One of the items on Akira’s list is to rock dreadlocks, and one of the survivors from the city happens to know how to make them. She, along with a college teacher and makeup artist all have each others’...
One of the items on Akira’s list is to rock dreadlocks, and one of the survivors from the city happens to know how to make them. She, along with a college teacher and makeup artist all have each others’ backs when it comes to processing and moving past the pain of their past lives being cruelly yanked away from them. Not everyone was in as bad a situation as Akira, after all.
Even so, I loved the teacher vocalizing how a city where everything is so convenient breeds isolation, while the limited resources of a village means everyone is connected and relying on one another. This makes it the perfect place for Akira, Shizuka, Kencho, and Bea, who are all kind and caring people. Shizuka even finds an accidental niche as the village doc because she used to study medical books for fun.
When Kencho notices a young girl with just her dog as her surviving family, he’s determined to make her smile for the first time since arriving. While she initially finds his attention off-putting, his juggling and his talk about Italian etiquette regarding women puts that smile on her face, and she introduces herself as Anju.
Bea, a noted Japanophile with particular interest in the past, clearly finds this village to be the ideal spot to learn more about Japan’s simple agrarian roots. But in the process, a villager shows her what I’ll call Chekhov’s Circuit Breaker. At sundown, Kencho and Akira call out to Higurashi, whom Kencho recognizes from college.
Higurashi ignores them and stalks off. He’s not interested in contributing to society. He only wants to see “normies” like Akira and Kencho turned into zombies before he does. He just wants to watch the world burn, and he’s not the only one in the village with that wish.
The last gasp of relaxing village life comes with a catharsis of sorts for Akira: not only does he get to share a drink with his pops, but he learns that his pops is as big a joker as he is. His dad, whom he only now notices is older, leaner, and grayer than he remembers, always dreamed of becoming an astronaut, but knew he was “too dumb” to make it happen.
While Akira thinks he owes his parents for leaving the village to pursue his dreams, his dad never begrudged him for doing so. All he ever wanted was for Akira to pursue the biggest dream he could; he doesn’t think he can do that in this sleepy village.
And that may well be correct if the nihilists have their way, as they choose tonight to finally enact the plan to cross “fuck up society” and a number of other unsavory items off their demented “fuckit” list.
By tearing down the barricade and allowing the zombie horde to pour out towards the village, these four baddies intend to turn everyone in town into zombies, so at least they can have a laugh before they themselves are turned. Their list is fundamentally nihilist compared to Akira’s due to the fact they assume they can’t or won’t survive.
The irony is that if they’d simply not fuck everything up here and actually contribute something to the village, they would gain the protection of all the other villagers and be able to live long lives together. But of course, the spirits of these four have already been broken long before the pandemic.
When Higurashi and his pals confront Akira and his, Akira concedes that people should have the freedom to do whatever they want, but only if they don’t affect the freedom of others, which Higurashi clearly is. So it becomes a good-vs-evil clash of opposing bucket lists.
Akira, Kencho, Shizuka and Bea have one goal: to stop the zombies and foil Higurashi’s plan to destroy the village and its people. I’ll put my money on the folks who are thinking about more than just themselves, and who haven’t given up on life!
