Franchouchou

Franchouchou (フ ラ ン シ ュ シ ュ, Furanshushu) is an idol group founded by Kōtarō Tatsumi, which is made up of 7 legendary girls / zombies resurrected by Kotaro. His goal is to save Saga and revive the trend of local idols in the process thanks to the zombieland saga project.

Death Musume> Green Face> Franchouchou
The group's tentative name was originally Death Musume, which was later changed to Green Face by Kotaro. However, the group members found the names to be unsatisfactory and ultimately decided to rename Franchouchou based on the sound Tae made when she sneezed.

The state of the girls' bodies has some pretty dire implications regarding their deaths. Sakura has scars and bandages suitable for a truck impact victim, and as of Episode 6, we have implicit confirmation that the method of death is related to Ai and Junko's current bandages and stitches. Looking at the other girls' scars, and some baffling implications have emerged: the stitches on Yugiri's neck, the scar on Saki's cheek, Lily's exposed heart... and what had to happen to Tae so that she too covered with bandages?

At least Lily's heart has a relatively meek reason: Her heart was literally pounding out of her chest when she saw facial hair and stayed like this.

Members

 * Zombie # 0 Tae Yamada
 * Zombie # 1 Sakura Minamoto
 * Zombie # 2 Saki Nikaidō (Leader)
 * Zombie # 3 Ai Mizuno
 * Zombie # 4 Junko Konno
 * Zombie # 5 Yūgiri
 * Zombie # 6 Lily Hoshikawa

In real life...
Franchouchou made up of Kaede Hondo, Asami Tano, Risa Taneda, Maki Kawase, Rika Kunigawa and Minami Tanaka, in real life they have made various presentations at various anime events in Japan, in which they stand out by wearing the clothes and things used by their alter egos in anime.

Franchouchou chronology

 * Episode 1 : The first episode started on Friday the 13th of 2018.
 * Episode 2 : It is after they woke up, which is April 14, and the second concert is one day after they woke up, on April 15.
 * Episode 3 : It is after April 16, and the guerilla concert on April 17.
 * Episode 4 : Saki mentions that they were locked up for a month, we could assume that an approximate date of May 14.
 * Episode 5 : No date mentioned at the beginning of the episode, but the Gatalympics are mentioned, an event that only happens once a year, and in 2018 it happened on May 27.
 * Episode 6 : This episode is between July 5 and 8.
 * Episode 7 : At the beginning of the episode it is mentioned that Junko has been locked up for two weeks, and the Saga rock concert is on July 20.


 * Episode 8 : Lily's song takes place on Friday, August 17, almost a month after Saga rock.


 * Episode 9 : No reference, but I deduce that between September and early December.


 * Episode 10 : Starts 18 days before Arpino, on December 3.
 * Episode 11 : It happens between December 12 and 17.
 * Episode 12 : Between December 17 and Friday December 21, when it is performed in concert in Arpino.

Goal

 * Tourism in Saga prefecture actually experienced a surge during the anime run, with the Franchouchou (Karatsu City Historical Museum) house in real life attracting a thousand visitors in a single day, more than triple the expectations of the staff!
 * The fact that it came out of nowhere to become one of the most popular anime of fall 2018. The week of vol. 1 Blu-ray went on sale in Japan, sold around 12,500 copies, easily putting it ahead of the other fall 2018 anime Blu-ray released alongside SSSS.GRIDMAN in second place with approximately 8000 copies.

Bagua of Franchouchou
("eight symbols") of FranChouChou.

There is a correspondence between Kotaro and the number of girls (assuming Kotaro is # 7) and their way of death and character.

It also predicts the possible cause of Tae's death and some other details of the death of other girls, and explained why Kotaro changed her name.

Bagua is an ancient Chinese philosophical study that started around the same time as Confucius and Anqi Sheng, just before Qin Shi Huang and Xu-Fu, and was then brought to Japan with Buddhism.

The "Eight Symbols" that correspond to the death of the girls

 * Tae: 0 (000), 坤 (Earth), death by earthquake or starvation
 * Sakura: 1 (001), 乾 (sky), traffic death
 * Saki: 2 (010), 離 (Flame), gas explosion flame death
 * Ai: 3 (011), 震 (Thunder), death by thunder
 * Junko: 4 (100), 艮 (Mountain), death by plane crash (if we are referring to the crash of the royal saga at the time, it crashed into the mountain ranges)
 * Yuugiri: 5 (101), 兌 (Lake), death by blades (兌 also corresponds to "metal" in the Five Chinese elements)
 * Lily: 6 (110), 坎 (Water), death from heart failure
 * Kotaro: 7 (111), 巽 (Wind), not yet dead

Philosophical implications
There is also a philosophical implication for teaching the eight symbols: Japanese Buddhism (which has many ties to Bagua and Taoism due to Chinese influence) classified the days into 6 groups: 大安, 友 引, 先 胜, 先 负, 赤 口, 佛 灭 (I can't translate these, they are some ancient Chinese terms), and all the girls died on 佛 灭 ("仏 滅" in Japanese), the worst of the worst days according to the Japanese Buddhist calendar. Kotaro's old surname "乾 (Heaven)" means a lot of luck, but he changed his name to "巽 (Wind)" to make way for Sakura so that she can take "乾". Generally, [changing one's name or symbol] is strictly prohibited and would bring extreme bad luck. In that case, all eight girls were extremely unlucky; However, in Bagua philosophy, going too far to one extreme will take you to the other extreme, so the girls' extreme bad luck really brings the group great luck.
 * Tae : A person from 坤 (Earth) must remain moral and forgiving.
 * Sakura : A person from 乾 (Heaven) should look forward and be optimistic.
 * Saki : A person from 離 (Flame) should shine her light and personality on others.
 * Ai : A person from 震 (Thunder) must be educated through fear.
 * Junko : A person from 艮 (Mountain) must remain calm, peaceful and thoughtful.
 * Yugiri : A person from 兌 (Lake) must make and educate her friends.
 * Lily : A person from 坎 (Water) must maintain her virtue and conduct.
 * Kotaro : A person from 巽 (Wind) must reiterate his orders and guarantee the practice of his affairs.1200px-Bagua-name-later.svg.png
 * Kōtarō Tatsumi's name in Kanji is 巽 (Tatsumi) 幸 太郎 (Kōtarō), while "Inui" in Kanji is "乾".
 * If you look at the Bagua King Wen "Later Heaven", you will see that the word "巽" is on the opposite side of "乾"

General trivia

 * Tae Yamada's seiyu was credited as "???" During the first episodes, Kotono Mitsuishi was subsequently credited.
 * In addition, Kotono is the only one who does not appear in live performances (this because Tae does not sing).
 * Yuugiri and Lily's intergenerational friendship makes sense when you realize that Yuugiri probably hasn't treated Lily as if she were his own kamuro (a childish assistant to Oiran who acted kindly and endearingly to get information from customers and convince them to visit her "older sister" more often).
 * The show's Opening foreshadows the season's final arc: The girls, dressed as Sentai heroes, save Sakura from a monster: her own depression. In particular, Tae leads the charge.
 * Throughout the series, we are given some songs that focus on particular characters. Some characters like Saki and Ai get their songs based on the type of music they enjoy the most (Saki likes the punk-rock genre; Ai is part of a J-Pop idol band). However, Lily and Yugiri's own songs have two genres that are more like who they were, rather than their own favorable musical genres.
 * Lily's song "To My Dearest" is performed in the style of a Broadway-style ballad number (like the song "Tomorrow" from Annie's musical), as it fits who Lily was as a child prodigy actress, working on many hit dramas before she passed away. Naturally, connections to her work on drama shows and the way she performs as an idol shows that her genre of choice is "show-tunes" rather than anything else.
 * As for Yugiri's song, "Saga Jihen", it starts with an intro that matches the traditional popular music of 19th century Japan, which would fit Yugiri, but follows the main genre of her choice: jazz. While Yugiri died shortly before jazz was invented, she particularly prefers this genre as it fits in with her original lifestyle of being an adult artist (i.e. an Oiran) and how her human life was scandalous. Therefore, this song works in tandem with Yugiri's optimistic, dark and secret personality.