First Impressions / Zombieland Saga

「世界にひとつだけのSAGA」 (Sekai ni Hitotsu dake no Saga)
“A One-of-a-Kind Saga”

Following the turbulent end to the last episode, Sakura’s memories flooding in about her past overtook her memories of the present, causing her to completely forget about both Franchouchou and her time as a zombie idol. Unfortunately, the memories left with her regarding her past life were far from positive.

It’d be hard to find a silver lining in the unluckiness of Sakura’s past life that doesn’t involve dying. Throughout her time as a living being, they hammer on the point that every positive stride she’s tried to take has never, and would never work out. As a young girl, she missed being the star of a school play when she got sick. Relay races she was involved with were all cut short when she kept getting injured. She couldn’t get into the school she wanted to after she became too distracted to focus during the entrance exams she studied meticulously for. Her death is just icing on the cake as her last resolve to do something about her luck ended with her getting hit by a van before she could get to see it through. Sakura’s life experiences were a series of demoralizing failures, and the one time she’s inspired by Ai to try to fight against the current ended in her demise. Franchouchou might be a new beginning, but with her mind reverted back to how it was right after she was first hit by the van, it will be tough to find any positives that could come out of trying.

Meanwhile, Franchouchou is left trying to help jog her memory of her time in Franchouchou, especially considering that her desire to be an idol led her to do some amazing work as one of the leading idols of the group. It is a challenge to see how much the girls go through trying to get Sakura to remember as Saki has the most experience interacting with Sakura as the more sensible foil to her crazier ideas like chilling at the hot springs. As one of her key inspirations, even Ai is unable to fully reach her to let her know of the great performances she’s had in Franchouchou during all of this time. It was particularly sad to see how Sakura reacted to Lily since she was just trying to help her be cute with the star attachment that she abruptly threw on the ground to make a point about not being cute enough for it.

From Kotarou’s position, he wasn’t as directly involved at the beginning but had to eventually step in to try to convince Sakura that he is serious about following her success through no matter what. It was directly aligned with his way of thinking to relate the negativity that Sakura has been embracing to Nijinomatsubara Forest yearning for a light to shine its way as its shrouded in darkness. In a similar light, his analogies towards giving up as another death in itself and his fake-out of barging back into the conversation after pretending to leave are also very much in line with Kotarou’s inspirational strategies. While Sakura’s side of the story will focus on how she will be able to bounce back from all of this, Kotarou’s is fascinating with how much he has confided with the bartender. With the bartender knowing Yuugiri from experience, it calls into question who exactly the bartender is and if Kotarou had any involvement with how he was able to have Kotarou do him a favor for Yuugiri.

Preview

15 Comments

  1. There is a very reasonable theory that this bartender of the “New Jofuku Bar” is actually Jofuku, or Xu Fu as his original Chinese name goes. He was a chinese alchemist that disappeared while on a voyage searching for the Elixir of Life from Mount Penglai. Some legends say that he wound up in Japan, and that Mt. Penglai was actually Mt. Fuji.

    Nene
    Reply

  4. “You thought I was done, huh?!”

    XD

    And of course, Sakura’s audition folder was for “ZLS Corporation”…Zombie Land Saga…which just so happens to be what Kotaro’s project name was…and how coincidental that she dies on that day with that audition folder….

    HalfDemonInuyasha
    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *