Zom100: Bucket List of the Dead Ep 7
There are a lot of horrible people in the world. People who will take advantage of others and use them for their own benefit. As it turns out, this is something Akira and Shizuka have in common with each other. Both have had people stronger than them walk all over them, and it’s become Shizuka’s biggest berserk button in life. So when she sees Akira being used as a slave by his old boss, she steps up. What happens in this week’s Zom100 is a tribute to everyone who’s ever dealt with abusive bosses and parents.
Akira is a Mindless Zombie!
It’s now been several days since Akira was forced to start working at Kosugi’s truck stop, and things are getting worse. Every second he spends under Kosugi’s thumb, the more he forgets his character development. Which means it’s easier for Kosugi to use his abusive “carrot and stick” enslavement to keep him there. What makes this so hard to watch is that people get subjected to this every day of their lives.
Kosugi is truly the worst boss a person could have. Not only is he a fat, parasitic slave-driver, he’s also a sexist pig. He makes Shizuka serve him beer after refusing it from an older woman. Then, he starts ogling Shizuka, making lewd remarks and licking his lips like a predator. This man is a human version of Jabba; the perfect target for the “Me, Too” movement. The first chance Shizuka gets, she tells Kencho they’re leaving.
It’s what Shizuka does next, though, that breaks her ice queen facade for good.
Shizuka Had a Jerkwad of a Dad
Unlike the working-class Akira, Shizuka comes from a wealthy and privileged background, courtesy of her CEO father. She was caring and wanted to become a doctor and help people. The problem was her father was an abusive control freak who didn’t see her as her own person; he saw her as just an extension of herself and made her do whatever he said. He even took a stray puppy she adopted and had it put down. He broke her just like Akira’s job broke him.
However, seeing Akira living his life so earnestly and happily awoke something in her. That innate desire to do what she wanted came rushing back. Akira brought out the best in her, and she repays that by standing up for him and telling everyone Kosugi’s a fat, no self-esteem waste of human flesh. It’s a moment that everyone who dealt with abusive relationships in life dreams of fulfilling, and it works. Akira stands up for himself.
Akira’s timing couldn’t be better, either. Some of the zombies get into the truck stop, and while Kosugi’s flailing around, Akira steps like a real boss. He comes up with a plan to get rid of the zombies while Kosugi does squat. As a result, everyone gets fed up with the Japanese Jabba and leaves, leaving him all alone like he deserves. And he will probably be eaten by zombies soon enough
Don’t Be Afraid to Follow Your Dreams
The moral of the episode: if your job or the people you work for are unbearable, then leave. It might mean risking your security and safety, but some things are better than being worked like a zombie. That, and it might mean that the job you want is still out there, or, as Shizuka tells Akira, it doesn’t exist yet. The fact that she says this to the person she looked down on shows that he’s finally won her over. She is an ice queen no more!
Quick sidebar, but I’m hoping that Shizuka’s father died in the zombie outbreak. He’s the kind of parent I hate, and the world is better off without him.
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[…] he managed to tell off his worthless former boss and leave him crying on the road, Akira, Kencho, and Shizuka continue their trek across Japan to […]
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