve the praise which it got.

Apart from some cute characters, who are only cute some of the time, I can't really praise this anime on anything.

A while ago I came across a review for Lily being the best trans character portrayal in anime. Anyone who knows some of my favourite anime know that I regard Hourou Musuko as pretty much the best anime of all time, and that portrays trans characters in a much better light than Lily. Sure, it's great to have a line along the lines of "who cares what you've got in your pants?" and that be pretty much the end of it. But that's not what our world is like, especially with children, so them glossing over this irritated me slightly.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Lily as a character, and would do anything to protect her smile. But for all intents and purpose, the writers could have left out that she was born male, or just had her be afab and nothing would have changed with the story at all. I guess this is why people think she's the best trans character, just "oh, you were born a guy, great... now back to where we were", but that's not how being trans is, especially at Lily's age.

English Name:

Zombie Land Saga

Japanese Name:

ゾンビランドサガ

Studio:

MAPPA

Episodes Watched:

12/12

Posted on:

21/Jan/2019 at 18:38

Usually, this is where I'd start giving out some scores, and giving reasons as to why it got that score. But as you can see, I though everything was very average. I only gave the art a decent score, as I didn't think the artwork was anything to criticise.

Zombieland Saga delves into the lives of 7 girls, 6 which died young and one which acts like a mother figure, and their attempt revive Saga by become idols, whilst being zombies.

That doesn't sound like the worst plot in the world. But when out of those 7 characters, 3 of them have no backstory, and one of them doesn't say a single word, we're already down to half the group which have any sort of fleshed out character. Of them, one is touched on, but we don't know a lot about - Ai. And of the remaining two, Lily and Sakura, Lily is the most fleshed out. We know so little about Sakura, and it's meant to be her story. 
Then we have the big reveal in the last episode about Koutarou, and who he is to Sakura. Not like we didn't already know he treated her special compared to everyone else, so we could only assume he knew Sakura before she died.

Beyond the pretty crap character development, we have a story which is never explained. "We need to save Saga"... from what? And why? Also, why use idols? The population of Saga is ageing, so a young idol group isn't really going to appeal to them. We see how everyone which Franchouchou encounters throughout the series attends their concert in the final episode, which is nice, but it still doesn't answer why any of this is needed. 
If only some of the ambiguity was answered, the series as a whole may have left a less sour taste in my mouth.

And finally, the not-so-shocking plot twist, leaving it open for a second season. I won't ruin the "big reveal", even though anyone with a brain can work out who the people which leave us on a cliffhanger are, and what they are doing.  But it's because it's so obvious I hated the ending so much. The Koutarou reveal was more surprising than the other reveal.

I could continue my slightly angry rant about Zombieland Saga, as there's so much more to criticise, such as the genre combination, the lacklustre idol songs, Koutarou's attitude, and much more. But I don't see the need to bitch about this series more than I already have.

Many people seemed to enjoy Zombieland Saga. I thought I would too, but alas, I did not. As such, I'm currently watching Yagate Kimi ni Naru, which was a wonderful manga to read, and the anime is just as good so far. But that's another review for another day, until then じゃね!see ya