This recap contains spoilers for the Zombie Land Saga Revenge episode “The SAGA of How These Zombies Will Get Their Revenge”
We’ve got a curious one today. “The SAGA of How These Zombies Will Get Their Revenge”, long title and all, is something of a hybrid kinda-sorta recap episode but not entirely. The actual plot developments here are packed into the final ten or so minutes. The first half of “The SAGA of How These Zombies Will Get Their Revenge” is an elaboration on what happened between seasons. Namely, the disastrous concert that put Franchouchou 20 million yen in the hole.
Most of this is stuff we already know. Though the revelation that the stadium Franchouchou bombed at was the same one Ai was struck by lightning in is, at least to my memory, a new one. It all builds up to the revelation that the Manager has booked Franchouchou to play the stadium they bombed at again. As their “Revenge Concert”, as he puts it.
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The real stuff of interest here revolves around the journalist Shinba. He’s been tailing Franchouchou for quite a while now. And “The SAGA of How These Zombies Will Get Their Revenge” sees him confront the Manager for the first time. He’s upfront about what he knows, and he’s got photographic proof.
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Strangely, the Manager seems rather unfazed. Presumably not the reaction that Shinba was expecting. (Although it’s quite likely just an act.) After Shinba leaves the scene the Manager is visibly nervous and also only just barely-dodges having a massive prop fall on his head.
Shinba’s concern is pretty logical, if we stop to think about it. His objection that the dead shouldn’t be paraded around and exploited for profit would make perfect sense in almost any other series. But this is Zombie Land Saga, and as becomes clear in the final minutes of “The SAGA of How These Zombies Will Get Their Revenge”, the Manager knows something Shinba doesn’t.
The SAGA of How These Zombies Will Get Their Revenge
The final major scene of the episode takes place in the bar that the Manager’s frequented for some time now. There’s a lot of info packed into very few lines here as he converses with the bartender. The bartender is confirmed to be that immortal sage (Xu Fu) we most recently saw in the “The Saga Incident” episodes. And the one who raised the girls of Franchouchou from the dead in the first place. There’s also something about a curse! Yes, here, in its tenth episode of twelve, Zombie Land Saga Revenge. The Manager’s plan is part of a plot to avoid a curse/prophecy about how “in the first year of the Reiwa Era, a great tragedy will befall Saga, and no one will remember its name.”
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We also learn that this is why all of the members of Franchouchou died in the first place. Struck down not by truly random accidents but by a curse placed on the prefecture itself. It’s quite a heavy barrel of fantasy tropes to drop on the series as it nears its conclusion. But if Zombie Land Saga Revenge has proved anything, it’s that it doesn’t like to play by the rules. “The SAGA of How These Zombies Will Get Their Revenge” is just one more example. If it seems a little rushed, well, I can’t speak for anyone else. But for me, that’s just part of the charm.
“The SAGA of How These Zombies Will Get Their Revenge” ends on an unusually grim note. A storm bears down on Saga the night before the concert, and power is lost throughout the prefecture.
What will become of Franchouchou and their “Revenge Concert”? That’s a question for next time.
Until then, anime fans.
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