Episode 10

No idol, no zombie is the tenth episode of zombieland saga

Synopsis
Franchouchou is scheduled to hold a concert at Arpino and Sakura believes that performing there could provide her with a clue to retrieve her memories. When the girls are sent to the mountains as part of their training, Sakura becomes upset that everyone is more focused on survival in the wild than on practicing for the event. As things start to get more awkward between Sakura and the others, she watches each other's teamwork and realizes that she was acting selfishly. A week before the concert, Sakura is again run over by a truck, causing her memories in life to emerge. In the midst of her confusion, she falls unconscious.

All right and all right
The episode begins with Sakura seeing how the other girls are happy with their lives because now they are at peace with themselves, but she seems to be the only one who does not know what her true purpose is.

Kotaro announces that the girls will be performing for a large audience at Arpino. Seeing something akin to her past, Sakura decides a good act at the concert to retrieve her memories. Her determination causes trouble with everyone's dance routine to The Girls' Confusion. To solve this, Kotaro sends the girls on a trip to Mount Tenzan.

A cold in the snow
Eventually, while trying to catch a wild boar to eat, Sakura became so frustrated that she left everyone. Back at the mansion, the girl's dance routine continues to be worse since Sakura is now selfish. Yugiri visits Kotaro to ask her about her relationship with Sakura.

Sakura worries more when the day of the concert approaches. Her friends, Sakura comes to apologize for not putting her friends first, leaving everyone happy now that Sakura is back in a good mood.

Look both ways
The next day, Sakura happily runs with Romero, only to be hit by a truck (again). She loses memories of Franchouchou, but finally remembers her past. Full of confusion, she collapses to the ground again.

Appearances

 * Sakura Minamoto
 * Kōtarō Tatsumi
 * Saki Nikaidō
 * Ai Mizuno
 * Junko Konno
 * Yūgiri
 * Lily Hoshikawa
 * Tae Yamada
 * Romero

Synopsis according to Kotaro's Diary
It seems that not only older people but also naughty fans have increased.

Thanks to the talented producer, zombies are becoming professionals.

I decided to let these zombies take a new step.

This is a huge mountain that you must climb.

And there is only one thing to do to get to the top.

Trivia

 * The license plate of the car that ran over Sakura is Ai's death date


 * All civilized teenagers is quite impressive when Yugiri, Lily, Junko and Ai prove to be very capable of defending themselves in a snow survival situation. Yugiri manages the search for flora / fungi (although she admits that some might be toxic to humans), Lily expertly creates a bonfire (possibly without a lighter or other fire source), while Junko and Ai somehow create fishing gear. and hunt that work from scratch. Ai's feat in particular, coupled with decent technique and Super Senses, is presented as incredibly improbable (but impressive).
 * And then Tae biting a huge boar.

Funny information

 * In the introduction, Romero is seen sleeping peacefully with a grasshopper leaping close to him. After Sakura is excited to retrieve her memories, the scene returns to Romero, apparently having eaten the grasshopper.
 * When Kotaro announces that they will be using a large stage, the scene turns to the stage with Lily running in circles with Tae behind her. On all fours like a dog.
 * Kotaro has a conference with a mountaineer cap and speaks in a low voice, claiming that he is sending the girls up the mountain because that is what always happens before these great things happen.
 * After the girls are sent to the forest, they worry about freezing. Tae was already there with Romero trying to lick the ice.
 * When Saki says they need to figure out how to survive, Junko says "We're already dead though." And the unexpected skills of the girls:
 * Lily knows how to start a fire because she starred in Girl Scout Mania Case Files 3. With a title like that, one has to wonder what the production was like. She even scolds Saki for putting wood directly on the fire, which turns out to be a more fun pseudo-sibling dispute.
 * Yugiri goes out looking for mushrooms and returns with a handful of them. She admits that she doesn't know if they are poisonous, but Saki dismisses her concern by pointing out that they are all zombies, so it doesn't really matter!
 * Junko goes fishing ... with Romero. It turns out that Romero is much better at it, switching from his aggressive and detailed art style to catch the fish to his cheesy puppy look to eat the fish.
 * Ai, of all people, throws a makeshift bow and arrow and tries to shoot a boar. The amazing amount of skill she has, as a former city girl, is fun to say the least.
 * Tae shows ability to make snow sculptures. First a tower with cones, then a functional igloo, and then a large sculpture of the Romero cub.
 * The girls decide they want to eat meat, so they set up a boar trap. Ai tells them to hide, but Sakura ends up falling deep into the trap despite being right in front of her. And then a huge boar Papa comes out of the forest and Sakura is scared.
 * Yugiri tells her to play dead, and Junko (always helpful) points out that she is already dead. Sakura hears the advice anyway ... and the boar bites her head, throwing her body against a tree (somehow making her voice come out of her). Tae rushes to save her by biting the boar in the side as Saki grabs her head, her head moaning in slow motion while terrified.
 * By the time Kotaro climbs the mountain, Sakura has had enough of him. The problem is that, despite her anger, she is a slime covered head in Saki's hands, undermining the rage she is lashing out at. Especially when her body takes the head, hits it on the neck and leaves petulantly.
 * A commercial bumper shows the girls having a casual conversation, with Tae waving a squid in each hand and mouth.
 * After being yelled at by Sakura, Kotaro becomes depressed in a restaurant while Yugiri comes dancing for him as his geisha. Then she gives him a hug! nah lie, she slaps him! (each slap goes frame by frame and he reacts painfully) to tell him to have more faith in Sakura, to which he protests weakly because he just said that.
 * It gets even more fun when you realize that Yugiri did the same to Sakura in Episode 3.
 * After Sakura apologizes to the others, Kotaro appears to complain about how they should have realized Sakura's problem earlier, as she did through a spectacular example of insane mountain-related troll logic that makes no sense to the girls. Sakura's reaction to this latest episode of insanity is "I have no idea what you're trying to say ... but I'll do my best!"
 * Sakura is excited after realizing that she should work with the group competently and go running, as Ai tells her to be aware of the traffic. Sakura goes through an internal monologue that, almost note by note, is identical to the one she had in the first episode ... and is run over by a truck again.

Comforting

 * Sakura has a moment near the beginning where she reflects on how everyone has become happier in the past. Saki seems more energetic now that her old friend and family attend her concerts, Lily is clearly happy that her father still comes regularly, and Ai and Junko have finally relaxed in their new lives and are happily moving forward. Each of them has smiles on their faces.
 * A quiet but truly monumental moment occurs in the middle. Yugiri finds Kotaro grumpy at his apparent failure to have a stealthy Mentor point to Sakura and indicates that she perceives him as especially fond of the pink-haired zombie. She finally confuses Kotaro's hopeful words (as she did with Sakura), but when she leaves, he makes a point to say that he was actually saying that he believes in the girl.
 * All the girls have gone as far both individually as idols and as a team. Towards the end of the episode, everyone (without Sakura) goes over the plans for a new song together, each bringing ideas to Ai, who not four episodes ago was still coordinating everything on her own. For her part, she happily recognizes her ideas as legitimately good, and is also in charge of including the wandering Sakura. It is dazzling to see the girl, once extremely scared, feel so proud of the team that she once admitted having no idea what they were doing.
 * As she watches the previous scene from afar, Sakura realizes that she has focused on herself to the detriment of the team and apologizes for it, promising to work closer to them in the future. She even takes Kotaro's bizarre metaphor calmly, and she's as happy as she was in the first scene of the series ... then she's run over by a truck, completely forgetting Franchouchou.
 * When Sakura goes for a walk, she takes Romero with her, she was no longer as terrified as when he first bit her in her presence. He walks next to her happily, growls at the man who hit her with his truck, and doesn't turn away from her even for a moment, clearly concerned about her when he expresses confusion about her current location.
 * In this episode, Junko goes from referring to Sakura as "Minamoto-san" (in addition to being the only one who routinely used surnames), to calling her "Sakura-san", showing how much Junko has opened up to others..

Source of nightmares

 * Sakura is hit by a truck again, exactly the same way as in Episode 1. What makes it scary is that it doesn't move immediately afterward. She simply lies there on the floor with Romero going crazy over her dead body, and the chilling implication that "she is truly dead this time". She gets up again and her memories of her old life have returned, but she has completely forgotten everything about being a zombie.

You will cry?

 * Sakura's eagerness to act turns into frustration with the rest of the girls, to the point that she cannot synchronize with them and does not realize that she is the problem. The trip to the mountain is full of other girls trying to get to it, with Junko's talk about fishing and contemplation and Saki's talk about survival, first flying overhead.
 * There is a scene where Kotaro is drinking at a bar, and Yugiri comes in to talk to him about the trip to the mountain. She confirms that the point was to teach Sakura a lesson ... and Kotaro is a little disappointed that she didn't understand. Perhaps more than a little more, given that it is in a bar.
 * Fortunately, Sakura realizes her problem and apologizes, promising to work with the rest of the group more closely ... just in time to run away and be run over by a truck again. On the positive side, she recovers her memories of her past life, as she wanted throughout the series, but she has forgotten all her memories of Franchouchou and has no idea where she is. And the big show is only a week away ...
 * From what we see from the flashes of her memories, fate had always failed Sakura. When she was in elementary school, she got the lead role for class drama. She trained hard, only to get sick on the day of the performance. In her high school, she studied for an exam only to be late because she helped an old woman on her way. She was depressed by her repeated failures, but Iron Frill lifted her spirit and inspired her to be an idol. She died before she could send her audition documentation

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No Zombie, No Idol SAGA