Night Of The Loving Dead: Part 3 (Zombie Land Saga Gaiden: The First Zombie)

Well now. If I was expecting anything from this manga, it certainly wasn't that.

I feel like a bit of a broken record going over it again, but it must be empathized just how much disdain I held for Zombie Land Saga Gaiden: The First Zombie (which I guess we'll just call The First Zombie, hereafter) upon reading about it on that Wiki. Looking back at those words... I'm not sure what I saw on my Wiki dive that made me freak out like that. What made me lose my mind the most was the implication that the bad luck which led to the misfortune of Franchouchou's members perishing was part of the macrocosmic curse of Saga, and me crashing out over lore looming large yet again. That, and just the entire general concept of a cute zombie idol anime show having this secret history involving ancient Chinese necromancy and the battle of a curse vs. prosperity for a sleepy prefecture in southwestern Japan.

Point is, the crashout was legendary and the information I gleamed put me off of this shit. I had vitriol in my veins and hate in my heart for it. We've gone over why that was, what everything around me was doing then, and how I had to detox. Now here I stand, a little older and (hopefully) a little wiser, and I sit down and finally confront the dread beast that is this macrocosmic manga. I fully expected the vitriol to come out, but tempered with a bit of grace. Calmly but firmly declaring that I hate this, it missed the point, and the movie managed to mix the grandiose with the intimate better. The movie. That should have been my first clue, that the movie managed to handle this and make me not hate it. Because here is the honest truth: I did not hate The First Zombie. In fact, I owe The First Zombie a massive apology. I don't know where I got half of the shit I yelled about in the original project's coda from, but it's not in here. What is in here is a story about how hate is always foolish and love is always kind. How that which we initially perceive as a monstrous force to be stopped can be understood, empathized with. How that act both purifies the monstrous into something you can stand side by side with, and purifies you by allowing you to let go of the hate in your heart and accept the power of love, to grow stronger. To grow and change. To prosper.

I'm sorry, The First Zombie. I was unfamiliar with your game, but in our encounter with each other, the words and deeds within your pages mirrored exactly what happened to me reading them. Not in the sense of I literally had encounters with bizarre supernatural beings, but that I went on the same journey of being purified from the curse which lurked within me for the last four years and change. Intimate personal progress in action. I gazed upon that which I assumed was monstrous, and with my new perspective I gained a deeper understanding of it and what it was trying to do. The First Zombie easily belongs in the annals of the greater Zombie Land Saga universe, justifying itself by remaining true to the show's themes. In some respects it might even be better than the movie, and that prospect still absolutely baffles me. I can't get into why until I talk about the movie, but before that... Here's our fair shake on The First Zombie, at long last. I think it's a brilliantly beautiful work, and here's why.

Some lip service needs to be paid to the premise, which is fairly barmy. Then again, so is "A madman in sunglasses performs necromancy to create an idol group that will bring prosperity to the prefecture of Saga in Japan". This has always been, on some level, stupid as fuck. To wit, then: The First Zombie focuses on Eikichi Hiyodo, a teenaged onion farmer from Saga in 1989. His sister Yuuko is secretly part of a group called the Sagako Busters, along with three other girls: brilliant scientist Hanako Hakase, the mysterious and troubled Anna Shuri, and the stoic no-nonsense Tae Yamada. The Busters roam around Saga hunting down mysterious monsters known as Sagako in order to stop them from spreading misunderstanding and bad vibes to the people. Yuuko does this by sealing the Sagako inside her farm's onions, which she proclaims are grown with love. Why onions? I don't know. It could be that there is some deeper cultural significance or metaphor that is going over my Western head. For now why don't we just say that, like Shrek, onions have layers and this is mirrored by the Sagako being more than just mindless monsters and something we should empathize with. In the inciting incident of the manga, Yuuko is injured while sealing away a Sagako, and is forced to seal herself inside an onion to save herself. Down a member, the Sagako Busters recruit Eikichi as a reluctant replacement, as his emotional connection to Yuuko as her sibling grants him the same onion sealing powers. 

Right away, there are several paths I could go down. Let's quiet our noisy thoughts and cut through to something with some brevity. Since she kicks off the story proper, why don't we start with Yuuko? Her absence looms large over the story, as all of the Sagako Busters care for her a great deal: especially Eikichi and Tae. Through flashbacks, we get to learn a lot about Yuuko and her caring nature, and how it applies not just to Eikichi and Tae but also to the Sagako themselves. Yuuko is a pure embodiment of the utopian ideal that shone through on this blog during the start of the decade (and still does, I'd like to think!) and it's her earnest belief in the ability to purify and understand the intentions of the Sagako which allows the Busters to save the day multiple times in her absence. Eikichi and Tae strive to live up to Yuuko's lofty utopian ideals over the course of the manga, both struggle to do that in her absence, and both love Yuuko very much. For Eikichi this is obviously deep familial love, but for Tae it's something far more sapphic. Just gals being pals. Sapphic energy with Tae is something we're going to need to tackle when we do the movie, so seeing it here is always welcome. In a cute nod to where Tae will eventually end up, she will later confess that her dream is for her and Yuuko to become pop idols. We never see Yuuko again after this manga, but in a way Tae did manage to keep that dream alive.

(Something to consider when it comes to Eikichi's connection with his sister: he shares enough of her same energy to be able to become an onion-sealing member of the Sagako Busters, an all-girl group who literally introduce themselves with the monikers of purity, righteousness, and beauty. As the manga continues, it's clear he has that same deep wellspring of empathy as Yuuko does. Eikichi and gender are... complex, and there's something there. On the one hand, one chapter has him train to become the perfect man in order to woo a lovelorn Sagako causing problems at a host club, and he manages to imbue himself with the charismatic traits of masculinity. On the other, there's a bit where he has to cross-dress in order to lure out a Sagako targeting women. Immediately upon seeing himself as a girl, he remarks at how pretty he looks. Furthermore, when he eventually removes the wig to engage the Sagako, he yells that this is the true power of crossdressing. I really feel like I'm grasping at slender reeds in calling Eikichi some flavor of genderfluid, the way he can imbue both traditional masculine heroic tendencies as well as the feminine energy of his sister and her skill set, but there's something here and it needed to be commented on.)

Yuuko's empathy and grace haunts the narrative of The First Zombie, and it's so omnipresent that it stretches out into the structural design of the comic. You can see it as early as issue 1 with the paneling: the domestic scenes are paneled with clear straight lines, well-ordered and neat. When we get our first glimpse of a Sagako, both the action and the paneling become a chaotic mess, angular and kinetic. As soon as Yuuko steps in to purify it, we return to straight lines. Her caring calm has an effect on the very paneling of the book. Even when things go wrong and Yuuko has to sacrifice herself, there's only a little of the angular chaos. The curse of Saga is fighting back, but her good vibes are just as present in ultimately stabilizing the comic. This trend will continue as we go through the various battles against the Sagako. There will be an attack, the paneling will slant and twist and angle, but something will always straighten it out. Be it Eikichi getting more confident in his ability to fill Yuuko's shoes as a purifier, or other characters having a crisis of character before centering themselves with determination, the comic itself is a visual shorthand, a canvas for showing the heart and soul of the book.

Yuuko's haunting heart, the empathy and grace that her friends strive to live by, is key to understanding The First Zombie.. This is a story about love, monstrosity, grief and guilt. Two sudden thoughts came to me while mulling over the manga, and they hit like shots out of a fucking gun. This is a story all about the Sagako, beings initially perceived as monsters who we end up giving empathy to, and trying to understand instead of fear. That sounds really familiar, I wonder if I've heard of a similar story involving learning to understand that which appears traditionally monstrous--

OH WELL WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT? It turns out that at its core, The First Zombie holds itself true to the very ideals which made its parent series sing to me in the first place! Ah, but isn't this story bucking against genre? It's taking the low-key chill idol girl stuff of Zombie Land Saga and turning it into some big dumb monster encounter thing! Grr argh the macrocosm infects all I touch, rawr 2022 me is so steamed right now! Well, you gigantic moron from the past, how about you chew on this one? What's another story with monster battling that ends up being a commentary on utopia and understanding, and how you should try to empathize with what you're fighting instead of killing the shit out of it?

FREZNO INFERNO YOU DUMB SON OF A BITCH! IT WAS SYMPHOGEARCORE THE ENTIRE FUCKING TIME! I am blown away that I could reject something so on brand for me just because of a genre shift and some dumb bullshit I read on a goddamn fan Wiki! I'm allowed to self-deprecate a little here, but holy shit I missed the mark. When this shit hits, it hits hard. We even have Tae state it outright during one fantastic chapter: "What's going to save Saga is love". Said chapter, by the way, is a standout. It's the only real indulgence the manga has with being a prequel to Zombie Land Saga, featuring a Sagako at a school that interferes in the love confessions of the students. The Busters seal it away and allow a couple to earnestly express their feelings for each other, the deep blossoming love they have. This pair of students will go on to become the parents of Lily Hoshikawa of Franchouchou. We already know the tragedy that will befall her father in the future, first losing his wife and then his daughter. We know the grief in his heart will be healed by Franchouchou's song. What's going to save Saga is love, and we see one of the many seeds of that love sewn here as the Busters help foster a wellspring of affections that will touch across time.

The enemy of love, however, is hate. Malfeasance and misunderstanding. It's telling that, with one major exception, the Sagako aren't traditional destructive monsters. Rather, they foster misunderstanding: for example, the one at the high school we just discussed which ruined love confessions. An earlier one made couples quarrel at a lover's cape. Hate, though, can utterly poison your heart and leave you unable to open it again. I'm not just talking about the characters in the comic, which I will do shortly. I'm talking about myself here and my reaction to the manga. As I read, I was shocked to discover that the call was coming from inside the house. I was ensnared within my own magic circle, as much a part of the ritual as the characters. We have told the story of how the hate in my heart fostered, and you know how I healed from it. You know, from my praise of this comic thus far, that I now give The First Zombie the love it deserves. Now it's up to the characters to learn it, and confront the avatar of their hate. There are two paths that can be taken when it comes to hate: you either let it fester or you let it go. We see both approaches in The First Zombie, and one ends a hell of a lot better than the other.

The more pessimistic approach is shown by the words and deeds of Detective Higashino, a side antagonist whose influence looms over the middle portion of the manga. He arrives, initially, to spark a two-chapter arc in which Anna Shuri has her own lingering doubts and guilt regarding her backstory as a former thief/police informant for Higashino, before she overcomes such bad vibes and gains new resolve. In doing so, however, Higashino becomes aware of the existence of the Sagako. He immediately starts fucking everything up by just killing them with a gun, which only makes the curse of Saga reconstitute itself into a stronger form. Even as the paneling gets chaotic again in the scenes where Higashino fights the Sagako, he is not dynamic and kinetic like the Busters. He's stoic, rigid, and unloads hot lead into the Sagako with a cold expression. Why is he doing this? For fame, power, recognition... anything to further his prowess. That cold unfeeling nature is what gets everyone in trouble, manifesting the main antagonist Sagako: Magatsuhi. Things go from bad to worse, and once Higashino realizes he's been played like a fiddle, he gets a taste of power. That power being impaled through the chest by Magatsuhi. 

Like, he just straight up dies. The final page before his death is another structural triumph, just a collage of disparate thoughts flooding the page like noise as the margins fill with static instead of the traditional white. This is what the hate in Higashino's heart has done: it's fuzzed over the song in his heart with signal interference. Holding on to the hate in your heart for power's sakes will lead you to an early grave. It's worth signposting just how shocking this is. It's not as if people haven't died in Zombie Land Saga before; I mean, this is a show about seven walking corpses singing and dancing. We even see many of their deaths, some more tragicomic than others. Other than that Meiji-era guy from Yugiri's backstory, we've never seen such a straight-up violent death like this that isn't played as a morbid joke. It's not funny, and it's not supposed to be. Higashino is not the only one to be affected by Magatsuhi, however. Right after his death, we get the most chaotic Sagako encounter yet as Tae unleashes an assault on it. Just a page before she goes apeshit, we get a spread similar to Higashino's, in which Tae has a traumatic flashback that's drowning in that same static fuzz. 

There are very good reasons for things to get this anarchic. Magatsuhi, you see, is the keystone to Tae's tragic backstory. Her parents were folklorists who ended up finding this strange supernatural child, caring for it in secret and leaving the young Tae to feel neglected, to retreat into a world of solitary inversion. Then, when the authorities got involved and tried to rip the young Magatsuhi away from the Yamadas, it became monstrous. Death and destruction were left in its wake, including Tae's parents. This is the hate at the heart of The First Zombie. The anger and resentment that burns in Tae's heart for Magatsuhi. It took her parents from her twice: first in siphoning away their love and affection like a new baby sibling, then ripping them from this mortal coil. There's more than just hate festering, though, but also guilt. Tae blames herself for this, and believes her solitary stoic nature is her penance. The curse of Saga towers over her internal landscape like a monolith, blocking out the sunny warmth of positivity. You can't block out the sun forever. It's time for Tae to step out of the shadows and into the light.

The final arc of The First Zombie is a thing of beauty, in which all of these threads finally coalesce into something transcendent and magical. In one corner, Tae Yamada, determined to face her sins and kill the dread beast that took her parents from her. In the other, Magatsuhi, a being strengthened by Higashino's hate, a supposed mindless beast that can't be bargained or reasoned with. Or can it? Because Eikichi is here, and Eikichi is holding the hopes and dreams of his sister Yuuko. He's had his struggles, he's had his low points, but he's come back from them stronger... and now he's here to support Tae. To tell her that there's always another way. Let's do what Yuuko always wanted to do with the Sagakos, and try understanding instead of violence. It doesn't work as first, but then we have some help.

Yuuko's way worked. The assembled purified Sagakos from the rest of the manga are here to help. They're not monsters at all, but friends. We can understand and learn from them... just as we can understand and learn from zombies. Mutual understanding is possible, between humans and Sagako, between humans and zombies... and maybe even between Tae and Magatsuhi. With a warm hug, fully coming into his own, Eikichi sends Tae on her way. She can understand Magatsuhi now. Behind the hate, the monstrosity, the power fueled by the curse? There's a child longing for motherly love. Tae and Magatsuhi are mirrors, each lonely children at heart that have let hate fester. Fester no more. Tae accepts Magatsuhi, sealing it away inside herself. Before it does, its mask shatters and we see the face of her demon. It looks a lot like herself as a child. Is this a manifestation of her self-loathing and guilt? Whatever it is, the battle ends not with murder and hate. What's going to save Saga is love.

I have to applaud the manga here, and not just for the absolute beauty of this empathetic utopian climax. It would have been so easy to close the circle here, to have a terrible battle where the cost is Tae's life. To canonically explain how she fell, breathlessly filling the gap and solving the nature of her death. I had assumed the manga would do that, back when I hated that, and a lot of that was due to my prior experience with Star Trek and Enterprise. Enterprise Season 4, which I despised, did a lot of that kind of shit. Closing the circle and filling in the gap to explain how we got to the showrunners' beloved Captain Kirk reruns. The First Zombie is so much more than that. Tae still dies, as she must, but she dies sometime in 1991 under unknown circumstances. You cannot solve the legendary Tae Yamada so easily. The point is not in filling in points on your lore board, or entries on your fan wiki. The point is the work, and how it made you feel. So, how did The First Zombie make me feel?

It feels great. As part of the ritual, it's my turn to let go of the hate in my heart. The macrocosm hurt me in 2021/2. It wounded me over and over, building that resentment in me. It made me look at the premise of a thing like The First Zombie, or a teaser like the aliens at the end of ZLS Revenge, and it made me froth at the mouth. I had to go on my own healing journey, and while I didn't have an onion-sealing prodigy at my side, I had friends and mentors who believed in me, my well-being, and my ability to heal. I have healed, and I'm ready to admit I was wrong. Hating The First Zombie was wrong of me. Despite the change of genre, it absolutely holds the heart and soul of Zombie Land Saga within its pages. Like that work, it teaches us not to dismiss the monstrous as evil, but to try and gain understanding for it. Like that work, it shows us that negativity can be overcome, that you can stand tall and shout your heart out. That you can have a second chance to put right what once went wrong, even if that first time ended in misery and death.

I let the hate in my heart go. I accept you as a part of my internal landscape, First Zombie. I'm sorry I neglected you until now, due to my own myopia. No longer. Welcome home.

Now then, about that motion picture with the fucking aliens...