Episode 18

**Walking Bet SAGA** (**ウォーキング・ベット SAGA**, *Wōkingu Betto SAGA*) is the sixth episode and the midseason finale of the second season of Zombie Land Saga and is the eighteenth episode overall.

## Plot

The episode begins with Arata Ookoba continuing to look at the photographs of members of Franchouchou as part of his own investigation. Meanwhile, Kotaro Tatsumi; feeling that, despite having done a regular radio show, an opening performance against Iron Frill, and auditions, it was not enough to cover up their debt, worth ¥20 million, reiterates that they all need to continue working to repay their debt to sufficiently pull off a revenge for their failed performance at the Ekimae Stadium, including Tae Yamada (which Sakura insists Yamada is on holiday but in fact has never done any work at all).

As everyone leaves for work (except Lily and Yugiri), Yugiri asks Yamada to buy some groceries at a supermarket, with Romero accompanying her on the journey. Along the way, she was being secretly followed by Ookoba, who became suspicious about her odd behavior in Franchouchou, to which fans became fond of her mysterious and unbounded behavior in the group, considering her as the idol's mascot. While being followed, Ookoba witnesses and took photographs of each of her bizarre mannerisms, such as eating fish croquettes given by a lady; Romero also ate as well, candy bars given by their kids, and even apples from one of the graves meant to be as offerings at a local cemetery.

At one point, Ookoba was nearly caught as he accidentally touched a bunch of flowers before he took a picture, but was somehow able to stay hidden for a split second. Feeling relieved, Ookoba continued on following Yamada and Romero, passing by two gravestones that each contained the remains of the parents of both Sakura Minamoto, and Tae Yamada.

Tae Yamada arrives at the supermarket and finds Maria Amabuki there, having reformed the Dorami Biker gang to be a dancing group, and is also working part-time to buy Reiko's new scooter; whose the previous one was destroyed by Saki. There, Ookoba saw Yamada eating one of Maria's hair bunches. Despite this, Maria asks Yamada whether if she will watch them perform at a pharmaceutical dance battle competition, to which she accepts. But upon seeing Coco/“Cuckoo-kun” from the Drive In-Tori commercial and despite not having officially registered to participate in the competition, she steps in and was able to beat him by spinning upside down with ease, to which Coco (Cuckoo-kun) was unable to do the same any longer (and subsequently became dizzy); a bizarrely, unprecedented finishing dance move witnessed by many; including Maria, and Ookoba (the latter tried to take a picture of Yamada but was stopped by Romero).

As Zombie 0, Tae Yamada won a grand prize; worth 10 kg of onions and ¥30,000, but dismissed the reward by throwing the latter into the bin, and later tried to return it to Maria; expressing that she doesn't deserve it. With no way for sure how to spend the money, Policeman A; who had just shown up, takes them to a boat racing event, where they will spend money by betting on one of the contestants to see who wins; one of which is Misa Higashitsuru; Maria's former rival, whose life had changed following her defeat with Saki in the last chicken race and had switched into boat racing in the hopes of surpassing her. Korosuke Biker Gang also happens to show up, and despite a brief confrontation; to which Policeman A even pulled Yamada aside to another spot at the back to avoid having her to watch the potential brawl, both of the gangs sat down to watch the race.

Yamada unwittingly bets Misa to be the winner by sneezing, spewing the black ink she had sucked from the ball pen. Somehow, the spewed ink landed on the numbers “625”; Misa's contestant number. Higashitsuru's increased motivation, upon seeing Maria at the grandstand, allows her to win the race. Incredibly, Yamada was able to earn ¥20 million for betting the right contestant despite Misa's low chances of winning, which is the exact amount that Franchouchou needed to repay the debt. Arriving home with Maria, Sakura accidentally trips, decapitating Yamada. Saki motions Maria not to see, but in the post-credits scene, it is revealed that Ookoba was about to head home after finding no new information, but turns around again and witnessed Yamada's decapitation, thus exposing their secret to him.

## Features

### Characters

* Kotaro Tatsumi
* Romero
* Franchouchou
	+ Sakura Minamoto
	+ Saki Nikaido
	+ Ai Mizuno
	+ Junko Konno
	+ Yugiri
	+ Lily Hoshikawa
	+ Tae Yamada
* Cocco
* Journalists
	+ Arata Ookoba
	+ Inubashiri
* Gatalympics Announcer
* Manager of the Hisanaka Pharmaceutical Company
* Saga Prefecture Police Force
	+ Policeman A
	+ Head Chief (voice only)
* Public relations manager of the Hisanaka Pharmaceutical Company
* Amabuki Family
	+ Maria Amabuki
	+ Reiko Amabuki (mentioned)
* Iron Frill (mentioned)
* Dorami Dance Team
	+ Migikawa
	+ Sayama
* Korosuke Biker Gang
	+ Misa Higashitsuru
* Group of Male Rappers (Episode 2)
* Senior Citizens (Episode 9)

### Locations

* Saga Prefecture
	+ Franchouchou Mansion
	+ Gofukumachi Community Spot—Plaza 656
	+ Ekimae Real Estate Stadium (mentioned)
	+ Arpino Stadium (flashback)
	+ Drive-In Tori (flashback)
	+ Unnamed Graveyard
		- Minamoto Family Grave
		- Yamada Family Grave
	+ Boat Race Karatsu (debut)
* Tokyo (mentioned)

### Music

#### Songs

* “Little Bodda Bope”
* “Surprise DANCE ~~DAWN OF THE BAD~~” (indirectly mentioned)
* “It's Curry Day! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”

## Trivia

* This episode takes place on August 13, 2019.
* The episode title, Walking Bet Saga, refers to how Tae has been on her walk for errands as well as her having the winning bet at the boat race.
* It appears that Maria Amabuki has taken a part-time job as a stoker in a supermarket.
	+ Her reason for doing so is to save up money to buy her mother a replacement scooter; whereas the previous one was destroyed by Saki Nikaido in Episode 9 similarly as she did in her death.
	+ And that ever since the events of “Episode 9”, Misa Azumatsuru has decided on wanting to surpass Saki Nikaido’s racing capabilities by taking up boat racing.
		- Misa is also shown to have since then cut her hair. Cutting one’s hair usually symbolizes a great change in one’s life, normally used to describe a change in lifestyle.
* This is the first episode to center around Tae Yamada.
	+ Additionally, the episode highlighting on Tae’s fixation on onions is a nod to their importance in the spin-off manga.
* It is revealed by Kotaro that the amount they currently owe is nearly ¥20 million.
	+ Coincidentally, it is the exact amount Tae wins by betting on Misa during the boat race.
		- The trifecta bet (pick 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the exact order) odds were 666.7:1 (board shows it normalized to 100 yen bets), so the payout was exactly 20,001,000 yen. And with only 6 boats in the race, the betting odds should never be that high, as the actual probability of guessing the top 3 in order is 120:1. But this venue runs on a parimutuel betting system, so the total payout is collected from all the bets. In this unlikely scenario, what happened was that a disproportionate amount of money was put on the other boats. Very little money was put on Misa, so the winning bet odds for Misa was 21.3:1, even though the actual probability is 6:1.
* It is revealed that the Minamoto Family Grave is positioned right next to the Yamada Family Grave, and that Tae occasionally pays a visit in addition to eating the offerings.
* Since the events of “Episode 9”, Maria has reinvented the current Dorami Biker Gang into becoming the Dorami Dance Team.
	+ And that it was all thanks to watching Saki’s performance of “Tokkou DANCE ~DAWN OF THE BAD~.”
* One of the venues that Franchouchou has been shown to perform in throughout Season 2 is revealed to be called Gofukumachi Community Spot—Plaza 656.
* Romero is shown to be able to sleep with his eyes open.
* This is Arata Ookoba’s first major role in an episode.
* This is the first time wherein someone apart from the residents of the Franchouchou Mansion has paid a visit.
	+ In this episode’s case, Maria tags along with Tae after their trip to the boat racing stadium.
* Kotaro’s diary entry for the episode is written sometime before he starts his morning assembly of the day.
	+ It also foreshadows Tae having the winning bet at the boat race, specifically the line “Life is not a game of chance.”
* Similar to Kotaro in “Episode 13”, Tae is hinted to be the only one of the girls to harbor good luck instead of terrible luck throughout the episode.

### Cultural References

* Ookoba’s flashback of a website with people highly praising Tae is a reference to Twitter.
* The dance contest scene has an altered musical version of Michael Jackson's *Thriller* in the background.

### Continuity

* This is the second episode to have the title be a reference to the live action zombie film series, *The Walking Dead*.
	+ With the first being the fourth episode, “Warming Dead SAGA.”
* The girls’ failed performance at the Ekimae Real Estate Stadium is bought up again in Kotaro’s diary entry for the episode, as well as by Saki.
* The episode opens with Ookoba watching a recording of Lily’s performance of “Little Bodda Bope” from the previous episode.
	+ Additionally, her performance is recalled throughout the episode.
* Ookoba recalls the girls starting their own radio show and starting a rivalry with Iron Frill.
* Ookoba’s flashback includes the following scenes: Tae Yamada dancing in her chicken costume during the commercial shooting for Drive-In Tori, the girls performing at Saga Rock during “Episode 7”, the girls performing at Arpino Stadium during “Episode 12”, Tae excessively drinking from a water fountain in “Episode 9”, and Tae doing her signature chicken squawk in “Episode 8.”
* A handful of scenes throughout the episode are callbacks to “Episode 9.”
	+ Maria mentions wanting to save up money to buy her mother a replacement scooter for the one Saki broke.
		- Additionally, Tae nibbles on her hair similarly again.
	+ Misa gets a quick flashback of Saki’s stunt during her own boat racing stunt.
* This is the second time wherein a group of people are sponsored to advertise Saganship Z.
	+ The president of the pharmaceutical company starts getting traumatic memories of when she accidentally saw the girls as zombies.
* Tae elicits her signature squawk again from “Episode 5.”
* Tae starts sucking on a ball pen, similar to the way she does so with the whiteboard marker in “Episode 3.”
	+ Additionally, it also resulted in her sneezing out its ink.
* At the 4:45 mark, Sakura first looks at both sides of the road before leaving the mansion. A callback to how she failed to do so twice before, which resulted in her getting hit by two separate vehicles.
* After getting traumatized by Lily suddenly stealing his spotlight during his morning assembly from the previous episode, Kotaro starts checking for any other possible upstages before entering the basement.
* This is the fourth episode wherein Kotaro does not have a major role.
	+ The first three being “Episode 9”, “Episode 14” and “Episode 17.”

## Errors

* It is unknown how Ookoba has any memory of Franchouchou’s activities with the senior citizens in “Episode 9” as he was never shown to be anywhere near the area.
* Coco’s name is spelled as Cuckoo in the official Muse Asia subtitles, but it is currently unknown if this was a permanent name change for the character or if the subtitles spelled his name wrong.