The One With… Sakura going through depression, as she goes through her character arc at quite possibly the worst time imaginable, given Franchouchou's first live show is happening very soon...
The first half of the final story arc for Season One.
In the last episode, Sakura Minamoto managed to goof up a little when it came to working as a team. Luckily, she managed to realize the errors of her ways and decided to join in with Franchouchou again, confident that she's ready to tackle the group's first live show at Arpino a week from now! Well, that is, until she carelessly got struck by a truck like she did a decade ago. The good news is that she gained her past memories back, but the very bad news is that it costed her the rest of her memories. Specifically, the memories she had as a zombie...
It is a dark and stormy night for Saga, as we see a familiar shot of the room where Sakura woke back up in the start of this series. In fact, Sakura ends up waking in said room- complete with make-up on! The oblivious Sakura heads out of the room and into the hallway...and runs into Tae, whose very excited to see her finally awake! A little too excited, as she's drooling from the mouth. This terrifies Sakura (given that she has never seen a zombie before- remember, she has forgotten Franchouchou), as she pushes Tae away before she escapes to the next she can find.
Sakura enters the room where our resident zombies sleep in and steps on Lily (by accident, thankfully), but not before she trips over Saki. This wakes up the biker girl zombie and is quite pissed. Unfortunately, Sakura is scared out of her wits to notice, and hides in the corner of the room. Even when the lights are on, Sakura is still terrified of these walking talking corpses, so she grabs the nearby fireplace poker to defend herself, which gives Ai some brief PTSD (yes, she remembered being stabbed in the head by one, somehow).
Sakura begins to hyperventilate, and declares that it's best to give up. She says to herself that everything she does- ends up in failure. With her new (old?) depressive attitude, she sadly slumps down, waiting for the worst to happen. As the rest of Franchouchou are stuck with the 'past' Sakura who resembles nothing like they've seen before, Tae bursts into the room so she can give Sakura a great big hug. Or at least, a chomp on the head.
But...Sakura has given up on all of her faith, care and hope in her past life. She really does not have what it takes...
Sakura wakes up in that familiar room again, but this time, without any make-up on. And guess who's right next to her? The famous Ai Mizuno, of course! Sakura is surprised to see a veteran idol (that of Iron Frill fame) appear in a random mansion she happened to wake up in. Ai then questions Sakura if she knows about her phone number, address and family. And sure enough, Sakura remembers all. Ai then gives Sakura the cold harsh truth...she's been dead this entire time.
The last time we saw Sakura learn that fact, she was too confused to care. But now with her past memories restored...well...let's just say that she recollects her last moments of being alive, to begin with. Smashed by a truck, flung high into the air, and coming back down onto the ground, with her head cracked on the pavement. With that heavy realization, her state of mentality flatlines- and shatters into a million pieces at once.
Meanwhile, the rest of Franchouchou anxiously await for Sakura to reunite with the group. With Kotaro gone for the day to do 'business' (most likely an excuse to drown his sorrows a bit due to Sakura's latest depression arc starting), the group are left with Ai to deal with Sakura for the time being.
Sakura and Ai meet up with the rest of the girls, and much to their sadness, Sakura has forgot everything about them alongside the times they've had together as an idol group. That being said, Ai mentions Sakura that she's come so far as an idol, even managing to score the group their first ever upcoming concert. Unfortunately, Sakura is still ridden with depression thanks to her death ruining everything in relation to her life, so she once again states that she doesn't have what it takes. With that, she leaves the girls to have their fun while she shuts herself in from the entire world. And what's even more troubling, is that Sakura is completely willing to give up Franchouchou just because her life is now nothing to her anymore...and being undead will just make things worse.
Later that night, we see Kotaro doing 'business' in the form of hanging around at a very old bar known as "Bar New Jofuku". We're briefly introduced to the bar's mysterious owner, who is tending to Kotaro with his quips and sturdy chatter. On top of that, he's literally the only other person in the world who knows of Kotaro's "Zombie Land Saga Project", and continues to warn Kotaro to never abuse Yugiri (given he knew her back then). However, this mysterious bearded bartender is probably the only friend Kotaro has, so at the very least, he's got that old buffoon for support.
Back at the mansion, our six zombie girls are restless and are unable to sleep well unless they can sort something out with the mentally destroyed Sakura. Ai has already failed at that job, so Saki is up next. As she goes to "clean some sweat off", Saki manages to pass through Sakura's depressive barricade and decides to deal with Sakura face-to-face.
While Saki uses her burning rage to console Sakura out of her funk, our depressive corpse retorts with the fact that arguing is utterly useless to her at this point. Saki resorts to a hard hitting slap to the face, but it does nothing but endlessly spin Sakura's head. Saki goes back to her bed, feeling defeated and holding back sadness.
Junko gets up, and states that she'll "go listen to the waves in a seashell", and tries her best to console Sakura with her heartwarming attitude, given that Sakura consoled with her before...only to be coldly rejected by Sakura herself with a blunt order to simply "spit it out". Junko goes back to bed immediately, broken and on the verge of tears.
Lily attempts to have a go at "looking at the sky" thanks to some 'shooting stars', and does a good job at helping Sakura out. At first. While Lily reminds Sakura about the time she complimented Lily's star accessory, the shooting star idol gives the accessory to Sakura, just for a test run. Sakura puts it in wrongly, which Lily states- and that is just enough to drive Sakura into complete madness. No matter how hard Sakura tries, she's never gonna do it right. So she straight up admits to Lily that she will never become an idol, and our poor little Lily goes back to bed, crying and sobbing.
With Tae too busy sleeping, it's up to Yugiri of all people to save the day...and when you mess with her, you know you've done screwed up. Yugiri "prepares the room" by dressing up in her oiran gear, and waltzes her way to the room where Sakura would have been, but Yugiri took a bit too long with preparations this time, as Sakura has already escaped from Franchouchou's sights, and has already left the mansion on her own.
While the girls are stuck inside the mansion, Romero wanders off to go look for Sakura. As the girls are currently at the mansion's entrance, its just a coincidence that (a now sober) Kotaro comes back from his day of 'business', only to be caught off-guard by the rotting zombie girls (who all sport glowing red eyes, including Yugiri- who's still in oiran garb).
As Sakura walks down a lonely road by her lonesome, she begins to recount her dark, depressive life. As you see, Sakura didn't just die unlucky. She was born unlucky. In fact, one might say that her true Legendary status is none other than "The Legendary Jinx".
Her life consisted of a multitude of broken, shattered dreams thanks to her massive bad luck trait. Firstly, her dream of becoming a well-known actress was destroyed during Sakura's third grade of school, as she was given an opportunity to be the school play's lead. Unfortunately, even though she memorized every line and action without fail, she was struck down with a terrible cold on the day of the school play. Even though she was vaccinated beforehand.
Secondly, her dream of becoming an amazing athlete was destroyed throughout the rest of her elementary school life. Despite the fact that Sakura was capable of being part of the relay team for the school field day, and despite being capable of breaking the school record itself...she broke her ankle during the opening ceremony of the field day. Thrice. Which means her dream was destroyed over the course of three years, which was even worse than the last broken dream.
And lastly, her penultimate dream was to become one of the most academically skilled beings in Saga, by enrolling into one of the best high schools in the prefecture. By cutting all forms of leisure and entertainment in her life, she was able to perfectly ace her mock exam. But on the day of the exam, however...she was stuck helping three old ladies who all needed her help. Therefore, she was unable to focus during the exam when she arrived on time, and failed completely- which forced her to go to one of the least successful schools in Saga as a result, and that meant her third dream was destroyed altogether.
Despite the fact that her high school acquaintances and pals looked up to Sakura as being one of the most incredibly talented people in all of Saga, Sakura was ridden with bad luck as usual, and gave her the immense depression that she was stuck with for the rest of her life. But Sakura managed to find hope in the form of Ai Mizuno, the lead center of the original Iron Frill. As Sakura watches an interview of Ai, the legendary Heisei idol states that mistakes are not the end of the world, but rather just things that can be improved to perfect one's self.
With Sakura's spirits lifted, her final dream was to become just like Ai...to become a legendary idol singer. And while she really did try, she ended up as a zombie instead...all thanks to one truck, and all thanks to her incredibly unlucky life.
With this massive flashback coming to an end, our friendly neighborhood Policeman "A" comes out to check up on Sakura, who he sees as someone that might've been ditched or left heartbroken. But he then takes a closer look, and he sees her as a rotting zombie. Just like before, he flips out and grabs his gun. While Sakura is ready to be shot in the head, the Policeman gets decked in the head by an oncoming sports ball.
But who decided to kick that ball in the first place? Why Kotaro, of course! But Sakura doesn't even know who he is, obviously...either way, Kotaro doesn't want Sakura rotting at the local park, so he takes her away to the Kagamiyama Observatory for a very important talk.
Kotaro, as usual, begins using metaphors to help Sakura fully understand what her purpose in death is. He compares the darkened sections of Saga to Sakura's depression, and compares the surrounding lights to the rest of Franchouchou, as he tries to get Sakura to realize that Franchouchou needs Sakura to shine bright, so all of Saga can shine brighter than any other prefecture in Japan.
But, sadly, this is Sakura we're dealing with- and a very depressive Sakura at that. Regardless, she is still too dumb to understand metaphors. All she wants to do unfortunately, is to rot as a corpse. Her dreams are constantly being destroyed, so why even bother at this point? Despite the fact that one of the last memories in her life was her partaking in an Iron Frill concert, she still ended up dying. Sakura has given in to depression, and while she can't die anymore, she's willing to completely live the rest of her afterlife doing absolutely nothing. She screams all of this right at Kotaro's face, which disgusts him. So with Sakura's anger unleashed at Kotaro, he leaves her to think about what she just said. All of it.
Sakura then gloomily says that she didn't wanted him to rub it in her face...and out of complete nowhere, Kotaro comes back to remind Sakura about one important detail that she has always failed to notice: he never would truly leave her be.
While Sakura has suffered enough and wants to be left out of Franchouchou, Kotaro doesn't give a single damn about Sakura's depression. At this point, Kotaro is fully committed to Sakura's dream of becoming an idol. In fact, he confesses to her- and this time, without any metaphor in sight- that he will never abandon her. With Sakura stuck with the determined idol producer for the rest of her afterlife, she's forced into a position she never wanted to be part of. And with just mere days before the Arpino concert takes place, the fate of Franchouchou lies within Sakura Minamoto herself.
Tropes:
- Call-Back:
- Zombie Land Saga E01
- The first few minutes of the episode are almost a play-by-play reference to the first episode.
- Sakura once again wakes up in a dark, dreary mansion, unsure of how she got there.
- Tae jumps her once again, only this time it appears that Tae is trying to check on her to see if she's okay. Sakura, despite having spent the whole season getting to know Tae, acts like she doesn't recognize her.
- She once again stumbles into a room where the other girls are located, only this time the girls are now fully cognizant and are trying to make sure she's okay.
- She threatens to stab Ai in the head with a poker again, prompting the latter to cringe in fear. Only this time, Sakura dejectedly gives up and falls to her knees in despair.
- Zombie Land Saga E02
- Saki once again tries to intimidate Sakura, only this time it's so the latter remembers the time the two have spent together all season.
- Zombie Land Saga E01
- Compliment Backfire: Lily tries to cheer up Sakura by telling her she's cute, even offering her signature star ornament for Sakura to try on. Sakura's response says it all though.Sakura:"Really? What if I wear the star, does it look cute then?"
Lily: "Uh... you're doing it wrong."
Sakura: "If you're cute those details don't matter. But the harder I try to be cute, the dumber and uglier I end up looking. Because... I'm a failure!"
Sakura tosses the star into the ground, frightening Lily. - Kick the Dog: Sakura of all people delves into this in her depressed state.
- She brushes off all of Saki's attempts to snap her out of her funk, leaving the biker frustrated and helplessly returning to bed.
- Junko tries to help her, but Sakura responds with a cold gesture that leaves Junko unable to respond. She goes back to her bed on the verge of tears.
- She snaps in front of Lily when the girl just wanted to help her remember the times they shared as Franchouchou. Lily retreats to her bed and sobs into her pillow.
- Averted with Yugiri, as Sakura has already left the mansion by the time she's ready to try and help.
- Once More, with Clarity: It turns out Sakura has faced hardship after hardship that prevented her from achieving any of her goals, to the point that it killed any self-esteem or motivation in life. That is, until she saw Ai and Iron Frill perform, putting more weight to the opening scene of her going to audition to become an idol...and then having a fatal run-in with a truck. Upon learning she's dead, Sakura's depression and helplessness returned with a vengeance.
- The Reveal: Kotaro has been receiving help from a mysterious bartender (who is revealed to be known as Xu Fu in the second season), who seems to be old enough to have known Yugiri when she was alive.
- Rude Awakening: While running into the girls' bedroom, Sakura trips over Lily and Saki, waking them up along with the others.
