Zombie Land Saga (Anime)

Zombie Land Saga (ゾンビランドサガ Zonbi Rando Saga), also stylized as Zombieland Saga, is a Japanese animated series co-developed by MAPPA animation studio, Avex Pictures and Cygames gaming studio. It is written by Shigeru Murakoshi, directed by Munehisa Sakai, and music composed by Yasuharu Takanashi.

The first season aired in Japan between October 4 and December 20, 2018. The second season aired between April 8 and June 24, 2021.

Plot
In 2008, Sakura Minamoto, a high school student about to great her second year of high school, was abruptly killed by a truck on the morning she plans to submit an idol application. Ten years later, she woke up to find herself in a certain western-style mansion with no recollection of her previous life. A man named Kotaro Tatsumi told her that she was brought back as zombies for a local idol project called the "Zombie Land Saga Project" aiming to revitalize the dying Saga prefecture, along with 6 "legendary" girls from various eras of Japan's history: Saki Nikaido, Ai Mizuno, Junko Konno, Yugiri, Lily Hoshikawa and Tae Yamada.

Main Cast

 * Kotaro Tatsumi by
 * Mamoru Miyano (Japanese)
 * Ricco Fajardo (English)
 * Sakura Minamoto (Zombie #1) by
 * Kaede Hondo (Japanese)
 * Brina Palencia (English)
 * Saki Nikaido (Zombie #2) by
 * Asami Tano (Japanese)
 * Caitlin Glass (English)
 * Ai Mizuno (Zombie #3) by
 * Risa Taneda (Japanese)
 * Bryn Aprill (English)
 * Junko Konno (Zombie #4) by
 * Maki Kawase (Japanese)
 * Amanda Lee (English)
 * Yugiri (Zombie #5) by
 * Rika Kinugawa (Japanese)
 * Stephanie Young (English)
 * Lily Hoshikawa (Zombie #6) by
 * Minami Tanaka (Japanese)
 * Sarah Wiedenheft (English)
 * Tae Yamada (Zombie #0) by
 * Kotono Mitsuishi (Japanese)
 * Dawn M. Bennett (English)
 * Romero by
 * Yasuhiro Takato (Japanese)
 * Alejandro Saab (English)

Major Supporting Cast

 * Death Metal fans by
 * Metalhead A by
 * Mitsuaki Kanuka (Japanese)
 * Cris George (English)
 * Metalhead B by
 * Setsuji Satō (Japanese)
 * Mike McFarland (English)
 * Policeman A by
 * Hiroyuki Yoshino (Japanese)
 * Austin Tindle (English)
 * Journalists
 * Arata Ookoba by
 * Tōru Nara (Japanese)
 * Kent Williams (English)
 * Inubashiri by
 * Ryōhei Kimura (Japanese)
 * Aaron Dismuke (English)

Supporting Cast

 * Iron Frill
 * Shiori Baba by
 * Sora Tokui (Japanese)
 * Jad Saxton (English)
 * Takeo Go by
 * Tsuyoshi Koyama (Japanese)
 * Christopher Sabat (English)
 * Reiko Amabuki by
 * Komina Matsushita (Japanese)
 * Colleen Clickenbeard (English)
 * Dorami Dance Team
 * Maria Amabuki by
 * Aoi Koga (Japanese)
 * Madeleine Morris (English)
 * Sayama by
 * TBA (Japanese)
 * TBA (English)
 * Migikawa by
 * TBA (Japanese)
 * TBA (English)
 * Korosuke Biker Gang
 * Misa Higashitsuru by
 * Momoko Notomi (Japanese)
 * Morgan Garrett (English)
 * Jofuku by
 * Hochu Otsuka (Japanese)
 * R. Bruce Elliott (English)
 * Maimai Yuzuriha by
 * Kana Hanazawa (Japanese)
 * TBA (English)

Minor Cast

 * Pharmaceutical agency founder
 * Drive-in Tori commercial director
 * Gatalympics host
 * Machiko
 * Light Oozora by
 * Minami Takayama (Japanese)
 * TBA (English)
 * Kiichi Momozaki by
 * Mamoru Miyano (Japanese)
 * TBA (English)
 * Shojiro Ito by
 * Koki Uchiyama (Japanese)
 * TBA (English)

Episodes
Main Article: Episode Guide

Concept and Creation
About four years before the broadcast, Nobuhiro Takenaka from Cygames came up with the idea for a zombie idol anime because he thought that the character of Rita, a zombie girl who appeared in the series "Kami no Bahamut GENESIS", was cute. He started the project by approaching studio MAPPA with his pitch. The working title became "Idol Zombie". However, when he couldn't go through Cygames' internal approval, they asked for an anime to be made in Saga prefecture, the birthplace of the president of Cygames Koichi Watanabe. This set the stage for the current story.

Production
The working title changed completely because the staff were trying to establish Saga as the location where the anime would take place. At first, they were quite concerned about how to combine Saga prefecture with idols. When they went to Saga prefecture they visited the Jofuku longevity museum and did a tour of the area, that's when they said "the story we were thinking about coincides with Saga prefecture more than expected".

The planning of this work was also carried out in cooperation with Saga prefecture. A person in charge of the public relations audience section in Saga said, "I really don't care about idol stories. The production committee will be three companies, MAPPA, Avex Pictures and Cygames."

Mamoru Miyano, who plays the role of Kotaro Tatsumi, was decided by the sound production staff's proposal. The idol seiyus were selected by audition, except for Tae Yamada.

The other members had a clear personality and were easy to imagine according to staff, so most auditions went smoothly. Though there were difficulties casting Sakura's voice actress, but ended up going with Kaede Hondo. Hondo is from Nagoya and had never used a dialect. Looking back at the event, she once commented that she enjoyed the fun and tenderness of the dialect through the careful instruction of the native dialect. Maki Kawase, who plays the role of Junko, and Rika Kinugawa, who plays the role of Yugiri, have also talked about the fun of the dialect during recordings.

Mimi Tanaka, who plays the role of Lily, imagined a serious anime because of the content of the script approved at the audition. But when she read the script, she felt like she had been deceived with an unexpected joke and has to take a second look at the script. In an interview with Animate Times, she commented "Because Lily is the youngest and shortest, I think it's alright to take liberty while voicing her."

Kotono Mitsuishi, who plays the role of Tae Yamada, and Yasuhiro Takato, who plays the zombie dog Romero, were named after Sakai. Regarding the reason for hiring the two veteran voice actors, Sakai said, "Because neither Tae nor Romeo can speak, I think expressive power is necessary. I thought it would be difficult unless there were veterans." It was initially concealed that Mitsuishi was the voice actor in charge of Tae, but it was first revealed in the closing credits of Episode 3. In an interview with Animate Times, Mitsuishi said that he was aware of foreign zombie movies when playing and he acted with the intention that it would be a humorous anime. looking back and regarding the intention to act,

Several voice actors were named as the sub-character, of which Hiroyuki Yoshino, the role of Police Officer A, was decided from the start. Regarding the scene where Police Officer A raps in the second episode, Asami Tano, who plays Saki, said "That scene was not written in the script at the beginning. It is probably a rap battle. He said "That was what you did, it was improvised"

Music
Yasuharu Takanashi was in charge of the music for this work. The director, Munehisa Sakai, hoped that Takanashi liked Death Metal and that it was possible to balance the cute part with the rock part of the characters who live a rock life. in an interview with Animate Times. Cygames' Nobuhiro Takenaka said: "Idol activities are at the center of the story, so linking stories and songs is the easiest thing to convey. In that sense, there are more messages behind the songs."

Both “Adabana Necromancy” and “Hikari e” are performed by Franchouchou (Kaede Hondo, Asami Tano, Risa Taneda, Maki Kawase, Rika Kinugawa and Minami Tanaka). The anime began airing on October 4, 2018 on AT-X, Tokyo MX, Sun TV, BS11, Saga TV, and TVQ, was also licensed by Crunchyroll.

Broadcast History
MAPPA recalls in an interview with "The Animate Times" that he had the greatest difficulty in constructing the story. talking to various stage writers so far, but they've all respected George A. Romero and presented a good stage. Shigeru Murakoshi was appointed. Because he thought that Shigeru Murakoshi, who had been involved in MAPPA's work, could do a good job and comedy with experience in series composition.

Since this work is about death, it was decided to form a group of idols who lived at different times to portray different opinions. In addition, the idea of ​​giving each member a kind of legend was also adopted.

Cygames said, "They were thinking of waking up one at a time,  said the cygames director, but in the end it was decided to wake everyone up and leave Tae not awake.

In the promotion, the principle of secrecy for the content of the work was fully implemented. From the production announcement to the start of the mainstream, information on the story was hidden, except for the slogan "New zombie-feeling anime." The promotional video also appeared to be a true zombie horror job. At a screening for the general public in Tokyo, the audience was asked to submit a promise of confidentiality. This is because it was intended to surprise viewers, and because there was a possibility that viewers would be limited if they appeared to be idols.

The production of the second season was announced at the event "ZOMBIE LAND SAGA LIVE ~FranChouChou Minna de Orabou!~ !" held on July 27, 2019.

Reception
The following reports have been made on the impact on tourism and industry in the prefecture of Saga, which was the setting for this work.


 * On November 25, 2018, the "Old Main Building of the Karatsu Branch of Mitsubishi Joint Stock Company" (Karatsu City Museum of History and Folklore) was opened to the public, which is where the model of the residence of the girls, and more than 1,000 people visited the place. This facility has been closed since 2003 due to deterioration, and is open to the public every year in conjunction with the "National Public Launch of Modern Heritage." The number of visitors the previous year was 300 in two days.
 * Muraokaya, which makes the Japanese confectionery "Saganishiki", has launched a collaborative package version of the same product, "Zombie Land Saga". The factory is said to be fully operational with sales 1.5 times higher than initially anticipated.
 * The "Drive-in Tori" is based in Imari, Saga, it appeared in Episode 5 of the series and after the broadcast of the episode its numbers of visitors increased like foam
 * On January 14, 2019, TVQ Kyushu Broadcasting will host a special program "Zombie Land Saga Holy Land Pilgrimage Tour-We Want to Live", featuring the locations where the series was made, etc. showed up at work. I wanna go! SAGA ~ ”was broadcast with Kaede Hondo, who played the role of Sakura, was in charge of the narration.
 * July 26, 2019: As of November 4, as a collaborative project between the city of Karatsu and JR Kyushu, Saga trains (Kiha 125 type 1 wagon) began operating on some of the Karatsu and Chikuhi lines in Saga prefecture with anime images. The original schedule was until October 31, but the service was expanded in line with the "Saga International Balloon Festa 2019".
 * Japanese internet users chose the 2018 anime general election annual grand prize "(respondents: 138,080), which was held at Nico Nico Douga and asked about the most interesting anime among the anime works that started airing and be distributed in 2018. Zombie Land Saga was first place with 13.33% of the votes. It also ranked first among all men and teenagers over 40 by age group. Prior to this questionnaire, Nico Nico Douga was taking a similar quiz of the anime from the fall 2018 season, for animes that began airing and being distributed from October to December 2018. Here, Zombie Land Saga obtained 16.64% of the votes and was selected as the first place. Voter Turnout By Prefecture From "Anime General Election 2018 Autumn", voter turnout in Saga Prefecture is overwhelmingly high at 53.83% of all voters.

Sales/indicators
"Zombie Land Saga" Blu-ray sales trends (Ranked by Anime Blu-ray ranking)

Trivia

 * The title of the anime, Zombie Land Saga, refers to both the saga (story) of the pop idol group consisting of zombies as well the prefecture itself.
 * As such, every episode has the word “Saga” included somewhere in the title.
 * Some very big names from the Japanese voice-acting industry are involved in this series, like Mamoru Miyano as Kotaro and Kotono Mitsuishi voicing Tae.
 * The Saga Prefectural Government in real life was involved with the production of the show, and saw the benefits of anime tourism as a result.
 * Episode 5 did this for Drive-in Tori, a real-life chicken restaurant with a real jingle that the girls perform. After the preview dropped, swaths of commenters came to the company's videos to point it out.
 * Franchouchou's mansion is actually based on a preserved building in Saga. When it was opened for the public on November 25, the management didn't expect to have 1000 visitors in just one day.
 * After the airing of the final episode of Season 1, the actual Arpino crew wrote an actual apology for structural damage after the major snowstorm.
 * In an interview with the head of CygamesPictures in the February 2019 issue of Megami Magazine, he said they'd been overwhelmingly pessimistic about the show's prospects before it aired, and weren't expecting it to become as popular as it did.
 * With that in mind, they had planned to reveal Yugiri and Tae’s backstories as part of the season finale, but since they would not have fit with season one’s story, they have decided against it and have instead delayed it for a future season.
 * After the airing of the first episode, the producers of the anime, Cygames and Avex Pictures, have gotten this reputation, presenting the anime's premise like a typical Zombie Apocalypse when it's actually a parody of the Idol Singer genre with a mix of Horror Comedy, with all of the footage suggesting a violent and gritty series coming from a five-second video Kotaro shows the girls about what would happen if they're caught. Suffice to say, it's actually worked.
 * Since Tae only growled during the early episodes, not saying a word, her voice actress remained a mystery during pre-air promotions, interviews, and even when the anime started airing. In the credits of the first two episodes, her actress is only credited as "????" and it wasn't until Episode 3 aired that it was finally revealed to be Kotono Mitsuishi.
 * When Mamoru Miyano introduces the voice actresses of the main cast in-character as Kotaro, there is a seventh slot marked only with question marks in place of Tae's voice actress. He does attempt to speak the name, but it comes off as a random mumble instead.
 * A group picture of the voice actresses and some staff members was posted to Twitter on October 4, 2018, but Mitsuishi's face was covered with an icon of her character's face.
 * The Saga Prefecture seal is pretty similar to the emblem of the fictional SCP foundation, some users theorize that the Saga Prefecture government is some kind of organization that is aware of supernatural activity in the prefecture. However in real life this is nothing more than a coincidence.