AKB48: "Sailor Zombie" drama episode nine recap

 Air Dates: April 18th to July 19, 2014 on TV Tokyo Friday nights at 12:52 am

Main Cast:

The AKB members

Nana Owada as Maiko

Juri Takahashi as Mutsumi

Rina Kawaei as Momoka

Plus the sub unit trio of Milk Planet who sing the theme song and introduce the episodes

The rest....

Rina Koike as Arina

Karin Aiba as Nakajima

Seira Maeda as Mao

Yumi Iida as Iori

Rika Kazami as Tabuchi

Reiko Fujiwara as Reiko

Kei Ishibashi as teacher Terakawa

Kazuyuki Aijima as the Vice-Principal

 Episode title: Reminiscence

 On to the final four episodes for this series though there will be only three recaps as the ones for the last two shows were combined. May help to read the previous recaps to know what's been going on but briefly at the end of the seventh episode zombies had invaded the Fujimi high school. A group of five students had managed to escape, for now we don't know what's happened to the other ten or so girls along with the three teachers.
 The five managed to hook up with a pair of humans who were traveling in a truck that was towing a camper where the girls are staying. But in the last show two of the students had been mistakenly shot and killed by an older man who turned his gun on himself when he realized his error and he too is dead. That brings us up to date and let's get on with these final recaps.

 The three surviving students are the two main heroines, Maiko and Mutsumi along with another classmate named Mao. The trio are still traveling with two older women they ran across who are Aika, she was a member of the Japanese Defense Forces. The other woman is Midori who the girls had met briefly in the fourth show, she had been a nurse at a hospital which was overrun by zombies. For now the five are traveling aimlessly through the countryside with their main goal being to survive and perhaps finding other living humans.
 The truck happened to pass by a familiar sight to Mao, the location is near where her father lives. She talks everyone into visiting his house but when they arrive they're a bit too late as Mao's father has turned into a zombie though one that still seems to retain some human feelings. Mao hadn't seen her father for a while as he was divorced from her mother, in his zombie state he walks around his beloved motorcycle all day long looking at his phone waiting for a call or e-mail from Mao.

 Mao desperately wanted to see her father but in his state it seems impossible so the fivesome retreat to spend the night hidden away. Around a campfire the five have a pleasant girl to girl talk and reminisce about their previous lives which and it seems those good times will never happen again. Kind of a drawn out scene but one of the better parts of this episode.
 The following day Mao realizes she has to see her father at least once more, it doesn't matter to her that he's now a zombie. Mao says sayonara to the quartet and says she's going to stay with her father regardless of his condition. She travels to his house and even though her father is now a zombie he seems overjoyed to see his daughter even though zombies aren't supposed to have feelings. Unknown to Mao the other four silently followed her to the house where they witnessed a brutal scene.

 As mentioned at first the zombie father was glad to see Mao but then his true instincts came out. After hugging her the zombie couldn't control himself and ended up killing his own daughter who as we'll see in the next episodes has turned into a zombie herself. Outside the house the four witnessed the gruesome killing which was actually the highlight of the show, especially when we saw blood splatter on a window. There was nothing else the four survivors could do for for their friend so they left the area which also brought us to the conclusion of the episode.
 May have been the shortest recap but then again the next one could be as not much happened in that show either. This entire episode took place at Mao's father's house or at the campsite, while this and the next show weren't bad they could have been combined into one. Recaps for the remaining shows are the posts just below this one.

AKB48: "Sailor Zombie" drama episode ten recap

 Air Dates: April 18th to July 19, 2014 on TV Tokyo Friday nights at 12:52 am

Main Cast:

The AKB members

Nana Owada as Maiko

Juri Takahashi as Mutsumi

Rina Kawaei as Momoka

Plus the sub unit trio of Milk Planet who sing the theme song and introduce the episodes

The rest....

Rina Koike as Arina

Karin Aiba as Nakajima

Seira Maeda as Mao

Yumi Iida as Iori

Rika Kazami as Tabuchi

Reiko Fujiwara as Reiko

Kei Ishibashi as teacher Terakawa

Kazuyuki Aijima as the Vice-Principal

 Episode title: Merciless

 First time in a while I've finished a drama though think my viewing of them will increase. Had been watching and recapping the "Kakegurui" drama when my laptop crashed and figured I would never pick the series back up. However will be doing that this week as it seemed like it was going to be an excellent series, much better than this one plus there's going to be a second season next year.

 Still think this and the previous episode could have somehow been combined into one show, both plots were decent but the shows did drag quite a bit. As you can see by these screenshots were Maiko and Mutsumi transformed into zombies? There was no indication that they were ever attacked and bitten by one so we weren't totally sure of what was going on for the first 2/3 of the show. There's also Japanese subtitles for the viewers there as the girls just mumbled in zombie talk.
 Seemed as though even zombies still have to go to high school, that's where much of the action takes place and we even see all of the other students who had been killed off in previous episodes. They don't appear to be true zombies without any feelings because a group of four notice a young man about their age and all swoon for his good looks. But the problem is that this young man, who we never learned what his name was, is a human who enjoys killing zombies.

 The Milk Planet trio got tired of the Japanese subs and managed to get them turned off. The quartet of girls of course features Maiko and Mutsumi but also Momoka who we hadn't seen in the last two shows, Tabuchi who was killed in episode seven rounds out the foursome. They follow the good looking man around and watch him kill too many zombies to count. Zombies even have stores as the boy entered a store which was managed by a zombie, the boss didn't take too kindly to him taking food off the shelves and in his anger the boy ended up killing the boss and his workers.
 Those actions didn't deter the girls from following the boy as they were all smitten by his looks. But there's no way they could meet him or else he would butcher them too. That didn't seem to faze Tabuchi who just had to be with him, she ran up to the boy which proved to be a fatal mistake as he ended her life rather quickly. Her death didn't deter the trio of Maiko, Mutsumi and Momoka who still had a 'zombie crush' on the young man. They thought that if they acted like humans the boy may take a liking towards them and began blaring some music while dancing inanely.

 Hearing the music the boy heads to the location only to find three idiotic zombies trying to dance like humans. Seemed the boy felt bad for what he was about to do and wished he didn't have to shoot the girls but those feelings weren't strong enough as one by one he gunned them down. That brought us to the sixteen minute mark in the 22+ minute show and the killings weren't the end. At that mark Maiko woke up from a dream and was surrounded by her three traveling mates.
 No time to relate what happened in her dream as soon their mini camp was overrun by zombies and it was time to flee. But out of a trailer window Maiko noticed the face of one of the zombies, it was the same face as the young man had in her dream. She pleaded for them to stop which the others reluctantly did and she jumped out of the trailer.
 Holding an Uzi or some gun like that Maiko approached the young man/zombie and proceeded to send him back to his grave. In her dream seemed Maiko got some inkling from the young man on what it was like living as a zombie, to put him out of his misery she ended his life for a second time. Brings up a question which I had thought of a few times prior is how do you kill a zombie? Wouldn't think guns would be effective and perhaps burning or dismembering them would be the best solution. With that young zombie being killed for the second time this episode came to it's conclusion.

 The last four episodes were okay but nothing more than that, after the eighth show they've gone a bit down as far as the action or story goes as the shows have dragged a bit. The plots and ideas seem to have been fine though, perhaps it's because it's an Idol drama but the shows should have been so much better but at least the killing scenes have been fairly decent. Next post has the recap for the final two episodes.