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 to the two biker gangs,

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

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; in 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 normal humans. Saki also wears contact lenses to achieve the golden eyes that she had as a living person.

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

Before Death
Although in her life as a gang member she was rude, in reality, Saki was fragile in the past which caused her companions to mess with her and made her come back strong. She was a friendless and even more rebellious girl before joining Dorami, unsure of the direction she was taking; until she heard the White Ryu radio broadcast that inspired her to do something with her life, leading her to befriend Reiko and Dorami in life. In life, she used to hang out with her gang at “Drive in Tori”, a popular chicken restaurant, and grew up watching the Kashima Gatalympics. Her modus operandi is to be badass. She was an unfettered thrill seeker who often sought challenges, a trait that eventually cost her life.

She certainly was impetuous and courageous, but this trait of hers ended up being her fatal flaw because she was so determined to win the chicken game against the rival gang that she kept speeding up and was mortally wounded by the resulting crash.

Afterlife
Saki has a tough and rebellious attitude, she calls Sakura a brat and openly declares 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.

Sakura bested her in an impromptu rap battle, where she basically shows some guts and earns Saki's respect. Before that, Saki spent most of the episode antagonizing Sakura or treating her like easy prey.

Normally, she is just as upset with Kotaro as the rest of the girls, and she didn't hesitate to look down on them. In Episode 5, she becomes much nicer to him when she discovers that he has booked appearances for them on Drive-In Tori and Gatalympics, both of them screaming at their shared enthusiasm. She goes into fangirl mode upon meeting Cocco, she turns into a complete emotional nerd when she's around him and gets upset when she feels like others can't live up to his acting standards.

Among girls who have trauma about their own cause of death and who often panic when reminded, Saki does not have trauma about her own cause of death, but rather an accident in which she died to help her companions. Even in the bike race at the Gatalympics in episode 5, she took the lead as a special attack captain and was confident that she would win that event.

Despite being a rude criminal with the purpose of taking over the country, she shows great kindness towards children and an awareness of social norms. Knowing full well that her harsh and violent attitude towards her gang will not work for them to be the largest idol group in the country. Saki also occasionally shows a soft side to her, as seen in episode 6, where she comforts Ai after she tells her how she died.

Dead or alive, Saki has never had a clue what it's supposed to be “normal”, and she has never understood what other people see in it. She struggled to relate to Reiko's desire to leave the gang and start a family one day, and at first, she has trouble connecting with the other girls due to her radical nature.

She gets a second chance as a zombie and does the exact same thing again. She survives this time thanks to her undead nature, even though she had no guarantee that she would have survived the accident intact enough to continue functioning.

When she was taken to the mountains, she showed a rather reckless attitude in adding wet wood to the fire that Lily was making; however, she was quite cooperative with the group in collecting dry wood after the incident. 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. She was visibly affected by this and began to cry on the way down. But she showed great appreciation and understanding for Sakura after she regained her memories.

Saki is equally ecstatic when Kotaro says they will work with White Ryu, her icon from her whole life. Unlike other characters, she accepts his old-fashioned tendencies one hundred percent. Justified given that White Ryu's work helped her get out of a difficult place in her life, and she is grateful that he allowed her to continue his work by broadcasting his radio show to her.

After White Ryu appoints Franchouchou to succeed him on his radio show, Saki confesses her feelings for him. However, he tells Saki to try again when she is a grown woman. Saki regretfully admits to Sakura that she knows she never will be since zombies don't age, and she bursts into tears when reality hits her once and for all. Ironically, for someone who lived fast and died young, she finds a reason to grow up only after she's already dead, and now she never will. After the disaster that happened in Saga in Revenge episodes 10 and 11, she is still worried about attending her radio show on the current day and gets angry with Sakura for missing the date. When they finally can give their radio program, Saki is the one who talks to the citizens of Saga about the disaster that occurred and as being united, they will all be able to overcome it. Speaking from the heart, she asks everyone who listens to her to go to the benefit concert in Franchouchou to help recover Saga.

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. She can also pedal a bike so fast that it creates a sonic boom.
 * 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 can 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 at 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 can 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 fall 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 accelerate 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 the fact that in their following concerts and practices, they continue to use the patches. In Episode 7, their bodies demonstrate a similar capacity to batteries by receiving an electrical discharge from lightning and glowing 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, 咲希, 沙紀 or 早紀), it could possibly mean:
 * 咲—“blossom”.
 * 咲希—“blossom” (咲) (sa) and “hope” (希) (ki).
 * 沙紀—“sand” (沙) (sa) and “chronicle” (紀) (ki).
 * 早紀—“already, now, fast, early” (早) (sa) and “chronicle” (紀) (ki).
 * Saki's surname Nikaido (2) 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”, suggesting that the Saga police are as incompetent as they are today, 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 are probably the most athletic figure in a group. Showing great agility several times during the course of the show.
 * At the end of 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 to both the bozosoku and her gang.
 * The gangs until the '90s were extremely violent. If you stared at them for more than a minute, you'd probably end up in the hospital with blunt force injuries. In their quest for adrenaline, they fought other gangs, ran races like these, and clogged up traffic while smashing cars that honked at them. They disappeared due to the cost of acquiring and modifying a motorcycle, the series of laws that gave the police more tools to arrest them, and the fact that parents let their children play video games all day to keep them away from bad influences.
 * 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.
 * It is also revealed that the full version of Tokkou DANCE ~DAWN OF THE BAD~ had White Ryu's motivational speech included.
 * 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.
 * As shown during chapter 11 of the Gaiden manga. Since she was a child, Saki does not know how to break any type of two-wheeled vehicle, and this behavior was later what cost her life in an accident. Although even after death, she is shown that she just doesn't know how to use the brakes.
 * Even though Saki is 18 years old and was the leader of a biker gang, she still believed in Santa Claus, as revealed in Drama CD 1 which occurred at Christmas. An illusion that was broken by Ai when she told her the truth.