Episode 17

"Most child actors don't think about their futures, they only think about how cute and tiny they are right now. But no one gives a rat's ass about that stuff when you get older, and you're gonna grow up whether you like it or not, so you better have a plan. That's why I'll succeed. My acting skills are impeccable, and I've got the drive that it takes. I won't fade away as I age, I'm going to be a legendary actor someday. I'm gonna prove that to this crowd, so keep up your pathetic little act while you can and watch me blow you outta the water."

- Light to Lily, about child prodigy actors’ fates.

Little Bodda Bope SAGA (リトルパラッポ SAGA, Ritoru Parappo SAGA) is the fifth episode of the second season of Zombie Land Saga and is the seventeenth episode overall.

Synopsis (Kotaro’s Diary)
"After the war in Saga Arena, the name “Franchouchou” spread to some extent throughout the country. Even those with rotten bodies did well without rotting their hearts. To know the light and dark sides of the world. You can be a naughty zombie. I want you to grow up strong. As an idol. As an artist."

- Kotaro Tatsumi,

Plot
Kotaro play-swims into the room to give a lecture to Franchouchou, but Lily Hoshikawa is already at the podium. He sits down with Franchouchou dejectedly while Lily lays out a plan to try her hand at “Japanese Got Performance”, a national TV show contest where she hopes to extend Franchouchou's fame even further. The group agrees to go through with it, although Kotaro suddenly feels left out.

Sakura Minamoto prepares the rest of Franchouchou to cheer Lily on during the performance, and soon after entering the contest, Lily encounters Light Oozora, a child-actor competitor. They shake hands amicably, but Sakura soon learns that he is devious and selfish, abusing his manager as effectively, his personal servant, and that he has a plan to be seen well by the audience in order to win, and to use the SAGA audition area as a springboard straight to the finals. Expecting no real competition in that backwater.



Sakura tells Lily what she learned of Light's plan, but Lily is supremely unconcerned and simply proceeds with her performance as usual. Surprisingly, Kotaro himself enters the contest and performs before Lily, doing an impression of a mud skipper in mating season. Naturally, he's disqualified almost immediately by the judges, and Saki Nikaido comments that “you can't do that on TV.” Lily then comes on and tells a family story to the audience, at times making them laugh and at times making them cry, so she moves on to the finals. Light also moves to the finals against Lily, after performing a juggling act in which he says to, “never give up”, easily winning the crowd to his side.

Lily intends to sing “Life,” her father's favorite song that she'd sing together with him, and soon bumps into Light while he's practicing. He drops the act and tells her that the child-act gets stale fast as one ages, and that he intends to adapt and make it to Broadway as an adult; starting with the defeat of Lily. Afterward, Sakura assures Lily that all of Franchouchou supports her, and she goes off to prepare for her performance.

To Lily's surprise, Light steals her idea and sings “Life” as well. Although Lily briefly panics, she gets an idea to sing a Bodda Bope/gibberish variant of “Life” with an upbeat tune and dancing, preserving only some lyrics of the original song. She quickly puts together a costume and then does her performance, inspiring kids in the audience and at home to break out into song and dance along with her. Seeing this, Light despairs and presumes his own defeat, but the judges surprisingly select him as the winner.

Light is surprised by Lily's good sportsmanship, shaking his hand despite her loss, and eventually falls into a spiral of self-doubt that culminates in him hiding in the bathroom, considering her to be the better performer since he could not adapt a complete new performance on the fly as she did. However, Lily enters the bathroom as well and encourages him to take his victory and use it to pursue his ambitions as he said he would, and so Light comes to respect her, losing some of his jaded pride and even offering to perform together with her if she ever finds herself in Tokyo. Lily's own performance, despite officially losing, goes viral and still increases Franchouchou's fame regardless.

Characters

 * Kotaro Tatsumi
 * Franchouchou
 * Sakura Minamoto
 * Saki Nikaido
 * Ai Mizuno
 * Junko Konno
 * Yugiri
 * Lily Hoshikawa
 * Tae Yamada
 * Light Oozora (debut)
 * Manager Ishimura (debut)
 * Iron Frill (mentioned)
 * Lily’s parents
 * Takeo Go (non-speaking cameo)
 * Sachika (mentioned)

Locations

 * Saga Prefecture
 * Franchouchou Mansion
 * Saga Arena (mentioned)
 * Saga City Cultural Hall (debut)
 * Ekimae Fudosan Stadium (MyTube thumbnail only)
 * Hoshikawa-Go Residences (flashback)
 * Tokyo (mentioned)

Songs

 * “Life” (Light’s cover)
 * “Little Bodda Bope”

Instrumentals

 * TBA

Trivia

 * This episode takes place sometime near the end of July 2019.
 * A handful of Lily’s abilities are shown throughout the episode. Those being her ability to perform Rakugo at a young age, performing last-minute changes perfectly, as well as her craftsmanship skills.
 * Kotaro’s diary entry is presumably written after Franchouchou meets with Light for the first time.
 * Light’s double personality is also hinted in his diary entry for the episode, specifically the line “To know the light and dark sides of the world.”
 * Lily being a transgender female is hinted at twice throughout the episode.
 * The colors of the bow (white and pink) she wears for the majority of the episode combined with her hair color (light blue) represent the transgender flag.
 * During the scene wherein Lily enters the boy’s bathroom and responds to Light with “Lily does whatever she wants.” when questioned about it.
 * This is the first time Kotaro does not lead their daily morning assembly.
 * It is also the first time Kotaro does not yell at any of the girls, or in general, for that matter, during an episode.
 * Lily’s first performance is based on the pun “Roku-go performing Rakugo”, wherein her stage name as Zombie #6 (Roku-go) performs Rakugo.
 * Light is the second rival of (one of the members of) Franchouchou to hail from Tokyo.

Dub Differences

 * This is the first episode of the dub to not follow the schedule of a new episode every fortnight. Instead, it aired one week after the previous episode of the dub.
 * In the original, when Light asked Lily what she was doing in the boys' bathroom, she responds saying “Lily does whatever she wants.” whereas in the dub, she tells him “It’s no big deal, it’s only the two of us in here.”

Cultural References

 * The title is a reference to John Paul Larkin’s 1995 hit, “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)”, specifically the chorus.
 * This is befitting considering Lily turned a slow song into a scat performance.
 * The talent show, “Japanese Got Performance”, is a nod to the real-life talent show, “Asia’s Got Talent.”
 * Light is voiced by Minami Takayama, known for playing another famous young man, Conan from the homonymous series, Detective Conan.
 * Light’s character is partially based on Light Yagami from Death Note.
 * After his first successful performance, Light delivers Yagami’s famous line, “Everything is going according to plan.”
 * Additionally, he also pulls the same facial expression as Yagami when he says this.
 * The restroom scene during the later part of the episode further references the aforementioned anime, particularly the scene when the police searched for a dying Light Yagami after losing against Near.

Continuity

 * This is the second episode to center around Lily Hoshikawa, with the first being “Episode 8.”
 * A flashback to the scene right before Lily notices her first whisker from “Episode 8” is also shown.
 * This is the third episode wherein Kotaro does not have a major role in an episode.
 * This is Romero’s third absence from an episode, not including the previous episode recap and next episode preview.
 * Franchouchou’s performance at the Saga Arena during the previous episode is mentioned throughout this episode.
 * One of the videos recommended right next to the “Dancing Franchouchou’s Number 6’s Scat-singing” video on MyTube is Franchouchou’s performance at Saga Rock during “Episode 7.”
 * This is the second time in the entire series wherein Kotaro’s stage fright is shown. In this episode’s case, it was during his impression of a mud skipper in heat during the talent show.

Errors

 * Studio Massket is incorrectly credited as “Stduio Massket.”