A reminder to everyone of how Zombie Land Saga tricked us into watching an idol anime
To promote their new original anime, the Zombie Land Saga staff decided to make the trailers and promotional posters give the impression that the plot would be about girls surviving a zombie apocalypse. All pre-premiere publicity and the official synopsis pointed to this—until the first episode aired.
It turned out to be an ingenious ruse to get unsuspecting otaku to watch what was actually a zombie idol anime. The funniest part is that the trailers DID feature actual scenes from the show, but they were edited to create a much darker atmosphere. Even the official synopsis makes more sense after seeing the first episode.
But was it all planned? As revealed in a later interview, the staff didn't have high hopes for the project, so perhaps this was a way to attract an initial audience and make it profitable. What they didn't expect was for their little stunt to lead to the show winning the award for Best Anime of 2018 and selling over 60,000 Blu-rays (combined).
With that first episode, the legend of Zombie Land Saga began.