REVIEW: ‘Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead’ Episode 1 — “Akira of the Dead”

It’s here. The anime of the Summer. Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead Episode 1 is animated by the studio BUG FILMS and directed by Kazuki Kawagoe, and the series composition is written by Hiroshi Seko (VINLAND SAGA; Attack on Titan Final Season; Mob Psycho 100). The Japanese voice cast and characters include Shuichiro Umeda as Akira Tendo/Akira, Tomori Kusunoki as Shizuka Mikazuki/Shizuka, Makoto Furukawa as Kenichiro Ryuzaki/Kencho, and Minami Takahashi as Beatrix Amerhauser.

The series follows Akira Tendo, a wage-slave with three years under his belt at the company from hell who is completely mentally and physically spent at the ripe old age of 24. Even his crush from Accounting, Saori, wants nothing to do with him. Then, just when life is beginning to look like one big disappointment, the zombie apocalypse descends on Japan and gives him the chance to live. Surrounded by hordes of hungry zombies, Akira comes to a realization that will forever change his life. Instead of being consumed with surviving in the zombie apocalypse, the series is about marking items off of your bucket list and living for the first time.

In this premiere episode, Zom 100 captures the Akira’s descent into wage-slavery. He is tied to his desk, kept their by team dinners so that he can’t go home, and a dream career morphs into something that’s killing him. A zombie before the zombie apocalypse every happened, Akira is empty. Go to work, work overtime, maybe make it back in two-days time. Instead of just presenting us with a broken person, Zom 100 Episode 1 shows Akira breaking under the promise of paid time off but pushed to compete with his coworkers to see who can make it past a 200 hours of straight work mark. It’s terrifying how similar the soul-sucking and abusive work environment is, and that makes Akira endlessly relatable.

Taking the time to show the last three years of Akira’s work life, the series sets the stage well. When your life is so empty, the world ending is actually full of possibilities. To expand this opening of the manga into one 30-minute episode was an expert choice by BUG FILMS. It shows the audience the zombified life that Akira lived versus the one he will live trying to not become an actual zombie.

There is a moment in Zom 100 Episode 1 where Akira contemplates suicide because then, he wouldn’t need to go to work tomorrow. Immediately after the audience hears the background of the television talking about being so depressed that you’re driven to take your life. Done in black and white, the audience sees Akira’s disassociation and helplessness. While this is a larger critique of work culture in Japan, I can’t say that I haven’t had Akira’s exact thought more than once in the past three years. Prices keep rising, living is expensive, wages are lower than ever in my sector, I get it.

In a smart break from his old reality, BUG FILMS keeps the black and white animation, using vibrant colors as blood. It’s like a pollack painting in this transition and it works to sell just how jublient Akira is at the end of the world. Because he doesn’t have to go to work tomorrow. Instead of the episode being drenched in blood, the blood is a neon painting that signifies happiness, not fear. The world has color again, and Akira can live.

One of the few anime streamed on Hulu, Netflix, and Crunchyroll weekly, ZOM 100: Bucket List of the Dead is a series that’s bound for greatness. It captures the humor that comes from being someone with an absolutely broken soul in a way that is never making fun of Akira. Similar to Chainsaw Man’s Denji—and I make this comparison loosely—Akira is endearing because of how much in life he hasn’t experienced and how bad his life was to make just confessing his feelings for a girl a bucket list item.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead Episode 1 is the perfect adaptation of the opening of the manga. The extra time spent learning about Akira’s work-life and the animation choices and use of color make the anime essential for fans of the existing work. While the manga is great, the way that BUG FILMS has visually captured the Akira’s sorrow and joy is perfection. In fact, it adds a new layer to the story. While the manga volume covers have always been vibrantly colored, seeing that color scheme brought in for the animation’s bloody moments keeps the tone of the series light, balanced against a grim setting. Additionally, using scoring elements and action animation that is common in shonen series makes Zom 100 dynamic in animation in a way that even exceeds Aso’s work. Everything works in this premiere episode, and it’s easy to see that this will be one of the top anime of the Summer Anime Season.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead Episode 1 is streaming now on Crunchyroll, Hulu, and Netflix, with new episodes every Sunday in July.