Zombie Land Saga wasn’t afraid to slow the pace even further in its fourth episode. Rather than trying to cram in new music or flashy animation, it simply showed us the group beginning to work as a team. Believe it or not, sometimes, that’s all you need.
Moving Forward
The premise for this episode is simple: in a bid to win a partnership with a pharmaceuticals company, Franchouchou has to perform at one of their business events. Coincidentally enough, this event is taking place at a hot spring. This is a bit of a cliché, but instead of overly intrusive fan service, Zombie Land Saga used it to do what it does best: poke fun at horror movie tropes.
Let’s be honest: after a stellar start, comedy has kind of taken a backseat for the last couple of episodes. Ask yourself this, though: if there had been four episodes full of jokes, would you be able to tell one character from another? This slowdown gives the writers time to fully flesh out (no pun intended) the various band members, and make them that much more relatable.
And The Music?
With its second appearance so far, “Awaken Restorer” seems to be becoming Franchouchou’s signature song, just like “Fuwa Fuwa Time” was in K-On!. Thankfully, the terrible CG we mentioned last time was minimal, with short, sweeping shots and close ups that mainly focused elsewhere.
So far, our prediction is looking good: standard (but still gorgeous) animation this week, and something really special in episode five. Maybe we’ll even see a hand-animated performance, although that might be hoping for a bit much.
What Is Saganship Z?
During this episode, the girls try out a stress relief patch called Saganship Z. It works instantly, which they assume is because zombies absorb things faster than humans. However, later, we see similar effects on living subjects.
We’re going out on a limb here, but could Saganship Z essentially be the series’ equivalent to Resident Evil’s mass-market T-virus products? After all, the patches do revitalize the user to some degree. It may be that they can even bring someone back from the dead…?
It’s likely we’ll see more of this product before Zombie Land Saga ends. It was given too much attention in episode four to simply be a throwaway plot device, and Kotaro definitely seems to be hiding something.
What do you think? How were the girls brought back to life, and what is Kotaro’s secret?
