The Fall 2026 Anime Preview Guide

#I'm Looking For a Zombie

Set in a world where 90 percent of humans on Earth have contracted and died from a deadly, virulent disease, only to then rise again as zombies who attack people. 13 years after that "Red Day" of societal and civilizational collapse, the surviving humans live outside the big cities, still hoping to retake them someday. An entirely new generation of people who know nothing of the pre-Red Day world is now coming into its own. The story begins when Aki and her close friends, Haru and Natsuki, set out to find Aki's missing father.

#I’m Looking For a Zombie is based on the manga series by Katsuwo. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.

There's always some discrepancy between sub and dub tracks due to basic differences between languages. But then there are moments where it feels like someone made a deliberate choice for their own reasons, and that's the case with Yu's pronouns in this show. The subtitles for the Japanese track use “she/her” for Yu, while the English dub uses “they/them.” To be clear, I don't personally care which, and I actually think “they/them” works well for the character. But I'm not sure why the choice was made in the first place, and that there is a discrepancy makes me wonder.

That aside, both dub and sub voices are perfectly fine to the point where I don't have a preference. But I can see why this was one of the simuldub shows – zombie stories do tend to have a more universal appeal, and this one is the right blend of silly and serious. On the latter end of things, we have Aki, who is out in the world looking for her dad, whom she assumes has been zombified at some point since he left their village. She promised to be the one to kill him… so every zombie she destroys, she looks at it and says, “Oh, that's not Dad,” leading us into the sillier part of the story.

The silliness is definitely the stronger portion. The story takes place in a world where, after a terrible illness turned many people into zombies, the rest of humanity took refuge in small towns and did its best to get by. Things like stores, canned food, and learning to read kanji fell by the wayside, although motor vehicles and gasoline are still well known. Aki and her pals Natsuki and Haru have ventured out of their village in search of adventure (and Aki's dad), and they meet Sakura and Yu when they rescue them from a zombie horde. They come from a more academically inclined village, so the group of five is clearly the right blend of brains and brawn. If you've ever wanted to see anime characters explode a group of zombies with a fertilizer bomb, this is your moment.

While I don't love the camera's insistence on filming Aki from below, I am impressed by how weird and gross the zombies look. They're desiccated, mummy-like monsters, and you can absolutely tell how long someone's been dead by how dried out they are…and how much clothing they're still wearing. There's a shot toward the end where you can see a woman with hair and a full set of clothing among the naked, hairless zombies, and about half of them have pants in general. Also, they all have terrible, angular asses. Someone really had fun modeling those.

I don't always love zombie shows, but I enjoyed this one. It's like Those Who Hunt Elves but with the undead instead of pointy-eared people – all they need is a tank…and I'm pretty sure Yu could build one.

I wasn't sure this show had it in it to be serious for a moment, but lo and behold, it does. I think that's important in a zombie story, much like ghost stories: zombie tales revolve around someone's life being cut off. My favorite zombie shows acknowledge that, and while this hasn't joined those ranks as of episode two, I appreciate that it's trying. Mikazuki's role this week is to remind everyone how dangerous the world is and how lives can end before you know it.

She also drives home the idea that without Yu, the rest of the group would probably be dead in roughly two days. Seriously, these are the worst apocalypse survivors I've ever seen. “I don't want to carry a weapon because it's not cute?” Really? Someone knocks on the door and you just let them in without checking to see if they've been bitten? The School-Live! girls were better at this. (Speaking of School-Live!, that dog in the opening theme better be safer than their dog.) Yu is the only member of the band who has any practical knowledge – how to filter water, where to get gas, how to make a bomb, all things that the rest of the crew wouldn't have had a clue how to do without their help. She's a powerhouse…and part of that means they're the only one who can recognize that happy-go-lucky Aki has noticed Mikazuki isn't long for this world.

Aki's role this week shows she's aware of her situation. She knows how dangerous the world is. She can tell that something's wrong with Mikazuki. She puts on a veneer of ditziness to keep going. Remember, she's out here because she promised to kill her dad if he turned, and her assumption is that he has. She heads out to meet Mikazuki, armed with her folding saw, because a part of her knows what she has to do. When she offered to let Mikazuki sleep in a bed, it was an offer of a last vestige of humanity – a gift to the soon-to-die. Maybe I'm giving her more credit than she deserves (especially since she's so hard to wake up and therefore couldn't be counted on to stop a zombified Mikazuki in the night), but I do think that there's a core piece of her who knows what she's doing and is using unrelenting cheer as a mask.

I'm still not sold on this show. I liked this episode better than the first, but it still feels disjointed, and Natsuki is grating on my nerves. But I think it understands its genre, and that means it's probably worth the old three-episode test.

I have to admit, I can't think of many better ways to introduce the chipper heroine of your candy-colored zombie sitcom than by having her gleefully precede her corpse-bludgeoning with the announcement, “I made a promise to my dad: Nobody gets to kill him but me!” My first question going into #I’m Looking For a Zombie was whether it could meaningfully differentiate itself from similarly lackadaisical undead road trips such as Zom100. I'd say this premiere makes a good case for sticking with our motley crew of zombie manglers, even if you feel like you've already seen this show.

I still can't decide if the show is being too cute by half when our heroine, Aki, doesn't even know the word for “building” as her friends make their way down the dilapidated highways of post-apocalyptic Japan. On the one hand, this smacks of writing that is trying too hard to get across the details of its setting without thinking about the finer points of its character writing, such as the fact that it would be borderline impossible for anyone living just a dozen years after the fall of civilization to have not regularly encountered buildings, especially on a tiny island like Japan. That said, I appreciate that this show is going for the full-on post-apocalypse treatment, instead of just riffing on the societal breakdown already covered by the likes of Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, and the aforementioned Zom100. It helps explain how the series can have its characters act like such goofy little Disney Channel Original Movie protagonists in the face of endless, bloody horrors. This life is the new normal. For these kids, going off on a quest to pulverize the skull of your presumably zombified father is basically like a day trip to the bougie parts of the city where all the good stores have cropped up.

The English dub really sells the camaraderie and chemistry of our crew, which is crucial given the hangout vibes #I’m Looking For a Zombie is trying to cultivate. I especially appreciate how Arianna Contado channels her character's SoCal voice and traits without falling back on the full-on Valley Girl stereotype we're all so used to hearing. Anairis Quiñones also does a good job of channeling Sakura's gremlin energy and charm without making the character seem too immature or obnoxious for the setting. If you're looking for an entertaining comedy to pass the time this fall, then I think #I’m Looking For a Zombie Ep 1 could be just the ticket.

For me, it veers a little too far into the “comedy” half of the “horror-comedy” spectrum, and I like my horror-comedies to strike a proper balance between chuckles and screams. This is especially true in zom-coms, since the zombie sub-genre of horror relies so much on mood and atmosphere to be effective, because zombies themselves aren't particularly interesting or memorable monsters on their own. That is why the best thing about Shaun of the Dead is how it makes the drama and horror of the zombie apocalypse work in its final act, despite all the yuks along the way. In #I’m Looking For a Zombie, the zombie animation is a little too crude, and the horror beats are a little too lackluster, which makes me check out. Maybe the show will pick up in the next episode, but for now I suspect I will need some zombie media with more bite to satisfy the cravings the autumn season always brings.

I wasn't exactly looking for an anime that took the basic premise and tone of shows like Zom 100 and asked, “But what if we tone down the zombie horror even further so we can make it even sillier?” That said, zombie horror has always paired well enough with comedic shenanigans, so I gave #I’m Looking For a Zombie a shot to impress me, all the same. The premiere ended up being…okay, but far from what I would call an ideal zom-com. This is a hangout show at the end of the day, though, so the second episode could be an improvement, since the cast of survivors have more time to settle into their dynamic. Unfortunately, in this case, #I’m Looking For a Zombie looks like it might be regressing, instead.

A little ways into this episode, Natsuki gives Yu and Sakura the details on why she's tagging along with Aki's zombie hunt, and the gist is, “I don't really have much of a reason besides wanting to hang with my buds.” It's a very blasé, casual approach to, you know, embarking on a life-changing quest with horrific perils lurking around every corner, but I think that's exactly the tone this anime is going for. I don't think it's especially effective, however. We've seen plenty of shows contrast the gory perils of the zombie apocalypse with bright, colorful, and heartwarming anime antics. That's all well and good. My main issue with #I’m Looking For a Zombie is that it swings so far into the ambling rhythm of a slice-of-life anime that it makes the zombie apocalypse pretty boring. If the characters don't have strong feelings about what they are doing or why, how is the audience supposed to get invested?

I suppose there's the hope of juicy zombie violence, but #I’m Looking For a Zombie drops the ball there, too. Not only is there virtually no zombie action to speak of in this episode, but the show's attempts to play around with zombie media tropes don't work either. Mikazuki's whole story tries to be the classic one-off encounter with a shady survivor who may or may not plan to betray the main group, but you can see the outcome from several miles away. In the end, when the episode tries to wring schmaltzy drama out of Mikazuki's fate, it can't even bother to show us the climactic moment.

Over and over again, #I’m Looking For a Zombie trips up on the most basic elements of fun zombie shlock, to the point that I wonder why it bothered to riff on the genre in the first place. It could have been a perfectly decent post-apocalyptic hangout comedy without bothering with undead hordes, or it could have leaned harder into zombie tropes to give its anemic story a little more bite. As is, #I’m Looking For a Zombie feels like a compromised vision that will disappoint horror gore-hounds and fans of cute cartoons alike.

Is it just me, or does #I’m Looking For a Zombie feel like it's showing up to this genre party a couple years too late? Not to suggest that there isn't any material left to mine from the zombie sub-genre of horror fiction, but the peak for this kind of storytelling was ten-plus years ago at this point, and this work immediately feels a little perfunctory after Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead made such a big splash three years ago. Still, I might be opening this review with trend analysis and genre comparisons because #I’m Looking For a Zombie is a tonally strange and narratively challenging work.

Taking place thirteen years after the zombie apocalypse, #I’m Looking For a Zombie first focuses on the trio of Aki, Natsuki, and Haru. These three young adults all come from the same small, rural village and are traveling through Japan to “kill” Aki's zombified father and source the resources needed for their survival. While out and about, they save the adoptive siblings Sakura and Yū (who has they/them pronouns in the English dub, which is always nice to see!) from a horde and take refuge in a shopping mall. Here, the group bonds and commits to traveling together, as Yū's schemes and Aki's bravery let them escape the surrounding building.

The writing in #I’m Looking For a Zombie is so weird that I can't suspend my disbelief or engage with it. While this cast's limited knowledge of cityscapes and pre-apocalypse society is understandable and an attempt at interesting, informed character writing, it's expressed in the oddest ways. Early in the episode, the three main characters turn to each other and ask, “Is that a building?” while driving past an apartment complex, which is something that they would know even after living in the boonies for a decade and change!

The dub, while filled with people who I know are good actors like Anairis Quiñones as Sakura, also feels fairly stilted, as the performers were clearly given very little to work with in this script. Despite the violence and bleakness built into the premise of zombie media, I think #I’m Looking For a Zombie is trying to cater to a younger audience, which explains why its version of zombies looks vaguely humanoid. Now that this clicked into place for me, maybe I'll be able to get more out of the second episode with these modified expectations, but this is maybe the least I've enjoyed any full-length premiere so far this season.

The tone of #I'm Looking For Zombie is still weird and incomprehensible to me, but at least this episode engages with the grimmer elements of its setting. Introducing a new character who has more awareness of the world from before the zombie apocalypse began, she gives these plucky young adults some street smarts before succumbing to a zombie bite she had been hiding from them. Ultimately, Aki kills her, then feels super bad about it for a bit, and while this entire scenario is kind of a cliché for zombie fiction, at least it gives me a path to engaging with this work.

This could entirely be a me problem, but I have a hard time believing these teenagers would have so little understanding of the world and current technology after just fifteen years living in rural communities with limited technology. Like, yeah, they aren't going to know what social media is, but in this episode Aki is surprised by how binoculars work, and that's a piece of equipment she almost certainly would have encountered at some point in her survivalist-focused life! This inconsistency portends haphazard world-building in #I'm Looking For Zombie's world (it's also weird that this show has a social media hashtag in its title when, as I mentioned, these characters don't know what social media is) and is growingly frustrating.

It's also really weird to me that these characters talk like millennials while not understanding the social context of some of their exclamations. This episode features characters being surprised to learn what protein is (even though they could easily learn it from the adults around them growing up), but it also has Aki exclaiming “like a boss” after they build a small irrigation system. I refuse to believe that these characters know and use a phrase popularized by a Saturday Night Live sketch while also being completely ignorant of basic nutritional and anatomical facts.

I'm dropping this show after this episode, and I doubt it'll find much of an audience. It's not scary enough to be an outright horror series, and it's not entertaining enough to be a specific kind of situational comedy like Zom100: Buck List of the Dead. #I'm Looking For Zombie is just weird, but not in a fun way. It's weird in the kind of way that makes me ask, with every episode, “who is this for?” and I'm increasingly certain the answer is no one.