The new anime season continues, and and I keep watching out for good shows to introduce to you here. One fun series is Zombie Land Saga, the story of Sakura Minamoto, a Japanese high school who’s hit and killed by a truck on her way to school. She awakens ten years later, distraught to find that she’s now a zombie who was dug up by a “mysterious idol producer” named Koutaro who wants to make her, and several other undead zombies, into…an idol band.
Idol culture is huge in Japan, and important for the economy. In addition to the major idol groups active in cities, a lot of energy has been put into chiho aidori or “local idols” who represent different regions around Japan, promoting tourism and local products. Zombie Land Saga pokes a lot of fun at these smaller idol groups in an entertaining way, while managing to bring us a fresh and original story for Halloween. Plus cute zombie idols singing heavy metal songs while headbanging works surprisingly well.
There’s an oyaji gag—a Dad joke—embedded in the title of Zombie Land Saga, because the show is set in the rural city of Saga, population 230,000, a suburb of Fukuoka in Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu. Japan is a land of many linguistic dialects, but historically, only standard Japanese (Tokyo), Kansai (Osaka/Kyoto/Koba) and Akita (the Alabama of Japan) are ever represented in anime. But this show goes out of its way to have characters beaking Saga dialect, the better to raise awareness of this corner of Japan.
I think Zombie Land Saga is a great anime for everyone to watch. Will you check it out? Tell us on Twitter!
Great news! We’ve got the new J-List Boxes up for preorder, with our long-awaited Christmas Limited Box available for preorder, along with our wonderful Japanese snack boxes and “naughty” boxes. The contents are hand picked by our dedicated J-List staff, and you’ll love all the cool stuff you get, including the limited Megumi sticker! Order your box(es) now!
