Episode 11

"I am telling you, I am never, and I mean NEVER going to abandon you!"

A One-of-a-Kind SAGA is the eleventh episode of Zombieland Saga.

Synopsis
The members of Franchouchou are in trouble because of Sakura's sudden memory recovery, which in turn made her forget the memories she had when she became a zombie. Despite the multiple attempts of each of the girls, they can do nothing for Sakura, who does not fully accept what happens until Ai tries to explain the situation she is in, but Sakura does not accept that she is a idol as she thinks she doesn't have what it takes to become one and tries to leave.

Nostalgic start
After being hit by a truck, Sakura wakes up with no memories of Franchouchou. Encountering the zombified girls, she staggers and then falls into despair, where she is revealed to be pessimistic. Although Ai was able to explain everything that had happened after her death and before being hit by a truck the second time, Sakura shows a melancholic mood where she believes that everything she does will tragically fail in the end.

Immortals talk
While kotaro talks to a mysterious barman who seems to know his plan and wants kotaro not to touch Yugiri.

Depression
The girls try to cheer her up, but they don't. on that lily; Junko and Saki try to comfort her but they only make them sad because Sakura doesn't care about them anymore. Later she leaves the house, to everyone's dismay.

Sakura walks the streets alone and began to remember her past, where many of her memories were filled with misfortune, as many roles that she succeeded in obtaining ended in bad luck and failure. Repeated instances of bad luck undergoing evolution to develop a pessimistic personality where she believes her life is a mess. As she continues to berate herself, she encounters a police officer pointing a terrified weapon at her, but Kotaro rescues her by knocking him out.

Kotaro takes Sakura to an observation post and comforts her feelings. Despite the fact that she continues to detest herself and the misfortunes that happened to her, Kotaro remains adamant that he will never abandon her.

Appearances

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

Synopsis according to Kotaro's Diary
"Sakura" had an accident.

The memories of her life seem to be back.

Her original personality keeps her in bad shape.

(Omitted)

the Other zombies seem to try to return "Sakura" to the original but...

(Omitted)

At the moment, I want to sleep today.

Postscript: I can't sleep

Did I drink too much coffee?

Trivia

 * If Sakura hadn't been hit by that truck, she would have lived to see her favorite idol killed by lightning. Imagine what that would have done to your confidence.
 * The bar where Kotaro goes is called Jofuku, which according to legends was a Chinese alchemist who traveled to Japan in search of the Elixir of Immortality.
 * Ai is the first to accurately deduce the likely meaning of Sakura's sudden behavior change (while others were just going to hit her), and in a subsequent flashback, she delivers a perceptive Determiner message to her fans in an interview that just happened to her. A has been the first spark of Sakura's dream of becoming an idol.
 * Kotaro scores a head shot at Police A with Romero, shooting from dozens of meters away, in the dark, with his glasses on.


 * The episode manages to demonstrate another fatal flaw of Sakura: she is trying to put all her efforts into achieving her goals, even if she tries too hard without resting, and fails due to incredibly bad luck and remains depressed by them until she is turned into a zombie. The previous episodes actually foreshadow this excessive trait of hers, albeit in subtle ways:
 * Since Episode 2, the other girls, particularly Saki, even call Sakura for directly following Kotaro's orders, immediately after their training sessions, while the rest don't bother to do so.
 * In Episode 10, she tries to remind the rest to continue practicing despite having to stay on a snowy mountain.
 * Sakura's backstory shows that she was "legendary" too, at least in her own school and neighborhood. Sakura is a legendary Jinx, a talented, intelligent and driving girl who never succeeds where she counts due to her bad luck.
 * For this same reason Kotaro never called her legendary, she knew that if he told her that and she remembered who it was, she would recognize him
 * Why does Sakura think she is so much worse than the others, and why does Ai's speech that neither of them are lucky have such a profound effect on her? Part of this is because Sakura has forgotten everything she learned about the other zombies, their personal struggles, their premature deaths, and how much it helped them in the past, as well as the fact that she has come to see Ai as a friend. instead of paper. model. Without those memories, or her memories of how much she has contributed to Franchouchou, she naturally considers herself the only unlucky person surrounded by legends.
 * The 'Next Episode Preview' for Episode 11 makes Lily talk about how Franchouchou will be more successful in the future, and she doesn't mention the plot of the episode at all. This actually makes sense if you realize that the entire episode's plot is loaded with spoilers.

Comforting

 * Tae begins the episode by jumping up to Sakura, just like in Episode 1: only here, instead of biting her, is she grabbing Sakura's shoulders and making sounds at her as if to express her happiness that she is awake again without the help of language.
 * Tae is dressed in her home clothes, not the pajamas in the prison uniform. This indicates that she never went to sleep with the others and stayed awake all day and all night waiting for Sakura to recover.
 * Sakura faints in despair after giving up an apparent fight for her life when she found herself in a strange house surrounded by zombies. She wakes up in the midst of this to find herself greeted by Ai Mizuno, and even with her spirit as low as it was then, the puppy look she gives her heroine when she sees her is adorable.
 * The girls are all awake in the middle of the night, worried about Sakura. One by one, each of them has an excuse to go talk to her, trying to get her out of the penthouse in their own way. None of them work, but they all care enough to try.
 * For that matter, the girls' actions after their failures to cheer Sakura up; Saki curses herself angry, while Junko and Lily cry until they fall asleep. It is very clear how much it bothers them that they cannot help their friend when they need her the most.
 * Sakura's previous failures, tragic as they may be, were surrounded by warm hearts and loving friends, who did their best to encourage her no matter what happened.
 * One of her memories is how she met old women who needed help and helped each one of them. Even before she died, she showed how much she cared.
 * Even when she became depressed and cynical, she still had another classmate who praised her academic and athletic skills. It is good to know that others still recognize their abilities.
 * Ai's message to her fans in life about how mistakes and failures are nothing to be ashamed of. As Sakura shows, at least one fan heard her and was going to use it to change her life.
 * The images and words of Sakura's inner monologue as she reflected on how much Ai inspired her: "I want to be like Ai-chan. I want to be strong like her. I wonder if I will be able to smile as dazzling as her someday"? "
 * At the end of the episode, Kotaro yells at Sakura that he will never abandon her because he has enough of what it takes to keep her going. It closely resembles the famous "Believe in me, and I will believe in you!"

Source of nightmares

 * While it is offset by Saki and Lily's comical reactions, Sakura wakes up once again in a house full of monsters without knowing that she herself is one of them. It got worse this time, as everyone else has bright red eyes and the soft cracks of their moving limbs permeate the air as Sakura stares in horror, barely able to contain a scream.

You will cry?

 * When Sakura is terrified of all the other zombies, a particularly forceful moment comes when she drops her weapon in defeat and says that even trying to fight is pointless. She returned to her depression to the point that even trying to defend her own life is not something she is willing to do.
 * Sakura's amnesia hits the other girls hard, and most of them, other than Yugiri, don't take it well, not even Tae, who sits in a Corner.
 * Lily in particular is sad that Sakura doesn't remember her. Sakura tries to be nice to her, both immediately after coming and during Lily's attempt to cheer her up, but her blinding depression eventually makes her mad at the girl, leaving her crying.
 * It turns out that Sakura had too many memories of her past that led her to self-loathing before she became a zombie, and all of them can be summed up either because of crazy bad luck, or a person who does not have what deserves, despite the amount of hard work, effort, and time spent even preparing for the goals. As such, it hits close to home for achievers, athletes, or academics who failed to fulfill some of their dreams.
 * Sakura was chosen to star in a third-grade play "Snow White", but because she got sick on the day of the show, she missed her chance.
 * She had leg cramps every time she joined the relay / marathons at her school despite having worked hard to the point where she had the best lap time at school.
 * She decided to target the best high school in the prefecture, giving up all her extracurricular priorities to focus on academics, even staying up late reviewing the exams. She got the best score on the mock exams, but during the actual entrance exams, she decided to help numerous older women along the way. Having managed to do it just in time, she started to panic and made mistakes, she missed her entrance exam, of course, she failed to enter her preferred school.
 * Just when she had finally set her sights on becoming an idol ten years ago, a certain truck arrived ... And the rest is history.
 * What makes these scenes even more identifiable is Ai's advice from life in the television interview during Sakura's flashbacks stating that "mistakes and flaws are not bad things" ... which is a realistic message from a horror comedy anime.


 * Sakura gets depressed in the playground without makeup and has another encounter with Police A, who tries to shoot her when he sees how she looks. Only this time Sakura is so depressed that she's not even afraid of her own safety, telling her to go ahead and do it. Someone knows that when you are depressed you can also be suicidal, which means that Sakura could be contemplating suicide by not being able to get on with her life.

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A One-of-a-Kind SAGA