Kingdom of Z (Series Review)

When Miki and Karin found Satou hiding in one of the old school buildings, he had given up hope. Miki gave him hope that they could one day rebuild Japan. She was determined, clever, strong, and more than a little scary!

What did you read?

As a massive fan of zombies, I knew that I had to read this series as soon as I saw it. Then, I started my mission to read as much as possible and while I owned all six volumes of Kingdom of Z since they were released, I never got around to finishing reading them. That was definitely a part of the reason that I have put all of my library loans on hold and focused on the books I own. Amazingly, even though I started reading a wide selection of books back in August 2022, this is only the fourth series that I’ve finished. Many are ongoing and some have so many volumes it’s going to take a while to get through. Anyhow, zombies and high school girls… where have I seen that premise before?

Kingdom of Z Volume 3 Masaru Satou watching Miki Sekigahara and Karin Nagiri fight a zombie

What happened?

Satou survived the initial outbreak by hiding in an old building of his high school. However, he was running out of food and struggling to find the will to continue. That was when Miki and Karin found him, although they were just busy killing zombies. Either way, he was saved and promised to help them with whatever they were doing. They were so strong that he was sure he could survive if stuck with them. Miki told him how she had been planning on one day becoming the prime minister of Japan but now that the zombies had ruined everything her goal had evolved. She was going to be Queen instead!

Satou wasn’t sure whether he had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. One thing he did know was that he didn’t want to be on the wrong side of those two. Soon enough, Miki had a plan to merge other groups with their own and she had even collected a number of zombies with the plan to use them for manual labour at some point in the future. When they discovered that fighters who had become zombies retained their fighting abilities plus gained the strength and resilience of a zombie, she planned to capture several more and create her ultimate zombie squad. Now, Satou was just plain terrified.

Kingdom of Z Volume 1 Miki Sekigahara and Karin Nagiri killing zombies

What did you think?

There was a lot that I really enjoyed about this series. One of the main things was Miki. I loved seeing the way she planned everything and how astute she was when it came to reading others. I will say that I would have preferred it if we had seen more of the outbreak and the survival elements that would have occurred at that point, but I wasn’t disappointed. There were parts that reminded me of the ideas that George Romero put forward when he had zombies performing menial tasks and starting to organise. That allowed for the idea that some could retain their fighting abilities. I don’t think this series covered any new ground, but that’s fairly rare for a zombie series anyhow.

Kingdom of Z Volume 3 Zombie Takeshi Garou waiting in the ring

What was your favourite moment?

I think my favourite moment was when they lured the RWC group to the school so that they could take care of them. Miki leaked the information via Saruwatari and waited. Of course, by this point, they had captured the boxing champion, Takeshi Garou and several other world-class fighters. The RWC was a group made up of living fighters who were ravaging the city, taking what they wanted and killing anyone who got in their way. They were a threat to any sort of order Miki was looking to install. So, when the RWC came face to face with Takeshi Garou and the other A-ranked zombies, it was quite rewarding to see them get a taste of their own medicine.

Kingdom of Z Volume 4 Takeshi Garou attacks the RWC

What was your least favourite moment?

I understand that Satou was basically a tool to allow Miki to explain everything to the audience. He would often ask questions that turned out to be dumb. However, that just allowed Miki to further explain why her plan would work and how silly his idea was. It’s not a bad way of doing things, however, it ended up with pages and pages of panels that were just Miki or Satou’s head, bouncing back and forth. It did get a little annoying from time to time, especially when the story would skip over quite a bit of the actual action in favour of more strategizing.

Kingdom of Z Volume 3 Miki Sekigahara wants to catch more powerful zombies

Who was your favourite character?

It was definitely Miki. She is fascinating and a little domineering. Sorry, I mean way more than a little. She was strong and confident and while she could have probably spent all her time lecturing Satou and making him feel small, she always took the time to build him up or explain her reasons for stuff. She even planned on rewarding him at one point, which Karin was also keen to be a part of, but Satou blew it with an epic nosebleed… Anyhow, Miki is cool, calm, beautiful, and seriously dangerous. What’s not to love?

Kingdom of Z Volume 4 Miki Sekigahara puts her plan into action

Who was your least favourite character?

Unfortunately, it has to be Satou. He was the ultimate wet noodle as far as protagonists go. I’d almost go so far as to say that he had little to no character and was simply a conduit to allow the readers to spend time with Miki and Karin. He had his moments as far as the story went, but most of the time, he was on the sidelines or waiting for something to happen before he could take part. That was because of how strong Miki and Karin were, but I would have liked a main character with a little more personality.

Kingdom of Z Volume 4 Masaru Satou and Miki Sekigahara in costume

Would you like some more?

I mentioned in my review of volume six that a prequel series that showed Miki and Karin during the initial outbreak would be amazing. I stand by that idea too. As far as the future of the story goes, it left things open-ended with the idea that Miki, Karin, Satou, and Ritsuka were going around Japan fighting bad zombie masters and setting things up for the University to slowly absorb the rest of Japan and its survivors. I think, in this instance, the ending works. I don’t think we need to see them fight zombie master after zombie master. I also don’t think we need to see Miki create an entire nation. Just the idea that they are running around kicking ass and having fun is enough for me.

Kingdom of Z Volume 1 Miki Sekigahara and Karin Nagiri

What have you learned?

I saw a recommendation online from someone saying that if you like Highschool of the Dead then you’ll like Kingdom of Z. While this might be true – zombie fans tend to like zombie stories, I don’t think the two have that much in common beyond high school-aged characters and zombies. That shows us that there are any number of possibilities when it comes to zombies. Even George R.R. Martin had zombies in A Song of Ice and Fire. We also recently had the first season of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead which showed us yet another way to utilise the zombie outbreak. Basically, you should always ask yourself “Would this story be better with zombies?” I think we both know the answer…

Kingdom of Z (Series Review)