Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead Review: The Zombie Apocalypse Is Actually a Liberation

Akira Tendo is twenty-four years old. He has been working at a video production company for three years — an average of fifteen hours a day, no days off, consuming him completely. One morning, zombies appear. The world ends. Akira's first coherent thought is that he does not have to go to work anymore.

I'm Yu. Item number nine on Akira's list: "Tell the girl I like how I feel." He has been too exhausted for three years to have personal relationships. Watching him figure out how to feel something, surrounded by zombies, is both funny and genuinely moving.

Quick Take

• Haro Aso and Kotaro Takata's Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (ゾン100) ran in Monthly Sunday GX — 15 volumes, complete.
• VIZ Media published the complete 15-volume English edition.
• Rated T (Teen) — zombie violence and some gore; the workplace harassment content is depicted directly.

Story Overview

Akira makes a list: one hundred things he wants to do before he becomes a zombie. The list includes ordinary things he never did — visiting an amusement park, getting drunk, talking to a girl he likes — and extraordinary things he always wanted. He sets out to complete it.

He encounters Kencho, his best friend from college, surviving in a different way. He meets Shizuka, a woman who has been surviving efficiently and alone. He meets Beatrice, an English traveler. The group forms around the list.

His specific quality is that his joy at the apocalypse is not callous — he is not happy people are dying. He is happy that the specific machine consuming him has stopped. The distinction matters and the series makes it clearly.

Characters

Akira Tendo — His enthusiasm for living, finally and genuinely, is the series' engine. Three years of karoshi culture have not made him cynical; the apocalypse has made him free.

Shizuka — Her efficiency in the apocalypse is the product of the same system that consumed Akira — she survived by being useful, which means she has never allowed herself to want things. Her development alongside Akira is the series' emotional core.

Kencho — Akira's best friend from college, whose different approach to survival creates contrast and comedy.

What I Love About It

Zom 100 directly engages with karoshi culture — the Japanese phenomenon of death by overwork — and the specific psychological mechanisms that make workers consent to their own exploitation. The zombie apocalypse as liberation from this system is funny on its surface and deeply serious underneath.

The series was published during significant public conversation in Japan about labor reform. Its premise resonated because the horror it is actually describing is not zombies.

Memorable Scene ⚠️ Spoiler Warning

The sequence where Akira returns to his old company building — now full of zombies including his former boss — and what he does there is the series' most cathartic sequence and the clearest articulation of what the zombie apocalypse means to him specifically.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• The most original zombie premise in years — apocalypse as liberation from overwork.
• Akira's joy at living is genuinely infectious.
• The workplace critique is specific and serious beneath the comedy.
• Complete at 15 volumes with a satisfying conclusion.

Cons:

• Readers who want survival horror will find the comedy tone jarring.
• The bucket list structure means some items feel more consequential than others.
• Some later arcs extend the premise further than necessary before the conclusion.

Is Zom 100 Worth Reading?

Yes — for readers who are tired of survival-focused zombie fiction and want something structurally different. The workplace liberation premise resonates regardless of cultural background — overwork is not uniquely Japanese. Complete at 15 volumes.

Who Is This Manga For?

• Anyone who has worked somewhere that was slowly destroying them.
• Readers tired of zombie survival horror who want something with a completely different emotional register.
• Fans of action comedy that doesn't sacrifice emotional content for the jokes.
• Readers who want completed manga where the premise stays fresh across its full length.

Official English Translation Status

VIZ Media published the complete 15-volume English edition. All volumes available.

Where to Buy

VIZ Media's complete 15-volume English edition.

Browse Zom 100 on Amazon →

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