Saki Nikaido

""There’s nothing legendary about throwing your whole life away, I’ve found something way more badass to work towards. I’m here to show you a taste of what it means to be a real legend!""

Saki Nikaido (二階堂サキ) was a motorcyclist in life who, together with the Dorami Biker Gang, conquered the entire island of Kyushu (九州 Kyūshū) with her friend Reiko Amabuki.

She is currently the leader of Franchouchou where she is titled as The Legendary Chief Biker (Densetsu no Tokkō Taichō).

Human
Saki has thigh-length blonde hair that has orange and green highlights tucked into a high ponytail with bangs mostly swept to the left where it has a single orange highlight and orange eyes.

Her casual outfit consists of a brown and white jacket over a white blouse and a blue knee skirt. She also wears her shirt with a dark orange necktie.

In the second season, it is evident that her natural hair color is blonde and that the orange and green colors in her hair are dyes that she made while she was a gang member.

Zombie
Like the other zombies, Saki has grayish blue skin and red eyes, along with scars on her left cheek, left arm, and right leg, as well as bandages that cover her torso, upper left arm, right arm, and left leg. As a zombie, her hair is noticeably messier and duller in color. She lets go of her hair while she sleeps.

Idol
Her idol outfit changes throughout the series: On episodes 1-6, Saki wears a gold T-shirt with the word "弐" ("two") written on it, along with an orange skirt with white ruffles. Using makeup, she and the other zombies make their skin look like a normal human. Saki also wears contact lenses to achieve her golden eyes that she had as a living person.

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

Personality
Saki has a tough and rebellious demeanor, qualifying Sakura as a brat and openly declared that she has no respect for those who have no guts. However, after a successful performance, Saki takes being an idol very seriously and becomes the leader of Franchouchou. Saki also occasionally shows a soft side, as seen in episode 6, where she comforts Ai.

She is certainly impetuous and courageous, but this trait of hers ended up being her fatal flaw. An example was when her determination to win a chicken game against her rival gang caused her to crash fatally.

Despite being a rude criminal with the purpose of taking over the country, she shows great kindness towards children and awareness of social norms, knowing full well that her harsh and violent attitude towards her gang will not work for her to be the idol group.

Among the girls, Saki is notable the only one to be rather passionate about Saga's various landmarks and events. In ep 5 and ep 14, she ridiculed the girls for not knowing Saga's Drive in Tori, Gatalympics, and White Ryuu while sharing Kotaro's enthusiasm in taking part in their activities.

Among girls who have traumatic experiences about their own cause of death and often panic when reminded, Saki is also notably the one who does not have trauma about her own cause of death. Instead, she used that experience as a lesson which she told to Maria, the current leader of her old gang.

When Sakura got depressed, she went to look for her in person with the excuse that she was going to wash her face but when she arrived she couldn't convince her and used her non-dominant hand to slap her showing that she didn't really want to hurt Sakura, but was visibly affected by that and began to cry. But she showed great appreciation and understanding for Sakura after she regained her memories.

Although in her life as a gang member she was rude, in reality Saki was quite weak in the past which caused her past companions to mess with her and made her come back quite strong. Thanks to White Ryu's words she managed to find a purpose in her life and look for others who do not have a place to belong. Even as a zombie she has that tough appearance but it becomes clear that she is still a weak girl when she realizes that as a zombie she will never be able to grow old and have a normal life like all the people she met in life.

Skillset

 * Cycling Proficiency - As the former leader of The Dorami Biker Gang, it is to be expected that she can ride her motorcycle with more proficiency than an average cyclist. This is demonstrated in episode 9 with the race with Reiko at the beginning of the episode and by performing a jump with her motorcycle.
 * Proficiency in Kanji - Saki can fluently write difficult Kanji . Contrary and almost ironically, Saki is one of the most educated (if not the only one) because she has an excellent command of kanji; something that is only seen in senior years.
 * Rapping - Saki and Sakura showcased their never-before-seen rapping skills.
 * Hula Hooping - Saki and the rest of the girls are able to perform while twirling hoops made of electricity during their performance in “Episode 16”.

Natural Abilities

 * Non-senescence - As a zombie, Saki is granted the ability to remain the age at which she died forever without any physical change after the resurrection process, as well as immunity against death. Saki, along with the other girls, is capable of enduring circumstances that human bodies cannot normally handle. This is shown when she performs the trick that killed her a second time, but instead of dying again, she returns with nothing but mild scratches.
 * Detachable Limbs - As a zombie, she also have the ability to detach and reattach parts of her body from their sockets with little to no effort, either intentionally or accidentally. So far, we've not seen any part of her body fallen off yet, but we've seen that it can perform contortions that are not humanly possible.
 * Phosphorescent Vision - Dark red eyes that can glow in the dark after being resurrected into a zombie.
 * Element Absorption - Their zombie bodies can speed up the process of absorbing chemicals like those seen in Episode 4 by instantly absorbing the medicinal patches causing their muscles to relax and not be as stiff, in addition to their subsequent concerts and practices continue to use the patches. In Episode 7, their bodies demonstrate a similar capacity to batteries by receiving an electrical discharge from lightning and glow a pale blue, as well as releasing laser beams with their fingers.

Etymology

 * The name Saki is written in katakana (サキ), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (咲), it could possibly mean "blossom".
 * Saki's surname Nikaido means "upstairs, two-storied" (二階) (nikai) and "hall" (堂) (do).
 * Nikaido is a name of a clan of Japanese samurai that ruled the Iwase District of Mutsu Province during the Sengoku period during the Kamakura era. The founder was Nikaido Yukimasa and they lived in the Sukagawa Castle.

Trivia



 * Saki was designed to be "pretty", and unlike the usual outfit, one of Saki's charms is that she likes to wear things that are easy to wear. In the Saki era, there were no people with hair colors like this, but since it's an anime, they used the "fusion of modern and nostalgia."
 * Saki was actually discovered alive at the scene of the crash, but sustained severe lacerations from the crash and burns from the explosion, and died approximately two hours later at the hospital. The police suspect the involvement of a group called “Ladies”, which suggests that the Saga police were as out of touch at the time, or Saki and/or Reiko Amabuki fudged the details to avoid implicating fellow members of Dorami.
 * Saki’s last Tamagotchi is still with Reiko, as a memento.
 * Saki died three months after her eighteenth birthday.
 * Saki sports probably most athletic figure in a group. Showing great agility several times during course of show.
 * At the end of the episode 9, Saki wore "Captain-for-a-day" ("1日特攻隊長") which hinted "旧特攻隊長" (ex-captain)
 * "1日" = one day
 * "旧" = old; past; ex
 * The chicken game Saki play consists of the one who stops first before reaching one of the many cliffs in Japan, loses and is considered a "chicken", losing prestige both the bozosoku and her gang.
 * The bands until the 90 'were extremely violent. If you stared at them for more than a minute, you probably ended up in the hospital with blunt weapon wounds. In their quest for adrenaline, they fought with other gangs, ran races like these, and obstructed traffic while smashing cars that honked at them. They disappeared due to the cost of acquiring and modifying a motorcycle, to the series of laws that gave the police more instruments to arrest them and the fact that parents let their children play video games all day in order to keep them away from bad meetings.
 * Saki's English voice actress Caitlin Glass also voices Maki Nishikino, another idol character from the anime series Love Live! School Idol Project.
 * As of "Episode 13", Saki works part-time as a construction worker.
 * In "Episode 14", it is revealed that Saki has a crush on her childhood idol, White Ryu.
 * And as of that episode, she and the rest of Franchouchou were delegated ownership of his radio show.
 * Saki has two episodes centered around her so far, Episode 9 and Episode 14
 * Coincidentally, these episodes are the only ones, so far, wherein Kotaro does not play a major role.