Zombieland Saga Revenge

With the movie coming out some time this year, I wanted to make a review on this series. (Note that this review is considering both the first season and the second season Revenge). As someone who is not a particular idol fan, this show was a surprising banger.

The main gimmick of this show is that it is an idol group of all zombies, and they have to keep performing while hiding their identities as zombies. Personally, I thought the zombie aspect was actually done very well in this show, as it:
- Increased comedic effect and enhances performance by doing absurd things like adding electric ... effects or such through a logical way.
- Gives the characters more depth by introducing their backstory and uses zombie as "people who died before fulfilling their dreams or had a tragic end". The main cast all get their own development.

The music and performances in this show was really good. I think the CGI performances at the start of season 1 was a bit rough, but that actually had some narrative purpose (whether it was intentional or not) by showing their improvement throughout time, like you can clearly tell how much better the CG is in Revenge compared to season 1. Also Junko's voice is so good.

Shoutout to the GOAT Miyano Mamoru who killed his voice acting role on Koutarou.

Overall I would highly recommend this show.

Zombieland Saga: 8/10
Zombieland Saga Revenge: 9/10
Overall: 8.5/10

Zombieland Saga Revenge is a disappointment to say the least. After a very solid first season, this season doesn't do anything special, and fails to answer the questions presented in the first.

The overall pacing is rather bad, it either lingers on nothing, or speeds through events. Out of nowhere, two episodes are interspersed between a slight cliff hanger— the kicker being these two episodes don't actually explain the specific things you'd want to know from the first season— it focuses on the historical background about couple of characters, one who barely has a personality during these episodes. There's no character development of any kind ... throughout this season, nor any conflicts from their past lives— which was a big reason why the first season was so enjoyable.

Animation has taken an utter nosedive— the first show by no means had amazing animation, but when you don't have story or characterization to draw away attention, it just looks that much worse. Music isn't very good this season either. Everything is very same-y, with the first song in the first episode being by far the best (and it's not even from Franchouchou).

All in all, it just makes me confused that people are rating this as highly as the first season. Did we watch the same thing?

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.