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「マイマイレボリューション SAGA」 (Mai Mai Reboryuushon SAGA)
“Mai Mai Revolution SAGA”
This week’s Zombie Land Saga Revenge switched up the envelope by giving us a new member of Franchouchou who is thankfully alive named Maimai Yuzuriha. But while her dreams and ambitions might mirror Sakura’s, their goals are what ultimately sets them apart and causes Maimai to put her idol dreams on hold.
The beginning of the episode was hilariously dark as we’re given a moment that made us think that Kotaro accidentally killed Maimai as she slipped on a bar of soap. The scene was similar to when Sakura was murdered by the truck, so when Kotaro brought her back to the HQ and announced they got a new member, it made it seem as if having her become a member of the band would be a convenient way to hide the evidence of actual murder. It was a morbid, macabre twist that made me laugh for a moment because I thought they were really gonna go ahead and have Kotaro continue the trend of adding new members to Franchouchou as he stumbles across more dead bodies.
It’s quickly diffused with Maimai’s survival, but in its place, we had an episode that captured how it would be if a living person were to join an idol band full of zombies. While Maimai was open-minded about the whole experience and her only main hurdle ended up being learning the dances, she learned quickly that her experience as someone who is still alive would be hard to relate to girls who are trying to reclaim what was taken from them after they passed.
Maimai would come to realize this and, despite her parallels with Sakura, she graduates after her debut because of how her and the rest of the girls are worlds apart because Maimai isn’t a zombie. When Sakura confesses to Maimai that it wasn’t until they died when they were able to chase their life-long goals and feel alive it set something off in her head.
Maimai felt like it would be intrusive of her to try to act as if she could be a part of Franchouchou when the band was used as a way to reclaim what was taken from them after they passed. It was nice that she ultimately matured from the mindset she came in with, aiming to have plenty of life ahead of her to try to venture out, do her own thing, and soak in as much of the Reiwa era as she can. If they were tempted to go the Mary Sue route, they could’ve just reveled in the opportunity she got to still play with them and live out her current dream of performing with her favorite band without reflecting on why it feels like she and her bandmates are worlds apart. It was also cute that we found out that Saki loved Tamagochi’s and Maimai’s parting gift to her was giving her a spin at playing with a contemporary Tamagochi with all the newer bells & whistles.
I’m personally more excited for the next episode because we’re finally getting a story from Yugiri’s perspective. On top of all of this, it feels like next week we’ll have a better understanding of how much progress the journalists have gotten to the true identity of Franchouchou’s band members and see what kind of drama would unfold if the band has to face trouble directly involved with whether people will find out they’re zombies or not.
Prequel manga is being released. Some spoilers in the wiki description:
https://zombieland-saga.fandom.com/wiki/Zombie_Land_Saga_Gaiden:_The_First_Zombie
Well I will give the show this. I did not see that coming.
Still, when Kotaro is silent, it shows how the show became a run-on-the-mill idol anime.
This slice of idols show drew flak and drove many fans away from anime.
Yeah, I think the reason why I ended up getting less enthusiastic to turn on this season is how much it took after your standard idol shows.
Saki’s episode had the most in common with “the girls dealing with their past lives” stuff that made the last season memorable.
Every other episode has been focused on the girls entering the entertainment industry where they have to reflect on how far they’ve come from Season 1. Whenever the focus is away from the girls being zombies, I can imagine most of the situations in these episodes happening with the girls of the Idolmaster franchise or Wake Up Girls. Hopefully the newer episodes will start to recalibrate now that they don’t have to worry about such a generic concept for another season like making back the money from one bad concert.
Lily had to face her past and the idea of dying so young. How is that standard idol stuff? The series is a lot deeper if you actually chose to examine it more
Aside from a few choice lines, the plot of Lily’s episode in Season 2 wouldn’t dramatically change if Lily wasn’t a zombie.
But if you want a deeper analysis of Lily’s episode, this guy has a great analysis of how Lily has to contend with not being able to share the same future prospects as Light in her episode:
https://randomc.net/2021/05/06/zombie-land-saga-revenge-05/
Saki revealed that she was into tamagotchi back in season one’s rap battle episode (S1E02).
As to this episode, it wasn’t all bad. There was genuine tension — and dare I say, horror — around what may have befallen MaiMai in the opening scenes. Her conversation with Sakura was worth hearing. And the sight gag of Koutarou convincing the principal to let them perform was good (along with the student’s concomitant squeak).
But for the most part this was a forgettable episode. A new character is dragged in and rushes through what took the others most of a season within a few minutes and then vanishes into the night. That they are zombies didn’t really affect anything and she doesn’t really affect them. I like Kanazawa Hana a lot but I don’t really enjoy this type of role from her. She’s talented enough that she can smooth over many of the issues such an episode might have but I didn’t find myself caring whether she joined them or left them.
That all said, overall I enjoy the show and will continue to watch (whereas I can’t bring myself to watch a conventional idol show) but less taking themselves seriously and more undead magic would be welcome.
I feel like it’s setting up to a point the zombiness will be revealed but the people of saga wouldn’t care for it, and just be thankful for the girl’s service for saga regardless
Next ep, Past!Yugiri