The Saga Rock Festival is coming up in the seventh episode of ZOMBIE LAND SAGA, but Franchouchou aren’t exactly united as one. Ai and Junko’s differing values as idols caused them to clash.
Practicing for the Saga Rock Festival
With Saga Rock Festival only a few days away, the zombies of Franchouchou are unsure as to what they should do about Junko; she locked herself away. Ai, on the other hand, has continued to practice by herself. Ultimately, the others (sans Junko) choose to join her. Ai quite literally falls to pieces with all the practice she is doing, but insists on pushing ahead regardless.
Kotaro actually has some decent advice for Junko
Whilst the girls are hard at work practicing, Kotaro decides to go and talk to Junko. After breaking through her barricade, he pretty much tells her that she doesn’t need to conform to be like modern idols. She can just be herself.
After tell Junko all that, he leaves her with a box to open when she finds her nerve.
This is a familiar scene
The day of the festival arrives, and it looks like Junko won’t be joining the rest of Franchouchou for it. Kotaro has everyone jump in the van, and just as they are leaving Junko jumps in front of it.
Sure enough, Kotaro doesn’t break in time. However, Junko is able to get back on to her feet afterwards. With that, all of Franchouchou will perform at the festival.
Franchouchou check out Iron Frill
They arrive at the Saga Rock Festival. A storm has been forecast, so Kotaro came prepared with water-proof spray. Before they go up on stage, Franchouchou take the time to check out Ai’s former group, Iron Frill. They are impressed, and Sakura feels something familiar upon seeing them on the stage.
Tae imitating Saki was somewhat cute
The time for Franchouchou to take the stage draws near, so they remain backstage. Saki tries to rally everyone, but gets scolded for making too much noise.
Franchouchou huddle before they go on stage
Franchouchou go out on stage, and sure enough the weather takes a turn for the worse. As the rain comes down and the thunder rolls, Ai still hasn’t completely overcome her fear. This shows in her performance. Fortunately, she isn’t on stage alone.
Junko is there to back up Ai
With Junko helping out Ai, they are able to make it through the rest of the song without any more problems. They can’t even begin their second song without something happening, though. I won’t go into detail here, but I will say that Ai has a radiant smile. Actually, it is almost like all of Franchouchou starts glowing…
This episode of ZOMBIE LAND SAGA may have been more on the idol side as opposed to focusing on zombie stuff, but I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. It was nice to see Kotaro actually seemingly care about the idol group her put together – that advice he gave to Junko was actually pretty good.
He did go back to being typical Kotaro just before Franchouchou went on stage at the festival, though…
It seems we are moving closer and closer to Sakura regaining her memories, and I guess music will be the thing that brings them back. That, or maybe watching someone else get hit by a van…
That was a neat throwback to the first episode. Shame the tone hasn’t been consistent, but ZOMBIE LAND SAGA has been shining in other ways.
It was nice to see two familiar faces in the crowd, too. I hope they continue to show up at every Franchouchou performance.
On the subject of performances, after Ai conquered her fear, Franchouchou’s first song was actually really good. It was closer to what I expected to hear from the zombie idols after the first episode.
It’s taken seven episodes to do it, but ZOMBIE LAND SAGA has convinced me that as an idol show, it can actually be quite good. It’s just that it tends to be better when focusing on being a comedic zombie show.
Rory Muses 
Next weekend I’m probably going to do a catch up watch on this one. I put it on hold because I just wasn’t feeling it, but I’ve enjoyed reading reviews of the last few episodes so I’ll probably just wait until I have a few hours and binge the ones I’ve missed. Hopefully it will be fun.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the episodes so far.
Did you hear the powerful confidence in Junko’s voice? That might have been the high point of the episode for me. Well, that and the lasers coming out of their fingers. That was pretty cool.