In Zombie Land Saga Revenge, things don’t go well for our favorite undead idols. As the title implies though, they have their revenge, along with a surprise at the end to boot.

Zombie Land Saga Revenge English key art.
Not as dark as this key art would imply, but surprisingly close in places.

As in the previous season, Zombie Land Saga Revenge is produced by Studio MAPPA. Munehisa Sakai continues to be the director, while Shigeru Murakoshi is still the writer. Yasuharu Takanashi and Funta7 continue to do the music. Oh, and lastly, Crunchyroll and Funimation have licensed this horror-comedy anime series. At least, for North America. Muse Communication are responsible for licensing it in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

As usual, a completely inaccurate trailer. Mostly.

Zombie Land Saga Revenge aired from April 8, 2021 to June 24, 2021, and ran for 12 episodes. You can watch the English sub of this anime (with Japanese audio, of course) on Crunchyroll. If you want to watch the English dub (which has its own hilarity separate from the original), head on over to Funimation for that. Note though, that as of this writing, Funimation only has 6 episodes of Revenge up, and have locked 4 of them behind a paywall. If you want to watch the English dub, I strongly recommend waiting a couple of weeks until Funimation has unlocked them from their paywall. Otherwise, just shell out your wallet.

Warning: spoilers for Zombie Land Saga Revenge below. If you want to watch this story of musical zombies for yourself, stop here, and come back once Franchouchou has finished their performance.

Zombie Land Saga Revenge: Plot Summary

An opening that has absolutely nothing to do with what happens in the show, as usual.

Zombie Land Saga Revenge starts off with the legendary idols of Franchouchou…doing various part-time jobs? Yeah, as it turns out, things didn’t go well for our undead idols after season 1. Their manager, Kotaro Tatsumi, tries to book them a live performance at a massive stadium with a capacity of over 24,000. Instead, they get an audience of only a few hundred of their fans. This means that they’re now deeply in the red. ¥20 million, to be precise, which converts to $182,516.72 USD as of this writing.

So yeah, Franchouchou needs money badly. They even spend most of Zombie Land Saga Revenge going on various part-time jobs just to try to make a dent in that massive debt. However, along the way, Franchouchou earns quite a bit of fame and goodwill amongst the residents of Saga Prefecture. They even manage to get the leading idol group in-universe, Iron Frill, to acknowledge them as rivals on national TV. Eventually, the girls even manage to work off their debt, mostly due to the efforts of Number Zero: the legendary Tae Yamada.

Alas though, Franchouchou faces their biggest challenge yet in the form of a typhoon that hits Saga Prefecture, and Saga Prefecture only, knocking out power throughout the prefecture and causing massive flooding, which results in Franchouchou’s manor house being destroyed. Yeah, as it turns out, Saga has a curse in this setting that prevents anyone from trying to bring fame to Saga. It usually kills its targets, but in this case, Franchouchou is already dead. It can’t kill them again. Thus, it resorts to a “natural” disaster. Fortunately, Franchouchou steps up to the challenge. They help out handing out food, working in construction, and entertaining people (especially the kids) to keep their morale up, even though they’re constantly at risk of being outed as zombies. All of this earns them, even more, goodwill and fame, which they definitely need.

See, Kotaro has booked them for another live concert at the same stadium that got them their massive debt. This time though, it’s different. Before, he only sold tickets on the day of the concert, hoping to make them even more legendary. Now, he’s not leaving anything to chance. He’s going all out with advertising and bookings. Because of that and the goodwill they accumulated, Franchouchou’s concert ends up filling the stadium entirely. By all accounts, the concert is a massive success. And then aliens show up and blow everything up. And with that Stinger, we now get to the end of Zombie Land Saga Revenge. Yes, really. Oh god, let there be another season to explain that.

Zombie Land Saga Revenge: The Good

The Junko solo fans have been waiting for has finally arrived!

The music of Zombie Land Saga Revenge definitely deserves a shout-out. The nature of it being an idol anime means that it’s focused on music as a theme. However, unlike other idol anime, this one doesn’t just only have those typically idol-like cutesy J-pop songs. Franchouchou goes the whole spectrum of music, from heavy metal to rapping, to scat singing. The range is so wide that there’s almost certainly something in there for everyone to enjoy. Heck, in-universe, this is a big part of why Franchouchou has such a diverse audience.

It’s not just the music though. The story of Zombie Land Saga Revenge is the other great feature about it. Zombie Land Saga as a whole is one of the greatest horror-comedies ever written, and the same goes for this 2nd season. Limbs and even head popping off? All played for comedy. Even people are who frightened of their natural appearance (i.e. walking, talking putrefied corpses) are played for laughs. If you’re a fan of horror-comedies, this is definitely the anime for you.

Finally, the characters of Zombie Land Saga Revenge tie it all together. The members of Franchouchou themselves have some strong relationships with each other that get further developed over the course of the series. It’s actually why the anime has such a large LGBT fanbase. It’s not just Franchouchou either. Even the side characters have distinct looks and personalities despite being side characters, that you end up remembering them all, and caring about them.

Zombie Land Saga Revenge: The Bad

The biggest mistake was not outdoing their 1st opening, I think.

Nitpicking time! I believe Zombie Land Saga Revenge‘s opening wasn’t as good as the opening from the 1st season. The 1st opening had a better song, and more insane animation. Plus, it felt more like a horror-comedy opening than the 2nd opening.

The Stinger for the Zombie Land Saga Revenge is also a bad thing about it, while also simultaneously being one of the best. The sudden and completely unexpected genre shift will make you laugh maniacally, while also leaving you screaming at the TV for more. I mean, sudden crossover with Independence Day. How the heck will MAPPA explain that? I guess we’ll find out whenever they get around to making the 3rd season.

Conclusion

Zombie Land Saga Revenge continues the musically insane adventures of our favorite undead idols of Franchouchou. With a sudden genre shift of a Stinger at the end to boot, just as suddenly turning the whole anime into a sci-fi series. We’ll just have to wait to see how Studio MAPPA outdo themselves for the next season of this horror-comedy anime, whenever they get around to making that.

Source: Crunchyroll, Funimation