Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (Volume 8) - Boredom of the Dead

Zom 100 Bucket List of the Dead Volume 8 Cover

Akira and the others continue their trip around Japan and come across the home of Sake, so they stop for a drink. Later on, they arrive at a site renowned for dinosaur fossils and Akira is determined to find one.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (Volume 8) – Boredom of the Dead

What happened?

Akira reveals he’s more of a beer kind of guy, but Shizuka is determined that they try some fancy sake. Amazingly, they find a room full of people in various states of drunkenness. There is one sober person, a tour guide and she’s keen to help them try some of the varieties of sake. Akira and Kencho take no time in getting blind drunk and goofing around with the others. Shizuka and Beatrix follow the tour guide and discover that she doesn’t drink sake any more as it always gets her in trouble. Talking of trouble. One of the drinkers was bitten by a zombie and it’s quickly spreading through the group.

Further along their trip, they come across an area where many dinosaur fossils have been found. There’s no one there but a bitter researcher who has lost hope of continuing his work. That was until Akira found an unrecognised dinosaur tooth. They take it to the lab, but it’s been overrun with zombies and they’ve got themselves tangled with the dinosaur bones. Lambda, however, turned an animatronic T-Rex into a robot capable of fighting off the zombie-infested Spinosaurus.

After crossing off several items from the bucket list, Akira starts to lose interest. It’s starting to feel like a job and he’s worried that he’s lost the will to live. He goes for a walk and ends up stuck in a newspaper store. Behind the counter, he finds a bunch of philosophy books and starts to read. Then, he spots a zombie at the window that looks a lot like Pascal. Then, it speaks…

Zom 100 Bucket List of the Dead Volume 8 Only sake can save us

What did you think?

So, volume six felt like the natural end of the story and then volume seven was just a weird mess of unlikely events. That continued with this volume and then we got to the chapter titled Boredom of the Dead. I wonder if this wasn’t the author’s way of saying that they were bored and that the direction had taken a turn they weren’t planning. It certainly feels that way. I’ve enjoyed the way this series has looked at things like exploitive working conditions and what it means to be alive, however, the introduction of robots, AI, and zombies working as a dinosaur have detracted from that.

The first six volumes were excellent and almost lived up to the holy grail of zombie stories – High School of the Dead. These last two volumes have felt more disjointed. The story doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere right now and that’s a shame. I also think the zombies have become a bit of a joke, especially with the dinosaur zombie. I was worried when we saw the shark zombie with legs that things might get weird, but they held things back for a while. Hopefully, the next volume will see a return to form, especially now that the author has gotten over the boredom… sorry, I meant Akira.