English Dub Review: Zom 100 – Bucket List of the Dead “Best Friend of the Dead”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

While a Host Club makes its last stand against the zombie horde, Akira decides to seek out his estranged best friend Kencho, who is currently stuck inside the host club. Their last conversation prior to the zombies had Kencho bragging about his high profile sales job while Akira was barely keeping his head above water, which led to a fight, but now things have changed. Using the zombies’ sensitivity to sound, Akira uses a car horn to lure them away and find Kencho, but then loudly apologizes to him, which lures the zombies back. The two make it to the roof, reconcile, and jump off to the building nearby in that order, during which Kencho confesses that his job actually sucked and made him miserable, and he actually wanted to be a stand up comedian.

OUR TAKE

We meet the third of our main group, Kencho, who turns out to actually know Akira from college, so that’s a built in dynamic already! This episode is basically just about introducing him and adding him to the story, but it also shows another aspect of Akira’s post-job life: reconciling with his bro. We probably all have a friend we were really close with once upon a time but then drifted apart for whatever reason. Well, there’s nothing like the apocalypse to help get you over your old hang ups and extend an olive branch! (But not to call your ex. NEVER call your ex if the apocalypse happens. Only when you’re drunk.) Kencho as a character seems pretty fun and will likely act as a bit of a foil for Akira as having more charisma and being more conventionally attractive, while Akira looks average and probably still doesn’t get a lot of people to like him early on. That said, among the four principal characters, including Shizuka and the currently unnamed blonde lady, that probably won’t be an issue since I’m betting Shizuka is fated to be Akira’s love interest for reasons highlighted in last week’s review. Unclear on what to do with the blonde one.

In world-building progress, we see some characters who looked designed specifically enough that they could’ve been supporting characters ALL become zombies save for one, Shou, so we’ll see if he makes a reappearance down the line. And we learn that the show’s zombies are operating on A Quiet Place rules and only reacting towards sound, hence why they were all led away by a car horn. Mayhaps this will be used to someone’s advantage down the line, like making sound grenades to lure some away to be killed or just for a distraction. We’ll probably learn more about the zombies as we go along, but likely nothing that big since this is only a twelve episode season. Maybe just gonna get the group of four together and get a glimpse of what the outside world is like. Is it just Japan that’s dealing with this or others? How did this start? And what else will Akira put on his list of one hundred things to do before the zombification? You know what I’d put on there? Grab a bottle of every Mountain Dew flavor and put it in a big jug. Worth it.