Spring 2021 First Impressions: Zombieland Saga: Revenge, Bakuten, The World Ends With You

Zombieland Saga: Revenge

Short Synopsis: A Zombie Idol group bombs a performance and has to get real jobs.

Amun: I went into this episode thinking, “what else could Zombieland possibly have that we didn’t see in the first season?”  Quite a lot, apparently.  I still hate the producer – “shout until it’s funny” – but he makes sense, given the end of season reveal about his Sakura connection.  However, this first episode was not the steady ascent of an idol group that I expected; it’s surprisingly befitting of the title “Revenge.”  I…am actually onboard for this.  If it was just a straight trajectory of variety shows and silly local hijinks, I’m not interested.  But put the idols in a large financial and emotional hole plus imply that these zombies have a real shelf life?  That’s high stakes – sign me up.

Potential: 60%

Mario: Zombieland Saga’s first season for me peaked too soon and fell off a cliff after two episodes, and I have the same sentiment about the franchise’s return here. The intro where the workers sing a propaganda song about squids reminds me of all the qualities that I love about Zombieland Saga – yeah, its biting satire is still there. Sadly, the rest of the episode functions like a typical idol show. They all work part-time jobs in order to do concerts again, they are dismissed by the audience and then saved by their manager Kotaro. Speaking of this dude, boy, I’d forgotten how lousy and annoying he can be. This is supposed to be an episode where we can get into the reasons why he wanted to form Franchouchou in the first place, but we didn’t get a glimpse of that – instead it was just him acting from one extreme to another at maximum volume. Even the girls feel less distinctive this time around. Zombieland Saga works much better as a satirical comedy than an idol show, so as long as it sticks with the former, lightning could strike again. If it sticks to Kotaro, however… (sigh).

Potential: 10%

 

Bakuten!!

Short Synopsis: A former baseball benchwarmer joins his new high school’s rhythm gymnastics team.

Wooper: This show really wants to be Haikyuu, man. The chummy club atmosphere, the bird motif, the Yuuki Hayashi score (which sounds like a discount version of his past work), it’s all here. I do want this show to succeed, though, because while it leaned on shiny 3D models for an extended gymnastics routine near the start, there was a rough sort of expressiveness to the rest of the episode. Both the club members and the student body exuded personality during the recruitment scene, and there were smile-worthy moments throughout, like a character doing a somersault into a hallway to make his presence known. Even if Bakuten starts relying more on CG as the season progresses, that’d be alright, so long as it clears its main obstacle – a boring protagonist. Every other character in this premiere outshone him, which was expected, since he functioned as an empty vessel just waiting for [insert sport] to spice up his life. If the show takes quick steps to help him find his voice, Bakuten will have a shot at being the second-best sports anime of the season, but that’s the most it’ll ever achieve.

Potential: 50%

Lenlo: After 2.43 last season I really wasn’t expecting much from this season’s “Pretty Boys do Pretty Things” show but Bakuten surprised me. There was no faffing about with sad backstories, edgy setups or anything like that. It introduced us to a kid who tried a lot of sports trying to find a passion, something most can relate to, and focused on that. The entire episode was him meeting and hanging out with the team, giving us a good idea of who these people are. They are still only stereotypes so far but already we have seen each of them be open and supportive in their own way. Welcoming new people into the group. It’s not the most inventive of openings but I can appreciate its brevity, how it gets us straight to the meat of the story. Hopefully Bakuten can keep up this depiction of passion and teamwork because so far at least I’m in.

Also the 4 minute long full length gymnastics sequence was a ballsy way to start. Nothing but feet hitting pad, diegetic music and some closeup camera shots. CGI wasn’t half bad either. Good job Bakuten.

Potential: 70%

 

The World Ends With You

Short Synopsis: A moody amnesiac attempts to clear a death game in a parallel Shibuya.

Wooper: I should’ve known better than to expect anything from a video game adaptation. TWEWY’s characters have to be some of spring 2021’s worst thus far – other than their participation in a virtual death game, they’ve got nothing going on. Imagine a scene where a story’s protagonist is mentally controlled and forced to choke his partner, without whom he has no hope of survival in an unfamiliar world. Sounds tense, right? Now imagine being bored out of your skull while it plays out on screen, because you were only introduced to the characters ten minutes ago and you have no clue who they are or how they arrived in this alternate universe. The premiere only created more questions as it progressed, so the show is likely fine with that state of cluelessness, but I’m not. It fell to the visuals to keep me intrigued, but while the 3D models did lend a convincing virtuality to the experience, the framing of the non-combat scenes was pretty boring, and alt-Shibuya wasn’t nearly detailed enough to keep me rooted in TWEWY’s world. Even the music was forgettable, despite how integral the original game’s soundtrack was to its success. Hopefully somebody out there enjoyed this episode enough for two people, because I liked almost nothing about it.

Potential: 5%

Lenlo: I had some hopes for TWEWY. Not much, but they were there. Hopes for its visual style, hopes that it would break the mold a bit since it isn’t front a Light Novel, etc. But it met none of those! While I love the thick black linework on the characters the CGI monsters, and occasionally CGI leads, look atrocious. Maybe if they all used the same style it would be fine but I can’t help but feel let down. Meanwhile the story is exactly as Wooper describes it: Boring. Within 5 minutes I found my eyes wandering to the timestamps. It took 10 for my phone to come out and by 20? Well lets just say I was glad to hear the ED kick in. Wooper already gave you the detailed point by point rundown of why so I’ll just stick to seconding him on this: Don’t watch TWEWY. There are better shows this season.

Potential: 0%