English Dub Review: Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead “Sushi & Hot Springs of the Dead”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

On the way to Gunma, the RV team run across a stranded otaku, Beatrix Amerhauser, a German tourist who got enamored with Japanese culture and arrived just before the zombies attacked. Now she is delivering fish to the last sushi chef alive and gets help from the group to do so. Later, the four come across an abandoned hot spring resort and use it briefly before being driven away by the zombies, but then find a natural spring wherein Akira and Shizuka bond.

OUR TAKE

After being teased in the OP for seven previous episodes, Beatrix/Bea has finally entered the story, and it seems the show did not want to waste any more time, so they cut to the chase and had her immediately show up in a suit of samurai armor to kick zombie butt right out of the gate. Bea is very clearly meant to be the fanservice character, sporting some great tracts of land which are commented on frequently and being very unabashed in showing them off when the moment calls for it. The eccentric foreigner character who loves Japanese culture is also a tried and tested archetype which it seems Bea is not gonna be revolutionizing any time soon, but I guess if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. And seeing as we’ve analyzed the Akira, Kencho, and Shizuka pretty thoroughly in the past half a dozen episodes and the plot this week isn’t exactly the most complex, there isn’t really a whole lot to talk about for this episode OTHER than Bea and how she’ll add to the group dynamic. Honestly, by the way her introduction is handled, probably not very much at all.

Bea is very much the odd one out to the other three characters, and not just because she’s from another country. She doesn’t really have a clear bond or connection to Akira, the main protagonist, like his best friend Kencho or his love interest Shizuka. She may have a bit of commonality with Akira in the sense that she and him are willing to put on weird costumes to fight zombies (Akira in his shark/superhero suit and Bea in her surprisingly useable samurai armor), but it’s kind of glossed over and I’m not sure there will be time to get into it. There MAY be hints of her being a love interest for Kencho with him directly flirting with her and the two having a propensity for nudity (seriously the dude had no reason to get naked this episode while luring the zombies, he just wanted to), so maybe there’s that. And as for Shizuka, the only thing they really have in common is that they’re both girls and it evens out the gender ratio, so they don’t really have much else to discuss. But yeah, we have a new main character added just like that, leading us into the last currently available episode, which we MAY cover next week. Still no word on when the remaining three episodes will be out, but in the meantime…maybe watch the live action movie?