Sailor Zombie Lets You Shoot Undead Japanese Pop Stars

TOKYO---How much do you love the members of Japan's pop idol group AKB48? Enough to shoot them?

The new arcade game Sailor Zombie is another iteration of the ubiquitous transmedia empire known as AKB48, a group of 48 young women singing pop songs in schoolgirl outfits. Its members are ubiquitous in Japanese advertising, appear on television programs every day of the week, and star in their own videogames. AKB48 games traditionally have been dating simulators marketed toward male fans or music games aimed at children, but Sailor Zombie is a shooter in which the girls are your targets.

It's about as disturbing as it sounds.

After dropping a few coins into a Sailor Zombie cabinet, players choose a partner from one of seven AKB48 girls, and the two of you meet on a darkened street late at night. I chose to team up with Anna Iriyama. Already a zombie, she begged me to shoot her to save myself from infection. But this wasn't a mercy killing: My gun, she said, contained a "love vaccine" that would temporarily reverse her condition.

From this point on, Sailor Zombie becomes a familiar arcade shooting gallery: The camera moves automatically, and you shoot the girls and other infected civilians as they shamble toward the screen. The game cabinet uses rumbling seats and blasts of air to keep your nerves frayed. When my partner first lunged at me, I was shocked to feel her breath on my face.

The scares subside when the music starts and the girls, still zombified, sing and dance through their hit single "Flying Get." Players pull their guns' triggers along with the musical cues. Even when saddled with an infectious disease that robs them of their humanity, AKB48 never stops performing.

There's little to recommend about Sailor Zombie outside of the curiosity factor. As gun games go, it's unforgiving---your weapon fires slowly and enemies require multiple hits before falling. And at 200 yen (about $2) per play, a full run-through of Sailor Zombie could cost you 30 bucks. The rhythm game aspects are no better than any other music games easily found in Japanese arcades, most of which feature AKB48 songs.

Even if the gameplay had more polish, I'd still avoid playing Sailor Zombie again. It's about shooting famous women in the face. The virtual likenesses of the girls are uncanny-valley realistic, and don't look much like zombies. There's no rotting flesh, no blood, no wounds. They mostly just look like normal people wearing olive drab makeup.

AKB48 members already are treated like commodities. Part of the appeal of the group is the perceived "availability" of the girls: They are not allowed to date. Fans vote in elections that determine their "rankings" within the group. They frequently participate in "handshake events" where they meet fans. Earlier this year, two members of the group (including my in-game partner Anna Iriyama) were attacked at one of those events by a man wielding a saw blade.

"Love vaccines" or no, Sailor Zombie is carrying a bit too much baggage to be fun.