English Dub Review: Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead “Treehouse of the Dead”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

On their way to Akira’s hometown, the gang help an old man with making his treehouse, which gives Akira more reason to thank his parents for everything they’ve done. Once they finally make it to the village, they find his parents, as well as many survivors of the zombie attacks, including four mean looking folks who have their own bucket list to finish. Also, Akira’s father has a bite mark.

OUR TAKE

After nine episodes out of twelve, we finally have a complete OP sequence that has no recap footage! And good timing for that, as we have officially caught up with the dub in terms of available episodes, with no release date or announcement in sight for the remaining three. And with that in mind, holy hell, what a packed episode and cliffhanger to leave us on until then! The titular treehouse feels like a vignette more than anything else and only covers half the episode, with it mainly giving Akira a chance to see a father who lost his family to the zombies already and has regrets about how he didn’t spend enough time with his kid. Definitely feels more impactful than the flight attendant episode or even the stuff last week with the hot springs and sushi, but ultimately disposable. The real meat of the episode is once the gang of four finally arrives in Akira’s village, and what’s waiting there for them. Obviously Akira sees his parents again and gives his tearful speech of gratitude, but finally meeting his stoic father seems odd compared to Akira’s usual gung ho nature, that is until we see the flashback showing that it was his father who told him to get a big dream.

How children take after their parents is often paired with how they deliberately try to break away from them, and it seems Akira has tried very hard to be a different man from his expressionless farmer father. Perhaps his father told him to get a big dream because he never got to look for his own? Or perhaps he did and it didn’t work out? With his days numbered due to that bite mark, we’ll probably learn more about that soon, but what we should also talk about before we go are these four new characters, one of whom very much feels like a Bizarro version of Akira, only in his case he felt left behind by his peer group and sees the zombie apocalypse as an eternal summer vacation, as well as feeling he and his underlings will be zombie chow soon enough. Whereas Akira is trying to live with whatever time he has left, it looks like these four are looking to run out the clock and do as much damage as possible before time runs out. With the next episode’s title being “Hometown of the Dead I”, it’s looking like we’re ramping up to the storyline that will end the season…but I guess we’ll have to wait to see how that plays out whenever they get around to letting us see it. Or read the manga, I guess.