Zom 100
A review of season one
Zom 100 attempts to achieve with zombies what Spy Family achieved with spies: a fairly watchable season of well-animated action-comedy filler. Unfortunately, against a backdrop of mass death, its comedy appears callously stupid. The show has little to say and it says it all in episode one; what’s left is an idiotic protagonist frolicking through a zombie-themed spring break like a late, third-rate, tone-deaf Shaun of the Dead.
Let’s get this out of the way: for the purposes of satire and social commentary, monsters and disasters can stand for other things. Pollution awakens Godzilla, and he goes on a rampage: Godzilla stands for the cost of industrialization. Similarly, a zombie, being an unnatural, decaying mockery of a human being, can stand for an office worker: too much office work might turn a man into a zombie, or something like that. Indeed, Zom 100 opens on an exhausted, zombie-like office worker, which is somewhat relatable. In a way, each of us has our own zombies to overcome in life. For some of us, long work hours might be our zombie; for others, social anxiety or pornography addiction. But the device on its own doesn’t get us very far: you can kill a zombie with an axe; you can’t kill the economy with an axe, so what have we learned?
In Zom 100, the zombies our hero has to overcome in life are actual zombies, which have actually relieved him from office work. I appreciate that it took an extraordinary threat to catapult him out of his ennui, but to make an exhausted office worker look like a zombie, and then to attack him with unrelated zombies, is a bit undercooked as a parable. You could have attacked him with Godzilla, so again, what have we learned?
I am not really asking for didactic fiction: what I mean is, apart from some initial thrill, monsters and disasters, whether or not they stand for other things, sustain our interest only insofar as they provoke interesting developments in relatable characters. It’s why survival scenarios bringing out the best and the worst in people is an evergreen theme. It’s less about cool moves for killing zombies with an axe and more about the human condition. Who gets to share the hero’s zombie-proof bunker?
In Zom 100, the character development is about as thin as the social commentary. In episode one, the end of human civilization and the prospect of a gruesome death inspire Akira to pursue a list of childish ambitions with a reckless disregard for his safety. He proceeds to do exactly that for eleven more episodes — instead of, say, dying immediately to zombies, like anyone else probably would and almost everyone else actually does. As far as Akira is concerned, the apocalypse, for all its impressive spectacle, is about as dangerous as the haunted house ride at an amusement park.
The child-safe nature of the apocalypse is a contradiction: near-certain death prompts Akira to change; he changes in the direction of even more nearly-certain death; and the action-comedy plot protects him from the consequences of that choice, which invalidates his growth, if you can even call it growth. Either the zombies aren’t that deadly, and he might as well have had his epiphany without an apocalyptic backdrop; or he isn’t living for the present in a meaningful way, and he might as well pick up food and water while he’s looting home electronics and tequila on his motorcycle.
Either way, further character development is unnecessary: Akira wins at the end of episode one, with nothing left to do apart from having fun. Other characters may question his new outlook, events may temporarily reverse it, but the new outlook never made sense to begin with, so he can just change back at the end of the episode. So much for the human condition. Feeling stressed? Feel good instead! Quit your job and drink a case of beer. Maybe you really can kill the economy with an axe — at least, I’ve heard the power grid is vulnerable. By the way, Fight Club handled this material quite well. Again, Akira could have died immediately to zombies with a smile on his face: at least it would represent a meaningful choice to live for the present with no regrets.
Instead, through filler action-comedy, we watch an exhausted office worker enjoying a zombie-themed spring break, drinking beer and meeting girls. Of course, the premise of his happiness is the end of civilization and the gruesome deaths of nearly everyone, which is another contradiction. It’s not a black comedy; it’s just a heartless and thoughtless comedy. It hands him a cute girl and, once she’s served her purpose, feeds her to a zombie. I guess he doesn’t need to loot condoms! Her faceless corpse in a pool of bloody slime can be set dressing for the wacky antics of our lovable goofballs.
In spite of that unpleasantness, the show is never aggressively bad: it’s fairly watchable and occasionally fun. For some, those qualities, plus a few well-animated action scenes, may be enough. For this reviewer, occasional fun is an insufficient return on investment from a total of four hours of screen time, and the animation quality and other technical niceties are secondary at best to characters, conflicts, and themes.
It is not to die that makes a man wretched, said Carlyle: it is to live miserable and not know why; to work sore and yet gain nothing; to die slowly all our life long. But he also said that a man perfects himself by working; that there is endless hope in work; and that idleness alone is without hope. As it turns out, there is more than one thing to say about this evergreen theme. By the way, Full Dive handled this material quite well.
In the end, Zom 100 has too little to say about its theme and too little to do with its characters. I mean, fine: zombies can stand for office workers; they can stand for free trade, industrialism, fiat currency, or the managerial state, as you like; and the hero can kill them with an axe or something. In a way, each of us has our own zombies to overcome in life, but you can’t kill regret with an axe, so what have we learned?
Republished from my Substack.
