Zombie Land Saga Revenge – 11

「 たとえば君がいるだけで SAGA」 (Tatoeba Kimi ga Iru Dake de SAGA)
“All It Takes Is for You to Be There SAGA”

This week’s episode sets the stage for the season finale by placing Franchouchou in the tough position of helping out after a devastating storm strikes Saga. But as they start to endear themselves to those who are staying at the same shelter they’re temporarily living in, they also have to find a way to navigate around the possibility of being outed as zombies.

It was an unusual episode considering how much of it ended up dealing with an issue that’s far larger than any obstacle that Franchouchou has faced in the industry. A natural disaster that devastates the town of Saga and displaces many of the town’s families oddly feels like heavier material than the macabre deaths the girls faced. I guess because it seems far more real to lose everything after a storm than to be a resurrected pop star who was struck by lightning on-stage. Lily cheering up the kids by singing her viral hit cover or Franchouchou doing acapella concerts in the meantime is nice, but it’s haunting to hear the shelter’s kids scared that they might have nowhere to go after the storm in a way that feels more disturbing.

But it was nice to see that things smoothed over very quickly with Franchouchou’s reveal. It should’ve dawned on me earlier that they could just default to saying they are wearing zombie make-up if they get caught. It was very funny though to see Okoba as horrified as the girls were when their masks ended up shattering, exposing their undead faces.

Speaking of Okoba, it was an interesting episode for him because of how it ends up challenging the notion of the girls lacking their own autonomy as macabre corpse puppets. While it was understandable why he’d be offended from an outside perspective, observing Franchouchou at the shelter helped him see how they operated without being barked around by Kotaro.

With how dedicated they were to helping out around the shelter and putting on a show to entertain the children there, they gave him a new way of seeing how they led their lives after they passed. Rather than seeing them as reanimated meat puppets that trample on their memories, it’s their genuine selves that just so happened to be brought back to reclaim the future they should have had.

Much of this factors into how Sakura wishes to thank Kotaro, considering that his efforts to resurrect her and the girls gave her the chance to be able to cheer up those around her. The finale’s going to be airing for an uninterrupted 27 minutes so with the final concert of the season being a month away, it should be exciting to see how that’s captured in the next episode.