Zombie Land Saga continues to be one of the most bizarre shows this season. This episode showed two short skits, one in which the group advertise a chicken restaurant, and another when they enter a local, Takeshi’s Castle style competition.
You Can Do It!
This is a show that’s never been afraid of poking fun at long-standing anime tropes. In episode five, sports anime took the brunt of it, with hackneyed lines delivered to slow motion shots left and right. Whether the idols are trying to act like “real chickens” for a local commercial or swinging over mud on a rope, Zombie Land Saga somehow manages to inject a feeling of familiarity into proceedings with over-used, tired dialogue alone. Here’s the biggest surprise: it works really, really well.
Saki was the standout character this time around. She’s a Saga local, and seems genuinely excited to star in a low-budget ad for a place she used to frequent. We even got to see a little of her old life, just hanging out with her biker buddies at a fast food place. Hopefully, this will continue since at the moment, there really isn’t much depth to any of the characters.
The Elephant In The Room
At this point, it looks like Tae might never wake up. So far, she’s served as the main comic relief character, getting her friends into trouble without even realizing it. It’s a good plot device, but it won’t work forever. Really, they could replace Tai with a zombie pet (there’s already one, sadly underused) and it would make little difference.
We’re not complaining, though. This show is consistently entertaining, even if it’s essentially just a sketch comedy. Just… you know, give us something to tie everything together.
Wait… Don’t I Know Her?
Episode five was essentially devoid of any plot progression, but there was a little hint at where it’s going. One of the spectators recognised Ai during the mud event. He’s a grizzled older man, which in anime, automatically makes him a detective. Perhaps he remembered Ai’s case and will seek to expose the band in the episodes to come?
Zombie Land Saga works despite its lack of an actual plotline. There’s just enough tying the sketches together to avoid feeling like Pop Team Epic, but this definitely isn’t a show that gets bogged down in the details. For instance, we still don’t know much about Kotaro, or how the girls were brought back from the dead in the first place. Five episodes in, the jokes are still hilarious, the characters still loveable, but it really is time for some answers.
