Review of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead / ゾン100〜ゾンビになるまでにしたい100のこと〜, directed by Yusuke Ishida

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently fell into a spell of unemployment probably during the worst time to be unemployed, as it was very hard to find a job. I was applying to hundreds of jobs, getting interviews, but no offer was manifesting for me in the near future. So during this time, I had a lot of free time, and spent a good chunk of it chipping away at the blog.

In March 2025, which is much closer to when I am writing this (the publication day of my blog posts, outside of timely ones/new releases, tends to be much farther in the future to make sure I’m not overloading myself later on), I went to San Diego and Los Angeles for half the month. I was visiting family in San Diego for Nowruz, or Iranian New Year, during the first chunk of my trip, then I headed up to Los Angeles to go to the Association of Writers (AWP) conference.

I spent a day at my friend’s apartment in Anaheim, as she was getting her MFA at Chapman University at this time. We were heading to Los Angeles the next day together, but before we went, she had to get work done with her master’s thesis and whatnot. So I watched some television and got work done myself as well.

I don’t know how I stumbled upon Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, but I can say that before this moment, I had never heard of this movie or manga. I just happened to open my friend’s Netflix account, saw it in one of the suggested sections, and decided to give it a chance because it seemed like a vibe.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

A depressed salaryman in Japan is overjoyed to see the zombie apocalypse happen, as it means he no longer has to go to work.

Our main protagonist in this movie is Akira, and he genuinely hates his life. He lives out his days at work as a salaryman, grinding to make a living, then comes home to his tiny apartment to sleep and do it all over again. It seems like he has nothing to live for, but one day, everything is about to change for him.

He wakes up in the morning and discovers a zombie apocalypse is happening all over Tokyo and Japan. At first, he starts to through the motions, but when he goes outside and sees the situation for himself, he has a joyous thought: he never has to go to work again.

When the superior he was attached to at work is turned into a zombie and Akira has to escape, he begins plotting his bucket list of everything he wants to do before becoming a zombie. Along the way, while stealing some food from a convenience store, he meets Shizuka, a woman who seems to have mastered the art of evading zombies.

Akira checks things off his bucket list one by one, including having a barbecue on his roof, but everything is about to change again when his friend Kencho calls him and begs Akira to save him. He was at a love motel when the apocalypse broke out, and is now stuck there with a zombie handcuffed to the bed he was trying to have sex on.

So Akira sets out to save him, and with Shizuka, who joins them after almost dying herself to a zombie horde. Turns out their training in American football (which is a weird skill to have in Japan) comes in handy sometimes. They pick up some new friends along the way, but those friends die in a department store after the bus driver they were with refused to acknowledge and disclose to the others that he had been bitten by a zombie.

After that, it’s just the trio again, and they live out their golden days in the Japanese countryside, which is suspiciously empty of people besides them. They make their way to an aquarium, where other survivors are found, which leads to a new form of chaos when the zombies find their way into there, too.

Suddenly Akira and co have to save the day, especially when the zombies manage to evolve a shark in the tank into something incredibly deadly. With a suit that’s built to be shark bite proof, Akira utilizes his American football background to save the day, helping everyone who hasn’t been taken down by the shark, including the bad guy who made a lot of not-so-great things happen at the end of the movie.

Overall Thoughts

Man, this movie is something I feel like a depressed salaryman in Japan would create as escapism (I say this with love, not in a mocking or spiteful way). As a live action movie this feels a bit like a fever dream at times, especially when Akira starts cheering at the thought of never having to go to work as a method to cope with the potential end of the world.

Like man, I wish I could be that optimistic at the face of my death. Homeboy didn’t even know if he was going to survive the next hour, but survive he did as he went out into the world and evaded the zombies with incredible precision.

All this is to say that I enjoyed this movie a lot. Is it high art? The snobby elites (which, as a former professional critic, I may be a part of) would probably say no. It sure is a good time though throughout, even if the dialogue is corny and the plot makes you scratch your head in confusion.

Give it a chance if you’re interested! You may find it worth it.

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