Episode 1

**Good Morning SAGA** (**グッドモーニング SAGA**, *Guddo Mōningu Saga*) is the first episode of the first season of the Zombie Land Saga anime, and is the first episode of the overall series.

## Plot

Sakura Minamoto is a normal girl starting her second year of high school. Hoping to change her life, Sakura plans to apply to be an idol, plans that end when she is hit by a truck as she leaves her home.

Disoriented, Sakura wakes up alone in a gloomy-looking room, when a mysterious girl comes out and attacks a frightened Sakura out of nowhere. After narrowly escaping, she hides in a room. Unfortunately, she stumbles upon a corpse, awakening 5 more zombies. After stabbing one in the head, Sakura runs out of the mansion.

Outside the mansion, Sakura reassures herself that she is safe and discovers that she is currently in Saga prefecture, far from her home. Then a policeman appears, and Sakura, relieved to have found someone to help her, asks for help. But after seeing the police officer's shocked reaction when looking at her, she looks in a mirror. She realizes that she is also a zombie. Surprisingly, Sakura looks down to see that she has just been shot in the chest and falls to the ground. However, before passing out, she sees a mysterious man standing over her. Sakura wakes up again in the mansion and immediately looks in a mirror to confirm that she was not dreaming of looking like a zombie. When the mysterious man suddenly appears next to her and introduces himself as Kotaro Tatsumi, she learns that she died 10 years ago and is currently a zombie.

Sakura was taken to a cell-like room to be introduced to the other girls, who still act like mindless zombies. Kotaro tells Sakura that the girls will become local idols to save Saga prefecture, calling it the “Zombie land Saga Project”. He also assures Sakura that the other zombies will regain sanity once they wake up with some stimulation.

Later that night, at a death metal festival, the girls do a death metal performance on stage as a group called Death Musume (working name). Despite Sakura's apparent misgivings, the girls quickly react to the music and manage to get through the performance. However, only with screaming and headbanging, during which Sakura recalls a memory of when she was alive. Nevertheless, the performance chaotically ended with girls attacking the crowd, and the concert itself was a success.

The next morning, Sakura is sitting on the porch of the mansion, remembering how she enjoyed her time on stage. She suddenly hears a scream from within the mansion, as the other girls (excluding Tae) have regained consciousness and fear Tae. Sakura then greets you all with a very strong “good morning.”

## Features

### Characters

* Kotaro Tatsumi (debut)
* Romero (debut)
* Death Musume (debut)
	+ Sakura Minamoto
	+ Saki Nikaido
	+ Ai Mizuno
	+ Junko Konno
	+ Yugiri
	+ Lily Hoshikawa
	+ Tae Yamada
* Policeman A (debut)
* Skull and Bull (debut)
* Iron Frill (flashback)

### Locations

* Saga Prefecture
	+ Minamoto residences
	+ Franchouchou Mansion
	+ Machida riverside
	+ Geils Live House

### Music

#### Songs

* “FANTASTIC LOVERS”
* “Welcome to SAGA”

## Trivia

* This episode takes place on April 7, 2008, and then on April 27, 2018, after the time skip.
* Kotaro explains how he tried putting on Sakura’s human make-up on her right before she passed out and explains why she retains her human-like appearance when she wakes up in the mansion for the first time. This also explains why we cannot see that Sakura is a zombie until she runs out into the rain, washing off the make-up.
	+ It is also hinted that the stimulation that got her to wake up is Death Metal music (possibly “Death Metal Shock” which plays during the opening credits), which prompts Kotaro to make the girls perform Death Metal in hopes of waking the rest of them up.
* The way the rest of the girls are mindlessly walking around hints at how they each died.
	+ Saki is posing as if she is on a motorcycle. Her death is later revealed in the ninth episode to be a failed motorcycle stunt.
	+ Ai keeps trying to move towards the center of the room. Her death is later revealed in the sixth episode to be the only victim of a lightning strike when she was singing on center stage.
	+ Junko is acting as if she is trapped and wishes to escape. In the sixth episode, it is revealed that she died in a plane crash during her flight to Saga.
	+ Lily is seen hitting herself on the basement door. It is revealed in the eighth episode that she died of a heart attack from shock and fatigue in her own bedroom, with her father behind the door.
* The temporary name of their group, “Death Musume”, can be interpreted as “Daughters of Death” in English.
* Kotaro’s diary entry for the episode is written sometime after Sakura’s awakening and before the concert.

### Cultural References

* Sakura getting hit by a truck and dying is a reference to how most main characters from Isekai anime die, right before getting reincarnated.
* The mansion is based in the Karatsu City Museum of History and Folklore.

### Continuity

* This is the first episode wherein Tae Yamada’s Japanese voice actor is credited only as “???”.
* The song that Sakura has played on her laptop, “Fantastic Lovers”, is the same song featured on the CD she drops in Kotaro’s flashback of his high school days with her as Inui in the twelfth episode.
* Maimai's introduction in her debut episode parallels Sakura's death sequence in this episode.

## Errors

* Sakura gains a forehead scar after she dies, resembling her cause of death, a concussion. But she is not shown to have any external injuries after getting hit by the truck.
* The blood on Romero's teeth disappears during the scene where Kotaro feeds him.
	+ Additionally, the frame wherein Kotaro turns to the chalkboard after feeding Romero is repeated twice.
* The gunshot hole on Sakura’s chest disappears completely during the following day.