Tae Yamada

""I am the leader..." the ultimate office lady warrior, "YAMADA TAE!""

Tae Yamada (山田 たえ Yamada Tae) was the leader of the Saga Sagako Busters, a group dedicated to fighting the Sagakos and Saga's curse. During the day she worked in the "Karatsu burger" food chain.

She is the mysterious seventh member of the zombie idol group Franchouchou, with her title simply referring to her as The Legendary Tae Yamada (伝説の山田たえ, Densetsu no Yamada Tae).

Human
Tae has a long and straight dark plum hair with two parts that stand out slightly with her bangs. Her usually baggy clothing hides a very well-endowed curvy figure that is proportionally identical to Sakura's, with only slight differences in measurements primarily due to Tae being much taller. Her impressive proportions are much more noticeable in her idol outfits.

Tae's side bangs tend to react to how hot her emotions are. When she's excited, angry, or worried, she sticks out like crazy; when she is more relaxed and at peace, they relax to frame her face.

In life, she used to wear a pale blue office outfit, her office clothes show off her rather long and shapely legs.

Zombie
From what you can see under her clothes, everything except her face and hands is covered in bandages.

Tae typically has bandages on her neck, chest, head, and upper leg with a loose black dress tied with a white rope. She also has gray over-the-knee socks with black shoes.

Idol
Her idol outfit changes throughout the series: On episodes 1-6, Tae wears a purple T-shirt with the word "Zero" written on it and a purple skirt with white ruffles. Using makeup, she and the other zombies make their skin look like an average human. She also wears contact lenses to achieve her red eyes that she had as a living person.

After Saga rock, her idol outfit changed to a red jacket with a plaid decoration, a purple skirt with cotton inside it, and knee-high boots.

In life
During her life, Tae's personality was quite different. Confident and authoritative, Tae was the leader of her hunting team in Sagako, mysterious and admired by her own, not hesitating to resort to intimidation methods for the sake of her missions.

As the leader of the Busters, she was quite a tough and straightforward woman competing even with Saki herself. She commanded the group of demon hunters "Saga Sagako Busters" which is in charge of dealing with Sagako. Regardless of who she has to deal with, she will make everyone follow her orders without doubting her, when Yuko Hyodo turns into an onion for using all her energies, she kidnaps Eikichi Hyodo in the hope that he has inherited the powers of his sister to seal Sagako using onions. Tae was a very serious and intimidating woman to the point of carrying a whip with her, however this is all to prepare the group for a greater catastrophe to come. She is very hostile towards Eikichi at first, she constantly scolds him and thinks that he will not live up to what his sister achieved. But she also gives him a chance to get away from her if he feels he is unfit for the job, and after his first mission, she decides to teach him how to be a better Sagako hunter.

She is a very calm and focused person, able to strategize with her groupmates and was a skilled fighter. She fights Sagakos with nothing but her strength and a shovel from her. She though she cannot seal the curses and she has to depend on the Hyodo twins to do that part.

Despite showing herself to be authoritative, Tae is concerned about Eikichi and wants to train him so that he does not end up like Yuko, Eikichi lacks discipline and she knows it so she must train him to take the place of her sister Yuko with whom Tae had grown fond since she entered the group and still mourns her loss. She had a firm respect from her companions. She strictly monitors Eikichi's progress and is very quick to point out failures.

When she was still a child, her parents were killed by the Sagakos and this left her with a grudge towards them and makes her want to eliminate that plague from Saga. Deep down, Tae is still a somewhat childish person with things but she seems to be someone else to feel that he belongs somewhere, this demonstrated with her relationship with Yuko and how thanks to her company she felt better working and fighting against the Sagakos but later her loss, she feels alone and without company and takes advantage of that loneliness by being aggressive with Eikichi to fill the void left by Yuko's death.

For Yuko, whom she met when the latter was a child. Yuko is one of the few people that Tae shows a kind side to. She also begins to show this to Yuko's brother, Eikichi.

Tae had a very stoic composure and she kept cool when expressing her emotions. She though she has the warmest moments from her, like when she interacts with Yuko. She is normally quite composed, but she can be just as flashy and flamboyant as hers, her fellow hunters, particularly Hanako, all while maintaining her stern confidence.

As Zombie
She tends to bite and gnaw on anyone or anything it can get its hands on, including her own hair. However, according to Kotaro, she is totally harmless.

Tae lacks the class and intellect that she had as a human, being reduced to a wobbly corpse with basic and instinctive behaviors, even after the other girls besides Sakura were stimulated after the heavy metal concert in Episode 1.

Tae is the only one of the girls who has not fully regained consciousness of her, which is why she is still a mindless zombie. As such, Tae is unpredictable and driven by sheer instinct, doing things like biting the other members and throwing herself into the crowd. However, she seems to have some semblance of conscience, at least being able to understand the members to some degree and be cooperative enough to participate in practices and performances. She also seems smart enough to have a caring side for fellow zombie idols of hers. In Episode 5 in particular she shows his extreme appetite, going so far as to attack a guy in a chicken suit because she thinks he's a real chicken, not to mention downing a whole plate of raw meat before this, and a plate of eels on a stick (including plate) followed by five eel sticks later.

She though she starts out as a wild animal that attacks and bites people. She gradually becomes a little more civilized, being able to understand human language and communicate through moans or gestures, showing curiosity about the world as a girl would and imitating the dance movements of the other girls. She is even capable of mimicking a rooster crowing for the Drive-In Tori ad. Later, she begins to mimic the other girls' expressions and speech (albeit in a rather confused way) and gains enough theory of mind to try to lie.

Although she has not spoken, she is already able to imitate the movements of the girls and learn to do them herself, even trying to get Sakura to repeat them with her, there is also an advance in speech because in that same episode she tries to repeat in Japanese "One, two, one, two", phrase that Sakura taught her when she was distracted, so it is likely that she will begin to formulate more concrete words in the future.

As the only zombie who hasn't woken up, she makes little contribution to the team and often gets in the way of their attempts to bite people or when her head falls off. On the other hand, she is surprisingly useful in a pinch, like when she bites into one of Maria's buns when she tries to threaten Sakura and Lily, and scares a large boar after she attacks the girls.

When she sees a squid she is going to throw herself on it even if it is not a squid itself and only has its shape, if it weren't for Sakura, it would have eaten a lot of things, it is quite playful also getting to build a snow sculpture on its own with Romero, Lily usually treats her like her pet and plays with her.

She has very little sense of personal space with the other girls and can be aggressive and authoritative with them at times, such as chasing and biting Junko. But she also displays very puppy-like affection for those she cares for, such as playfully biting and trying to cheer up her groupmates if they are upset. In episode 11, she is emotionally aware enough that Sakura's current situation hits her hard, sending her into a corner of depression; In the next episode, she is shown that she remembers her past moments and tries to talk to Sakura so that she remembers them.

Tae's zombie antics and her childish demeanor are often sources of comedy. However, in Episode 12, when Sakura, blinded by depression, vehemently pushes her away too many times, Tae reaches her Breaking Point of anger and shows that even if she is ultimately a harmless zombie, she can actually be quite a scary when she's really mad. She tries her best to help Sakura remember her successes. Sakura had previously acted as her caretaker so as not to end up biting people, and she had also taught her to pay attention and dance, earning her eternal loyalty from her. So when Sakura sulks in the attic, Tae tries her best to raid inside the attic and drag her to the dance studio to try to refresh her memories of her. Once Sakura's memories come back and mix with past memories of her, Tae happily bites off her head.

While she starts off by simply biting anything she can put into her mouth out of mindless zombie habit, as her intelligence grows, she begins to bite things more rarely and intentionally. One reason to do so is for happiness and affection.

When Franchouchou makes an opening for Iron Frill, she is tasked with playing drums. She adjusts very quickly and opens the act with a full drum solo. Hers episode of her focused on her shows how she unknowingly gets involved in a series of events that lead her to earn enough money to pay off Franchouchou's debt.

Tae within her universe is quite popular. In some episodes of seasons 1 and 2, Tae is shown to be extremely popular on the internet for her quirky behavior, and Franchouchou fans love the fact that Tae never sings or speaks, and more or less does her thing during the seasons shows. As shown in Revenge Episode 6, most outsiders familiar with Tae take her strange behavior in stride, even when it comes to things that living people normally don't do, like eating food that's still in the wrapper.

As a zombie, she has an adorable open-mouthed smile that shows off her cute fangs. This occurs when she is excited or enjoying a happy moment with her groupmates. She also has a very gentle human smile, particularly when she is alone speaking in front of Yuko's remains. In fact, if it weren't for Tae's help, the group would not have been able to start working to pay off their debt from the failure of the EFS since she was the one who, on her own initiative, bought dried squid in a store by putting on her own makeup.

Skill-sets

 * Dancing - Although Tae cannot sing, she can move her body to the beat of any song.
 * Snowman Building - In the tenth episode, Tae has built an accurate snowman of Romero that is thrice the size of the girls.
 * Hula Hooping - Tae and the rest of the girls can perform while twirling hoops made of electricity during their performance in "Episode 16".
 * Drumming - Tae is shown to stand her own when she is seen playing the drums during their performance in "Episode 16".
 * Making hamburgers - Since she worked as a cook in a sales cart, she knows how to make good hamburgers.

Natural Abilities

 * Non-senescence - Due to being a zombie, Tae retains her age and physical appearance at the time of her death forever and is immune against death. As she, along with the other girls, can endure circumstances that human bodies normally cannot handle, like the lightning bolt in the seventh episode, and instead of suffering a third-degree burn, the girls end up becoming luminous and self-possessed - tuned voices.
 * Detachable Limbs - As a zombie, Tae can detach and reattach parts of her body from their sockets with little to no effort, either intentionally or accidentally. She is the zombie whose limbs fall the most, which is a potential danger if she performs a sudden act of force in public as she can expose the secret.
 * Phosphorescent Vision - Like the rest of the girls, Tae's undead eyes are shown to be able to glow in the dark.
 * Element Absorption - Their zombie bodies can speed up the process of absorbing chemicals like those seen in Episode 4, where they instantly absorb the medicinal patches, causing their muscles to relax and not be as stiff. In addition to their subsequent concerts and practices, they continue to use the patches. In Episode 7, their bodies demonstrate a battery-like characteristic by receiving an electrical discharge from lightning, glowing a pale blue, and releasing laser beams with their fingers.

Unique Abilities

 * Monstrous Form - After having had enough of Sakura Minamoto's self-deprecation and sulking, Tae briefly morphs into a terrifying form of herself with a larger and pointer set of teeth, and her glowing eyes are more prominent. This form also makes her more agile.
 * Superhuman Strength - As shown in the eleventh episode, Tae can drag Sakura out of the room Sakura locked herself in and into another area in the mansion just by hanging onto the collar of her pajamas with her mouth.
 * Cross-species Communication - Tae can communicate with Romero using canine language and often howls with him at the moon.
 * Shrewd Leadership - Leader of the Saga Sagako Busters group, Tae carried the burden of what it entailed to physically fight the curse and had to make sure that each of the team members was mentally prepared for the burden. When Eikichi joins, she is willing to train him not to succumb to the effects of the curse sooner.
 * Sagako slaying - With the help of Yuko Hyodo, they could contain the Sagakos in onions of the great of the Hyodo and thus constantly reduce the number of curses that haunted Saga.

Etymology

 * The name Tae is written in hiragana (たえ), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (多恵), it could mean "many" (多) (ta) and "favor, benefit" (恵) (e).
 * Tae's surname Yamada means "mountain, hill" (山) (yama) and "field, rice paddy" (田) (ta/da).



Anime

 * The staff has said they wanted Tae's image to be "sexy onee-san who comes for your blood;" they wanted to give her the impression of a beautiful long-haired Japanese horror character. They thought it would be cute if the hair moved like dogs' ears and could move independently. They also enjoyed designing the clothes, choosing prisoner-style shirts and pajamas that they really liked.
 * Tae's Seiyu, Kotono Mitsuishi, said that the first emotion born in Tae's heart was familial love for Sakura and that she also found her conscience in episode 11, when Sakura suffered amnesia, all this in an interview with Kotono Mitsuishi.
 * Up to the third episode, Tae's voice actress was credited as "???".
 * This was to excite the fact that she shares the same Japanese voice actor as Sailor Moon.
 * In "Episode 9", Tae chews on Maria's odango-like hair.
 * The primary role of voice actress Kotono Mitsuishi was Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon, who wore buns in her civilian and sailor costume.
 * It is later confirmed that she bites them because they look like onions, the fact that she takes more relevance in Gaiden.
 * Tae is the only member of Franchouchou who does not have any lead songs as she cannot speak properly.
 * Tae's hair resembles the head of her favorite food, squid.
 * Tae is the only other zombie whose cause of death hasn't been revealed yet.
 * By actual age at death, Tae is the oldest of the girls as she died at the age of 29.
 * Tae's outfit closely resembles that of Buddhist Motsuke Koromo style robes.
 * Tae is one of four with the most curvaceous figures in the group. Sharing same cup size and body type with Sakura Minamoto and beaten only by Yugiri and Maimai Yuzuriha.
 * As of "Episode 13", she "works" part-time alongside Sakura for a local pasture farm.
 * She currently has one episode centered around her, that being "Episode 18".
 * The episode also revealed that her family's gravestones are positioned right next to the Minamoto family gravestones.
 * Similar to Kotaro in "Episode 13", Tae is also hinted to be the only one of the girls to harbor good luck instead of terrible luck throughout the episode.
 * In chapter 27 of the Zombie Land Saga manga, Tae recognizes an old lady from a food store, Tae recognizes an old lady from a food store, this lady mentions working in a group to save Saga, presumably some former member of the Busters.

Manga

 * Tae's biological parents were killed by Sagako years ago leaving Tae with a great grudge towards them and the curse.
 * Jofuku raised her as his own, just like he did with Kiichi some 100 years earlier.
 * Tae's age in the manga is 29 years old, so he would be close to dying in the following chapters.
 * Tae more or less knows the origin of Saga's curse, searching for the elixir of immortality 2,200 years ago.
 * Onions have properties that counteract the power of Saga's curse, by meeting Yuko and the onions from her farm, the Busters were able to seal Sagako and save Saga's inhabitants.
 * Tae with the help of Jofuku, could be the creator or at least propose the idea for the Zombie Land Saga project and possibly this project was embraced by Kotaro in the future to avoid the apocalypse mentioned in Gaiden.
 * The mansion, the truck, the shovels, makeup and even the sunglasses are in Tae's possession and it is unknown how Kotaro managed to gain access to all of this.
 * Tae says that Yuko does the purification ritual for miko (巫女の禊). The reason Tae thinks it's ridiculous for a child to do it is that miko (shrine maidens) are traditionally young maidens.
 * Her past with Yuko goes beyond a "friendship" from Tae's point of view, Yuko helped Tae a lot since she felt alone and without a purpose in life beyond revenge on Sagako, Yuko's emotional support made Tae soften her heart to others.
 * She is a person with outbreaks of constant violence attacking Eikichi every time he provokes her.
 * Tae, is someone very intelligent and knows how to lead a group correctly so that it thrives.
 * Tae's Sagakos hunting past also explains other little things. Among the zombies who had not awakened in the first episode, she acted much more violently compared to the rest, while the other zombies did not do much more than walk threateningly towards Sakura, Tae rushed to pounce on her, she also immediately went direct to launch herself against a death metal fan because she probably associated his hair as something demonic. Her tendency to chase Junko and bite into Maria's bows could be that her hairstyles resemble onions that Gaiden's manga reveals as purifying.
 * If you look at the list of people that Tae has chased or been aggressive (Zombie Sakura and Junko, Kokko-kun, a kappa pet in ep 6), the only thing they have in common is that they could be mistaken for Sagako, this could be Tae unconsciously recalling an encounter from her past life.
 * The Kasuien hotel that appeared in episode 4, and one of Tae's group missions, could also be the reason why the company's spokesperson got so scared when she saw the girls. If she had heard horror stories about monsters attacking and eating people in that particular onsen, then no wonder she would freak out when she saw zombies.
 * Some of the places that appear in Gaiden also appear in the gastronomic adventures of Kotaro in the manga which may indicate that he was not only looking for food in those places.
 * Tae works at a fast food stall owned by his boss and father Jofuku's food chain.
 * Jofuku is very over-protective of Tae because he does not want her to become a victim of the curse.
 * Tae, apparently, is wanting to have a partner or someone by her side, hinted in chapter 5 of Gaiden.