English Dub Review: Zombie Land Saga “Good Morning SAGA”

Like zombie idols headbanging to death metal? Then have I got a show for you.

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Sakura Minamoto is excited to begin her second year of high school, but a wayward truck has other plans. She awakens 10 years in the future to find herself zombie-fied and without memories of her past. She’s been recruited by a mad scientist/idol group manager, Koutarou Tatsumi. He’s revived a group of legendary girls from the dead in order to form an idol group to save the declining Saga prefecture. But can zombies even perform? Apparently, yes! As long as it’s death metal!

Our Take:

Zombie Land Saga’s opening scene is one of the craziest intros to a series I’ve ever seen before. I think it works perfectly and was probably my favorite part of the entire premiere. We open with Sakura doing a typical energetic high school girl monologue: she’s excited to start school with a song in her heart, yadda yadda. But before she takes two steps outside her front gate, she’s blindsided by a speeding truck and killed. The colorful, blood-spattered, slow motion falling sequence is a beautifully grotesque way to let us know exactly what it is we’re in for with this show. Unbridled, yet hilarious, chaos!

The only character we really get to know in the premiere is Sakura Minamoto. She’s fairly generic, even before her memory gets erased. Your typical high school heroine, a bit clumsy and full of self-doubt. At least she seems to have a bit of pluck in her with the way she occasionally manages to talk back to Koutarou, who I’m pretty sure is clinically insane. He gets a few laughs out of his over-the-top routine, but his near constant screaming got old fast to me. Here’s hoping there’s more to him then just brash bluster. The other zombies are ‘asleep’ for basically the entire episode, so I won’t comment on them just yet.

Visually, the show is pretty outstanding so far. With nice, smooth motion (like when Sakura is running through the mansion to escape her fellow zombie idols), everything feels well made and consistent. The character designs for the zombies are a ton of fun, with crazy hair highlights and giant scars. I wish there was a bit more body diversity, but that is still kind of rare in most anime from my experiences.

The dub is a very solid affair, led by Funimation vet Brina Palencia. She has played a lot of wonderful roles in the past, like Shirayuki from Snow White with the Red Hair, and she does a fantastic job as Sakura, carrying the show on her shoulders with every puzzled exclamation and snarky inner thought. Ricco Fajardo’s role as group manager Koutarou is not quite as memorable for me. He’s fine but hasn’t done anything to elevate the character past his usual screaming dialogue.

Though it’s only one episode in, Zombie Land Saga is showing a ton of promising potential. It’s already clear that this show is perfectly content with throwing in outlandish surprises as it beats its way around the typical plot path. Sakura is an easy to root for protagonist with a stellar dub voice. Koutarou is on the verge of becoming to annoying, but I’m okay with putting up with him for now. The other zombie characters look interesting, even though they don’t have any development yet. Zombies are cool, and idols are neat, but put them together and I think we’re gonna be in for a wild ride.