The Dark Herald Recommends: Zom 100
It might surprise you to know I’m not much of a zombie fan. Despite the fact that my first book was technically a zombie uprising story.’ I don’t like victim horror, and zombie fiction leans heavily into that. There also tends to be a very strong nihilistic bent to it. I might perk up my ears if someone comes up with a new variant on this old formula. But that just doesn’t happen much anymore.
I thought I’d seen it all when it came to zombies.
I’ve seen the OG Night of the Living Dead, the underrated remake, and the overrated Dawn of Dead remake (although I did like the gun shop owner). I watched the first season of The Walking Dead until it was obvious that it was a dystopian soap opera. 28 Days Later at least had a new kind of zombie. Sean of the Dead remains my favorite.
However, I think the Asian Zombie flicks are by and large better. When Western zombie movies and shows want critical praise, (and they all want critical praise) they inject some cheap and chintzy left-wing politics into them. Honestly, I think half the reason I love Sean of the Dead so much is because it’s almost the only Western zombie flick that didn’t put lefty politics in it. It worked because it was a character-driven story.
Which brings us to why Asian zombie shows are generally superior. In the West a character’s arc is the B story in any production, assuming they remember to give the character a story arc at all. However, in the East, a character’s arc is invariably the A Story. Basically, it’s a matter of story structure traditions (read about it here if you want more information).
Night Train to Buson is the one most people think of when Asian Zombie cinema is discussed and rightfully so, but there have certainly been others with high-quality storytelling. All of Us Are Dead and #Alive come to mind.
But as I said, I thought I’d seen it all. Then I noticed that an anime series called Zom 100 was becoming hot, I consulted the all-knowing interwebs and ran across the show’s opening credits: (NSFW)
After muttering, “What the actual hell” a couple of times I decided to give it a brief look. I could not resist the dancing zombies. I have now finished season 1.
This anime has indeed brought something new to the table.
Akira, is a young college graduate that has just landed what he thinks is his dream job at a media company. It turns out it’s a more a nightmare job. His new place of employment is what’s called a “Black Company ” in Japan but sure as hell isn’t called that on Crunchy Roll. The working environment is hell on Earth, the boss yells constantly, the tiniest mistakes are grounds for termination with prejudice, Akira has to work 18-hour days, and given a Tokyo commute he’s been getting by on four hours of sleep for about three years.
The pilot episode is brilliant in painting the plight of Akira. His bright world of color turns when he first joins the company into uniform shades of grey as the oppression of his workplace wears him down. His eyes grow wide and his pupils shrink as he begins to adopt a thousand-yard stare. He has no hope of promotion, escape, or any kind of better life. He also has a hopeless crush on one of his co-workers from accounting. She is nice to him but it’s an open secret at the company that his thug of a boss is cheating on his wife with her.
Akira is living a life with no hope of hope. He has clearly become the walking dead.
Then one day as he is about to begin his morning death march to work. He’s attacked by zombies. He escapes, gets back to his apartment, and barricades himself in. After a few panicked moments, he takes stock of his situation, which is that is in the middle of the Zombie Apocalypse.
Akira realizes that this means… He doesn’t have to go to work!!!
He’s overjoyed by this prospect and possibly a little insane. Suddenly his world is one of bright colors again. That is one of the really interesting art design choices in this series. The standard gore splatter from mangas is in this instance painted in bright clownish colors, reflecting Akira’s joyous view of his new world of admittedly limited opportunity. He steals a scooter, thinks better of it, and grabs a motorcycle, which functions as a symbol of his new freedom. He decides to check on his office crush with the intent of confessing his love for her. Which apparently has become a competitive sport in the East? Okay, whatever, I’m an American I’m in no position to judge any other culture.
He gets there and she’s naturally a zombie. But he screams his affection to her before killing her. He then goes back to his apartment, finds a notebook, and begins writing out his bucket list.
100 Things to Do Before I Become A Zombie.
This show is not designed as a survival story but it is geared around Akira’s growth in the face of what seems to be inevitable death.
However, since this is a Japanese story, so he obviously won’t be doing it alone. Most of this season has been the Nakama assembling.
The next day he runs into his actual romantic interest, Shizuka. She is kind of the opposite of Akira. She is a risk analyst and has her own notebook, 100 Things to Do to Avoid Becoming a Zombie. Where it took the zombie apocalypse to bring Akira back to life, the end of the world has if anything made Shizuka even more of the living dead. It’s clear that her arc will be Akira bringing her back to life.
Normally, the protagonist’s romantic interest is the Heart of the team. But in this case, Shizuka is clearly the Brain.
The Heart appears to be Akira’s best friend from college, Kenichirou who is quite the Chad Studdlington. The thing is he clearly isn’t any kind of rival, at least after the first episode. What he wants is to be a comedian and he is now pursuing this dream in the face of pretty close to impossible odds.
The closest thing to a Rival Akria has is Beatrix, she is a German tourist and is God’s Perfect Weaboo. She is constantly spouting more information about Japan than any native Japanese knows or would want to know. While she comes close to a Rival, she fits the role of Tank much better. When fighting zombies she is literally wearing a full set of Tukogawa period armor. She’s deadly with both Naginta and Bow. While she wears a katana and wakizashi I haven’t seen her use them yet. Beatrix and Akria are the team’s fighters.
Akira’s primary antagonist appears to be Kanta, who is a mirror-darkly reflection of Akira. Both were defeated by life before the outbreak however, Kanta was a NEET (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) in hardworking Japan a NEET is particularly despised by society. The zombie uprising has let Kanta become the absolute worst person he could possibly be. His smile becomes sharklike.
The comparison and contrast between Akira and the survivors he meets drive his development as a character. Whereas the other members of the nakama development are driven by Akira’s. One of his bucket list items was to become a superhero. Shizuka points out all of the accepted psychological reasons that having a “hero complex” is a malignant personality trait. Akira decides to ignore her advice and saves her life. Shizuka is rather embarrassed to admit she finds this rather attractive in a young man.
The show is filled with little moments like this. There is a lot of heartbreak for Akira along the way because this is a zombie show and he’s not going to be able to save everyone. It’s a comedy but with some tears.
While I really have enjoyed this first season I’m not sure there is going to be a second one. The studio, Bug Films, has some very talented people working at it but they have always done fill-in work for other studios. This is their first series and they clearly ran into serious production problems. There were numerous delays between episodes, the longest being three months. So far I’m not hearing anything about a season 2 but it has been a big hit on Netflix, so it might happen.
Regardless, even if this is just a solo season, it’s worth a watch.
The Dark Herald Recommends with Confidence (4/5)
