English Dub Review: Zom 100 – Bucket List of the Dead “Flight Attendant of the Dead”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

On the hunt for a big screen TV, Akira and Kencho find themselves trapped in a department store with four other people, three of which being female flight attendants, which gives the two guys a chance to turn on the charm. Kencho has luck, Akira not so much, and the fourth person, a guy, becomes a zombie and ends up infecting all the women. Akira and Tencho find their TV and find a way out.

OUR TAKE

After three fairly strong introductory episodes, we’ve finally hit one that’s kinda weak. So far, we’ve seen stories about three people using the backdrop of the apocalypse to break out of unhealthy jobs and habits to finally embrace life and the future, even when the world seems to be falling apart around them. This week, we have an episode about Akira and Tendo looking for a TV, meeting some girls they try to hit on, watching them all be killed or turned into zombies, and then they just ride away with barely any reflection on that. Now, despite my use of metaphor earlier in this paragraph, I am aware that the roaming swarms of zombies are very real in this story. Not everyone can make it in such a lethal environment (unless you’re a main character), therefore some are inevitably going to die, and it makes it all the more impactful if it’s someone one of the main characters has gained a connection to. The issue here and how it’s executed (no pun intended) is that these four characters introduced in this episode are pretty weakly handled, add little of value, and are discarded pretty nonchalantly for the purpose of finding a big screen TV.

The one guy is basically just there to be a ticking bomb and to become a zombie, so he’s barely a character to begin with. The same can be said with the boozy flight attendant and the one that Kencho gets to sleep with him, and as for the third flight attendant, Yukari (the only one I’m going to bother naming), she gets a LITTLE bit of characterization, but not a whole lot. Initially she shows that, unlike Kencho, Akira simply has no game, or RIZZ as the kids say now. Akira tries hitting on her and is pretty much immediately shot down. Later, she turns out to be much nicer than expected, and even shares some of her dreams and reasons she became a flight attendant (because a flight attendant in her youth was kind to her)…and then she’s zombified and quickly forgotten. And considering Akira was already probably inspired to follow his dreams by other experiences in the show so far, I’m guessing the only continuity acknowledging this whole episode will be that big TV. At the very least, the animation was still pretty good. So that’s all it gets this week, I guess. That’s really all it needs I suppose, but more would be nice.