Sankarea: Undying Love (Episode 9) – A Mother’s… Hand…

Mero and her friends search for zombies. Their first lead is their art teacher and then Miko tells a story about boiled bones. Of course, they don’t believe that Mero actually lives with a zombie!

Sankarea: Undying Love (Episode 9) – A Mother’s… Hand…

What happened?

Mero attempts to take the tension out of the series by introducing us to her friends, Miko and Ichie. Together they run an occult club and are on the hunt for zombies, who may be attempting to take over the world.

Their first lead is the art teacher, Mizuki Yamanouchi. Ichie saw her feeding raw meat to something in her bag in the art room after school. Mero also saw her carrying the bag and it definitely moved. Miko noticed that she was looking quite ill and had lost a lot of weight. She must be a zombie. They hide in the art room and wait to see what’s in the bag. It turns out that it’s Mizuki’s pet alligator. She also got sick eating raw liver which is why she lost a lot of weight. Not a zombie!

Their next lead is from Miko who smelt something terrible one evening when she was walking home. She followed the smell to a house with a trash can full of bones. Then something asked what she was doing. Miko was terrified. She begged them not to eat her… Of course, they weren’t zombies. They were just making soup and since Miko was there, she could be their first customer. It was the best ramen ever!

They were struggling to come up with anything else to investigate when Mero told them that she lived with a zombie. Ichie wanted to come to see her, but Mero said she might be out. Anyhow, she had groceries to buy and dinner to cook so she left.

Once home, she heard Ranko and Chihiro yelling at each other so she went to visit her mother’s grave. Rea found her there and was surprised to learn that their mother had died. She told Mero that she was impressed with the way she looked after everyone. She also asked to help Mero. Mero was stunned, but not by that. In that moment, Rea reminded her of her mother.

Sankarea Episode 9 Mero with Miko and Ichie

What did you think?

So, this was a fun and cute and sweet episode. There’s no denying that. However, it is not the conclusion to the cliffhanger in the previous episode and most likely will have no bearing on any future events. It was absolutely filler and unlike episode seven it could be skipped without missing much if anything. As I said, it wasn’t a bad episode, but the placement was a terrible choice.

That said, I have hypothesized that Chihiro’s zombie fetish may stem from the fact that his mother died in my “Chihiro Furuya – Who Could Love a Zombie?” post so it was nice to get a little more information about her, even if it was fairly vague. It’s also worth noting that this episode clearly takes place after the season finale.

It is possible that I’m wrong, but I don’t think Mero believed that Rea was a zombie or that Chihiro had flat out told anyone other than Ranko at this point. So, it makes more sense if it actually comes later chronologically. It’ll be interesting to see if it ever comes up in the manga.