We’ve all had a bad job where we’ve been worked to the bone, encouraged not to use our vacation, and pretty much let it consume our life. This is pushed even more when you become a wage slave, someone whose livelihood depends on wages or a salary, especially when the dependence is total and immediate. That sums up Akira’s life in ZOM 100: Bucket List of the Dead Volume 1 (ZOM 100). Written by mangaka Haro Aso, ZOM 100 features are from Kotaro Takata and is localized in English by VIZ Media. Unfortunately, our review copy did not include a credits page for the translator nor letterer.

In ZOM 100, Akira’s life has lost any shine after spending years toiling away for a soul-crushing company. But when a zombie apocalypse ravages his town, it gives him the push he needs to live for himself. So what does he do? Go on a mission to complete all 100 items on his bucket list. Our protagonist, Akira Tendo is a 24-year old who lives in a trash-filled apartment and spends his time watching zombie movies. After spending three hard years at an exploitative corporation, his spirit is broken. So much so, that he can’t even muster the courage to confess his feelings to his beautiful co-worker Ohtori – the one and only bright spot of his life. Then one morning, he stumbles upon his landlord, who just so happens to have become a zombie. But Akira isn’t scared, he’s just thrilled to have a day off.

Now, to start the review of ZOM 100, I have to say that this is a manga filled with fanservice. Told from Akira’s perspective, boobs matter, and not in the wholesome way they do to Denji in Chainsaw Man. While it doesn’t feature as much fan service as High School of the Dead, readers should know that there are a lot of zombies in bikinis, a lot of boobs, and a lot of focus on the male character’s fantasies. That said, once you know what to expect, it’s not that bad – the fan service I mean. This is due in large part to how it frames Akira as our protagonist.

As he builds out his bucket list, Akira notes confessing to his crush, which leads him to seek her out, riding his bike in the middle of a zombie horde, and that goes about as well as you can think, but at least he saw her boobs. Outside of that though, the bucket list is the most mundane list you can think of. Clean his room, take a day off, and more things that people Akira’s age do daily have a special place in his must-do before he dies list. That said, as he begins to enjoy the zombie apocalypse the loneliness sets in and he seeks out his best friend. While I won’t reveal more adventurous elements of his bucket-list, all of this is important to who Akira is as a character. While he is of course the deprived 24-year old, the truth is he’s surprisingly relatable. I mean, when we think of zombie apocalypse, we think of survival plans, not beer runs to the local convenience store. In this way, ZOM 100 is different from other stories in the genre. This story is about finally getting to live a life, instead of just trying to survive.

Overall, ZOM 100 is funny and filled with moments that readers can see themselves in – even with the fanservice. Additionally, the art is fun, gory, and somehow lighthearted. But truly, my favorite thing about this manga is that Akira isn’t your traditional hapless male protagonist living out his fantasy. He’s actually a capable former rugby player who just wants to live before he dies. And that’s a story we can all get behind.

“Beer is my holy water! The drink of the gods! Skipping work to get drunk. I’m a schlub and I love it…“—Tendo from Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead

Tendo has been a salaryman for three years in his drone of a job. His department chief, Kosugi, has impossible expectations of his staff. Meanwhile, Tendo is attracted to Saori Ohtori in Accounting. Unfortunately, she seems to be claimed by the company’s CEO. You know Tendo’s life is bad when the Zombie Apocalypse appears to be a better option.

“I’d rather be eaten by zombies than go another second without beer!“

Who hasn’t felt like that occasionally while working at a dead-end job? Okay, maybe not everyone but certainly some people. Tendo’s feelings come off as perfectly rational even if the setting is wildly abnormal. Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead is a surprisingly sweet story. It will definitely make you rethink your career choices. 5 stars and a favorite!

Thanks to VIZ Media and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

I legit hated the main character. The main premise of this book is that his job is so torturous that he would rather deal with a zombie apocalypse than go to work. That’s a funny idea, but we never really get an explanation about why he doesn’t just quit if the job’s that bad. When the people he knows start turning into zombies he doesn’t really seem upset or horrified or anything. I could understand this kind of numbness if the apocalypse had been going on for years or even months, but this is his response from the very first day. It takes him a really long time to even wonder what happened to his friends and family members. There’s only one woman in the entire book who isn’t treated like a sexual object.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead Volume One takes a look at how one man tries to survive a zombie apocalypse.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead Volume One
Written by: Haro Aso
Publisher: Shogakukan
English Publisher: VIZ Media
Release Date: February 16, 2021

The main character of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead is a young man named Akira Tendo. Three years prior to the beginning of the series, he’s excited to start working at a production company. He also develops a crush on one of the young women that works in accounting. However, Akira quickly learns some realities about the production business, such as constantly pulling all-nighters and having a boss who’s basically a slave driver. On top of that, it turns out the girl he has a crush on is the boss’ “side piece.”

When he hits his second year with the company, it’s clear that his hopes, dreams, and ambitions have been crushed. And when he hits his third year, he’s really gotten to a point where he doesn’t want to go to work anymore. When he hits his lowest point, he suddenly discovers that a zombie apocalypse is underway when he discovers his landlord has turned into a zombie. Not only that, but his boss and his crush have also turned into zombies. Even though so many people around him are turning into zombies, Akira keeps managing to not get caught by zombies.

With the zombie apocalypse going on, Akira realizes that he never has to return to work… which makes him incredibly happy. At one point, there’s an amusing scene when Akira is climbing down the apartment building and comes across his downstairs neighbor. When he mentions he’s going to the store, Akira asks the neighbor and his wife what they need. I kind of chuckled when one of the items mentioned was some double rolls of toilet paper. After the run on toilet paper during the COVID-19 outbreak, this felt so appropriate to include. Even in a zombie apocalypse, people are still thinking about toilet paper.

The next day, even though there’s zombies swarming around nearby, Akira is still determined to make a beer run. While at the store, he encounters a young woman who chastises him for making a beer run in this situation. I had a feeling when we saw her in the manga that she’s going to become important. Right at the end of the volume, there’s a mini-chapter that features this character. This mini-chapter only reinforced the idea in my mind that this character is going to somehow become important to the story. This volume, however, focuses on Akira and getting him established as a character.

After the beer run, Akira starts working on a bucket list of 100 things he wants to do before becoming a zombie. He makes this decision with about 40 pages left in the volume, so it’s not until near the end of the volume before the reader truly understands what the title of this manage series is referring to. As he’s making it, the early items on the list are crossed off right away, because he’s already accomplished them. However, there’s still a lot of things left on the bucket list for him to do. At this point, my guess is that the series is going to focus on Akira trying to accomplish everything on the bucket list in one way or another.

The final chapter of this volume sees Akira working at trying to complete one of the items on his bucket list. The item in particular is “drink and laugh all night with my best bud.” He goes to Shinjuku to find an old college buddy of his named Kenichiro Ryuzaki, and the two of them have to work together to escape from some zombies that are coming after them. Along the way, Akira learns some truths about Kenichiro… but it somehow works out in the end that the two of them can drink and laugh the night away. So there’s one more item crossed off of Akira’s bucket list.

The goal of Volume One was to establish Akira and the situation going on around him, and I think that Aso succeeded in this goal. I hope the next volume will have more of an emphasis on Akira and his attempts at crossing items off his bucket list.

The art style definitely works for this quirky story, although that are the occasional panels where I swear that Akira’s face looks a little to suspiciously close to Luffy from One Piece. When those panels showed up, my brain would try to tell me I was seeing Luffy, and I’d have to remind myself that Luffy isn’t in the world of this story, that the person I was seeing was someone else.

Overall, I thought that Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead Volume One showed a lot of promise. It sets up a character that a reader will become invested in, the premise of the story is interesting, and there was even some good humor mixed in with the seriousness of a zombie apocalypse. I also appreciated the idea of how Akira basically became like a zombie while working for the production company, and how this zombie apocalypse has freed him from the “zombie-like” life he’d been living for the previous three years.

I would recommend Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead to readers who enjoy reading stories about zombie apocalypses and can appreciate a zombie apocalypse infused with some humor.

How many more Zombie shows, books, and movies can you enjoy? There’s the complete horror story where people try to survive an enclosed or trapped space until help arrives. Next, you have the more survival story where a group of people winds up coming together to live normally, outpacing the infection. Then there’s the magic cure somewhere locked up in a lab/site. How about the loser shut-in that redeems himself during the Zombie Apocalypse? Finally, you have the oddball tale that’s mixed with action and comedy. Are you tired of them yet? Don’t become tired because we have a new spin with Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead.

The story is written by Haro Aso, a thriller and suspense specialist, mangaka. He's written a few mangas thus far like Hyde & Closer and has always done his illustrations. He also wrote Alice in Borderland, which now has a show on Netflix that can be seen across the country. His stories tend to be very graphic and don't hide much in the way of censorship. A zombie story is perfect and right up his alley for storytelling. This time around, Aso-san isn't doing the artwork himself and has added Kotaro Takata for illustrations. A reader might notice about Aso-san's writing because he tends to slip in comedy/slapstick in the most random moments. It gives the reader a jolt away from the heavy suspense or dread for just a moment.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead tells the story of a 24-year-old man Akira Tendo. Tendo is a young man, a hard-worker, intelligent student-athlete, that just graduated from what one might guess is Kyoto University. He starts working for a company straight out of college. Quickly he learns what it means to work for a “Black Corporation” (An exploitative sweatshop-type employment system). Tendo also finds himself becoming another person in the plight of the Japanese Salaryman. We’re unsure if the author Aso-san is speaking from experience or has done his research on this subject matter. Aso-san conveys this plight in dialogue and scenes over Tendo’s three years at this black corporation.

After three years at this company, Tendo is an older young man zapped of his youth. His spirit is broken, his life upturned, and he must return the next day with zero peace. What can Tendo do about this situation? It was hard getting this job, the dream job that he fought many others to obtain. If he left this company, it would be twice as hard to get a job somewhere else. What would the company say about his employment there? Tendo thinks about this on a fateful night that he feels like he has run out of options in life. Yet, he musters up the courage to wake up another day and head to work, only this time, things are much different.

Before Tendo even leaves his apartment, he finds that Zombies roam the place and the streets. Realizing his situation and getting to safety. His only remaining thought is he doesn’t even have to go to work again. Tendo finds that he can do what he wants. All the exciting things that he has been missing from his life, both big and small. It’s almost like Tendo is grateful to the Zombie outbreak, it saved his life, and he vows to accomplish the 100 things he wants to do before he dies. What’s on the list? How will he handle zombies? Will he ever have friends and relationships again? Is it possible the list may get bigger? These events set off a zombie adventure unlike any ever told.

Haro Aso, this time around, is giving us more of his comedic and lighter side. He’s wrapping this around his usual suspense and thriller with a little horror this time. It’s like a bratwurst with an excellent pretzel bun. Will it remain this way throughout the story? Or will Aso-san ultimately drive us down an ultimate emotional dread? Only time will tell, and we’re very interested in finding out.

In an oversaturated zombie genre, Zom 100 brings a refreshing take by combining the undead apocalypse with a bucket list. It is another work that highlights the peril and plight of humanity through corporate wage work with all its expected soul-sucking and unfair conditions, yet what makes this work shine is through the main character's enthusiasm and unbridled joy to be free from it. Haro Aso brings forth the euphoria of being free amidst the chaos of the world, even if one included the aforementioned zombie apocalypse. What I love about this concept is that the main character, as much of a shounen archetype as he can be, relishes his opportunity to engage in activities not possible from his former life. These can come in the form of getting a motorcycle to confessing to the woman he loves. All the while his out-of-place exuberant demeanor is the guiding light for the rest of the series. I look forward to the further misadventures in this work!

This speaks to those dissatisfied with their jobs - particularly in the millennial sect - as well as those who want a bit of fun in their read. Zombie fans - and by in large horror fans - may be a tad tired of the zombie genre, yet marketing it as an opportunity to complete a bucket list would be ingenious.

Akira gets his dream job until the end of day one when he finds out it is not a 9-5 job but he must stay for days on end. He grows to hate his job but also doesn't leave it because he knows his friends still stuck there will have to do his work as well. But then one day he is confronted with zombies as he goes to talk to his landlord. Now he doesn't have to go to work, he can clean his apartment, watch tv, and do all the things he has been dreaming about, which is what prompts him to right his bucket list of things to do before he is turned into a zombie himself.

This was a interesting book, it makes you think of all the things you want to do maybe on your days off or before you turn a certain age. Akira is a wonderful character, one I think most of us would like to be like in this situation. This is a great manga series that is very different from all other zombie story's that you won't want to miss.

This will appear on my blog on 16th of February

Gonzo madness! The main character feels liberated by the zombie apocalypse because it's freed him from his exploitative, underpaid salaryman job. There's some over the top capitalist commentary, some gonzo action scenes, a nice love interest / antagonist setup, and a good message about thinking about what's really important in life before it is too late. Loved this and can't wait for the next volume!

I received an ARC (Advanced reader copy) of this book from NetGalley. Just so you readers know, I will always give an honest review. If I can't be honest, I simply won't do it.

I thought this was a delightful take on a zombie apocalypse. The main character Akira is working at a soul sucking job that makes him feel like a zombie. Which is ironic because eventually the zombie outbreak happens. And while there is not much of a focus on the zombies and what is happening, this is really a story about a person who finally truly feels free and alive amidst a terrible future. It is that upbeat flavour that has me rooting for Akira to get what he wants done off his bucket list and make the most of his situation.

I will totally continue reading this when the next volume comes out.

I’ve sat on the review for Zom 100 a few weeks because initially I wasn’t sure what I thought of it. 24-year-old Akira Tendo is having his life drained in a cooperate job and when the zombie apocalypse hits it is the best day ever for him, because he doesn’t have to go to work.

You have gore, fan service and humour thrown together and while this manga doesn’t disregard the tried and tested format of these types of stories it different enough to keep you entertained.

Overall, I liked it but also I wasn’t blown away by it. I think as the beginning of the series it works well and there are some amusing moments that had me giggling. I do want to see where this goes before I completely make up my mind.

I received a digital ARC through NetGalley from Viz Media. This is an adult Shounen manga with tons of fan service. Akira gets his dream job only to find himself worked to the bone and hating life. When the apocalypse and zombies come he finally feels free to live his life and creates a bucket list of things he has to do. Akira starts checking things off his bucket list. Akira is a very like-able character, the art is nice, and the story flows easy. I hate that the majority of female zombies are totally naked. This type of fan service is so derogatory to women and just saying it’s normal for the genre allows this sexism to continue.

An interesting premise, but the execution was too mature and offensive for my tastes. The main plot wasn’t enough to distract from the manga stereotypes - female characters depicted as big-breasted sexual fantasies, male hero surviving on stupidity and luck - and lacked any incentive to keep reading.

Thank you Viz media and Netgally for the e-Arc in exchange for an honest review.

Hilarious story about a salary man who lands his dreams job just to find out he's been exploited to the point of considering taking his own life! But luckily for him a zombie apocalypse came so now he can enjoy his spare time and do all the things he didn't have time for.

The drawing style is, impecable, it keeps you entertain with the small details in the background and the overly expressive characters are always something I love about Japanese manga.
The story is funny and well constructed. Will continue the the story as soon as the rest of the volumes are available in English.

This is a typical Shonen manga. It has a male protagonist, gore, and a lot of fan service. It is definitely geared toward young males. I, on the other hand, am an old lady. Haha. I've been reading manga for a good 20 years, so I am used to the template the industry uses. I still enjoyed it for what it was. I love a good zombie, but they were incidental to the story which revolves around a young disillusioned office worker who is offered a new lease on life when the zombie apocalypse occurs.

I did like that the mangaka used a real life issue, death by overwork that is prevalent in Japan, to jumpstart his story. It went by very quick. A little too quick. I felt like the characters needed to be fleshed out more. But if the manga is successful that can happen as the story progresses. It was done well enough that I will keep an eye out for more volumes.

So, the story is that a 24 year old got his dream job in an office and turns out the place over works their employees and the boss is unbearable. The main character ends up hating his job but keeps pushing to another day because it was his dream. His house is a mess and he looks exhausted but he keeps going somehow. One day there are zombies on the street and he realizes he doesn't have to go to work if it's full of zombies and he's truly happy for the first time in years. He decides to make a bucket list of things he wants to do now that he doesn't have to go to work. It's a nice story but decides to use nudity for some reason. The gore is expected due to the zombies.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me an eARC so that I could tell if this would be a good choice for my teen collection.

Akira is stuck in a mind-numbing job he hates with long hours that prevent him from enjoying life. But now there’s a zombie apocalypse so what better time to get started on that long-neglected bucket list. But first - beer run!

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Vol. 1, the manga comic by Haro Aso flips the zombie genre on its head and, in doing so, creates a very entertaining and funny tale. The black and white art adds to the fast paced feel as Akira races to out run the zombies to get to the beer store before closing. I will admit I’m not normally a fan of manga but, lately I've been kinda in a reading slump so,when I saw this on Netgalley, I decided it would make a nice change of pace. What surprised me the most was how much I enjoyed it. A high recommendation for fans of manga, zombies, or, like me, just looking for a break from your usual reading choices.

<Thanks to Netgalley and VIZ Media for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

Thank you to NetGalley and VIZ Media for the ARC of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead by Haro Aso. I have not really read Manga before, so this was kind of a new experience for me as a reader. The main story revolves around Akira, a young business man who is already jaded with the large corporation he works for and laments going to his job each day. One lucky (or unlucky) day, he realizes that he no longer has to go into work because of the zombie apocalypse. His first thing he must do? Create a bucket list and drink more beer!

Overall, I thought the story was smart because of the juxtaposition between being a "work zombie" and being a "real zombie." Sometimes, there is little difference. However, I will not be purchasing it for my library, because of the excessive female nudity.

Unfortunately the download wasn't complete, but the art was great and from what I could follow of the store I'd definitely be able to sell at the store.
Our store sells a lot of manga.

A 24 year old office worker finds a new lust for life after the zombie apocalypse destroys normal life as we know it but frees him from his soul-crushing job in this comedic survival horror manga.

The concept was an intriguing one and the not-so-subtle criticism of the brutal Japanese work culture provides a good starting point, but ultimately the story fell a bit short for me. Although I sympathized with main character Akira's plight and was willing to suspend my disbelief that he could react so cheerfully to all the death and mayhem around him (this is supposed to be humorous after all) I couldn't help but spend most of the book skeptical that he could completely avoid all danger while everyone else around him was being slaughtered. The humor wasn't really present except for the juxtaposition of Akira's jaunty attitude and the zombie chaos, and the lustful male gaze toward the female characters-while not unexpected-turned me off as well. The art is well-drawn, but nothing different or unique compared to other manga out there.

Overall, while the initial premise drew me in the story and characters did little to hold my interest and make me invested in reading another story about zombies when they are already so omnipresent in media these days. I highly doubt I'll pick up the next volume of the series.

I was looking for a MG or YA manga for Maverick's committee and although this graphic novel was entertaining, it's definitely Adult for YA so I'm on the fence about recommending it for the list because I've never nominated a title in that age category before since I work with middle school students. I thought the concept wasn't as original as some mangas I've seen, but it was still an interesting read that was easy to read, which is hard to find in manga for me sometimes. Adults who like manga would enjoy this.