The Curse of SAGA

"With the beginning of the Reiwa era, Saga will face a cataclysmic threat. A cataclysm wherein no one will think of Saga anymore, and it will vanish from their memories."

- Jofuku, about the prophecy of the curse,

The Curse of the Saga Prefecture (佐賀の呪い, Saga no noroi), also known as The Curse of Saga, is the primary antagonistic force which has plagued the Saga Prefecture since ancient times and continuing into the present day.

Its opposite is The Prosperity of SAGA, which manifests itself through the prosperity of people and places. The curse ensures that anyone who can bring prosperity to Saga will be struck down before they do so, effectively condemning Saga to a path of ruin and destruction.

Origins
The Saga curse (as it is known in the Zombie Land Saga universe) is inspired by the historical accounts of Xu Fu, an ancient Chinese alchemist who supposedly visited Saga on his quest for the Elixir of Immortality. The curse also seems to be directly related to Jofuku, as he is visibly shown to suffer as a direct consequence of its power.

The curse takes different forms over time. For example, during the Meiji era, the curse manifested as natural disasters, and tricked people into going to war and destruction. In the late 1980s, when there was a period of relative normality and prosperity, the curse was embodied by Sagako, curses with physical forms that terrified the residents of Saga.

Currently, the curse appears as natural disasters and/or freak accidents that point to the ascension of Franchouchou.

Description
A mysterious and malevolent force that aims to erase Saga at all costs. Jofuku has been fighting the curse for centuries, as the curse that threatens Saga means that his life is also at stake. It is the one responsible for endangering the people of Saga and trying to make the prefecture cease to exist. Franchouchou's bad luck is partly due to the curse, doing whatever it takes to prevent them from succeeding and spreading the name of Saga. Once its subtle manipulations reach the point of not being able to make Franchouchou fail, it starts looking for more direct attacks, like “natural” disasters.

The origin of the power of Saga's curse is in Saga itself, in this case, its inhabitants. Large gatherings of people in one place generate a great deal of power that is harnessed by both curse and prosperity. While prosperity can manifest in people drawing prosperity to Saga, giving them power, the curse uses this power of Saga to manifest or generate curses that affect the very integrity of Saga. Both forces are two sides of the same coin and seek to annihilate each other.

When the periods of prosperity increase in the 80s, the curse can manifest individually through Sagakos, supernatural beings that curse areas in Saga with high levels of prosperity. Defeating a particular Sagako might bring immediate relief to a problem, but it doesn't address the underlying issue that caused Sagako to manifest in that form to begin with. Therefore, to effectively defeat a Sagako, they must be purified employing the onions grown on the Hyodo farm.



The first manifestation of these beings was through a baby that was discovered by Tae's parents. They raised the child in their university laboratories until the health department found out and went looking for the child, considering the child a public health risk. The baby eventually transforms into a spider-like Sagako, killing the people around her. The manifestation does not last long, since she disappears to manifest herself again in 1989. During these times, the Sagako are increasing throughout Saga and the Sagako Busters team is formed, who are responsible for sealing and purifying these creatures to save Saga.



Improperly sealing or killing a Sagako releases their negative energy contained within them, and this energy is used by Magatsuhi. When she finally regains her full power, there is no energy left for the Sagako to manifest in the first place. She also uses the power of prosperous places to gain power.

The Sagako spider would manifest herself again through a storm, which would destroy the Sagako Busters headquarters. The negative energy of the Sagako released by Keiji upon killing them allowed the spider to manifest again. After her appearance, the Sagako would stop appearing. Although no more curses appear, Magatsuhi is still out there kidnapping women in Saga.

The Busters team unites to defeat her in a final battle, thanks to the Sagako they had previously sealed, now purified. The Sagako are destroyed by Magatsuhi, but thanks to the power of the onions transferred to Tae, she manages to seal the curse inside her own body. 5 years later, in 1994, no curse has manifested again in Saga. Saga has been saved, but the curse is still out there.

Franchouchou was created by Kotaro Tatsumi as part of his Zombie Land Saga Project, designed and ultimately for the purpose of defeating the curse and thus saving Saga. Because the curse promises to kill any individual who can bring prosperity to Saga, the project is Kotaro's attempt to circumvent its power by producing an idol group made up entirely of undead zombies, since as zombies it can't just kill them again. The curse in this era manifested as depopulation and aging, degrading the power of Saga in its entirety.

The curse casts everything it has to do to stop Franchouchou, including lightning, blizzards, and a devastating flood that destroys Saga. Thanks to the accumulated power of Franchouchou's revenge concert, it manages to manifest an alien invasion.



Its entire goal is to make Saga fade into obscurity and eventually cease to exist as, both physically and conceptually. While it mainly does it by killing people, it is also open to manipulating situations to mentally break people so that constant artificial deaths are not necessary to destroy Saga. Basically, it turned Sakura into its own personal cosmic toy so that she would never achieve anything in life before it finally decided to drive her into a car accident. Sakura was a very skilled person who was going to bring prosperity to Saga, so she generated even more power within her, which allowed the curse to attack her more and more strongly. By the time Sakura figured out that being an idol was what she wanted, she already had a lot of accumulated prosperity and therefore the curse had enough energy to kill her.

The fact that Ai and Lily went far enough to begin to bring fame and recognition to Saga, only to have both careers tragically cut short, implies that it let their power build up until it was powerful enough to kill them. It largely held back intentionally so that they themselves would generate the power that would end their lives, giving some hope points to the prefecture so that it could instigate some incidents that would destroy their reputations.

Abilities

 * Saga's Power—The curse uses the power of Saga to carry out its attacks, the higher this power is, the stronger the curse will respond. When Franchouchou's group were ready for their concert at the EFS, they had already made Saga gain a lot of power by becoming prosperous, which allowed Saga's curse not to hesitate to use its full power available to stop the girls by destroying Saga days before they achieve their goal.
 * Ominous Presence—The curse is limited to Saga, but is still omnipresent throughout the prefecture. It can act as soon as there is a prosperous place, using the energy of this place to curse it.
 * Misfortune—Franchouchou's girls were cursed by the curse with bad luck, but being dead and with Kotaro on top of them, this bad luck is ineffective. In fact, the curse tried to take them to the sea and try to expose the girls on multiple occasions during the last few episodes because the curse doesn't want the people of Saga to have something to remember.
 * Accidents—The curse sees everyone who wants Saga to be more popular as a threat, so it will generate accidents or small or big inconveniences that will make it difficult for Saga to progress.
 * Deaths—It is implied in these season 2 episodes that memory is the factor that allows Saga to persist, not its official recognition as a prefecture because committing an assassination against Saga's rebels effectively reduced the number of people who remember Saga in their hearts. The death of the girls is the latest measure of the curse to wipe out anyone who dares to interfere with Saga's popularity.




 * Natural Disasters—Shown in the last few episodes of Revenge. Saga's curse is capable of causing natural disasters that will surely have killed several people. During the Meiji era, it manifested as famines and typhoons that undermined the prosperity of the prefecture.
 * Storms—When the curse decides to attack with force, it manifests storms that can attack the entire Saga or a specific area to destroy its targets.
 * Snowfalls—Snowfall only occurs in the winter months, where the curse unleashes heavy snowstorms to stop Franchouchou.
 * Supernatural Beings—When the curse gains enough power from its counterpart, it can choose to manifest itself physically to make its job of removing Saga more effective.
 * Sagako—Generates curses on Saga to destabilize the area to prevent people from thinking of Saga Prefecture.
 * Magatsuhi—The God of calamities, who manifests when the Sagako's energy is released and can cause great damage to Saga just by appearing once. She sought to harness the power of Saga's curse for herself, preventing the Sagako from appearing and thus looking for her mother. She was sealed inside Tae's body.
 * Aliens—Can literally manifest as an alien ship in response to Franchouchou's benefit concert that became popular in various countries.
 * Apocalypse—The end of the world predicted by Jofuku. It is unknown if he was referring to the world as such or the world as Saga Prefecture

Weaknesses

 * Onions—Onions are the method of sealing the Sagako, a physical manifestation of Saga's curse that tried to wipe out the prefecture in 1989-1999. With the power of Saga's prosperity, these onions can seal and purify Sagakos within them.
 * Saga's Power—Just as this same power helps it to destroy Saga, it is also this same one who stops the curse. Saga's power is what allows Jofuku and possibly the girls to exist. Kotaro's plan seeks this, since if all humanity remembers Saga, Saga itself will gain great power and prosperity will oppose the curse. Since it's impossible to destroy Saga from people's hearts and memories and the curse only operates in Saga's area, it will be impossible for it to do anything outside of the prefecture.

Presence
The curse doesn't just need to kill, it just needs to negatively impact the area.

Season 1

 * Episode 1—The truck driver that killed Sakura claims he was blinded by a sudden flash of light when he turned himself in for manslaughter, as revealed in the end credits scene of “Episode 17”.
 * Episode 2—Ai and Junko didn’t listen to Sakura and the three almost got shot by Policeman A. Later on, their identities as zombies are revealed during their performance, though, they were able to cover it up just as quickly.
 * Episode 3 —Their guerrilla performance was a bust.
 * Episode 4 —They lost the sponsorship from the unnamed pharmaceutical company.
 * Episode 5—Despite doing well with the commercial shoot for Drive-In Tori and having Tae win the Gatalympics, their efforts were at naught since they ended up giving Drive-In Tori the publicity they intended to advertise themselves with.
 * Episode 6—Ai and Junko’s quarrel causes a rift between the girls’ relationship regarding their fans.
 * Episode 7—The girls are struck by lightning, only for them to find out they are immune to its effects and have instead been upgraded by its voltage.
 * Episode 10—A wild boar disrupts their “training in the mountains” montage.
 * Episode 11—The flashbacks portraying Sakura’s life before her death was filled with misfortune.
 * Episode 12—The snowstorm caused the roof of the stadium to collapse on the girls during their performance.

Season 2

 * Episode 14—Frustrating White Ryu's radio by causing his station to lose popularity.
 * Episode 15—Kotaro tries to separate Ai from the girls, so they could stop depending on her too much. This catches the attention of Shiori Baba, who tries to (re-)invite Ai to join Iron Frill.
 * Episode 17—Kotaro sabotages the Japanese Got Talent so that the curse does not manifest and attack Lily. But the curse ends up sabotaging Lily's song when Light sings it. When Light wins, the curse didn't focus on the girls this time. Moreover, Light emphasizes that no one in Saga succeeds.
 * Episode 18—Having Tae run errands for the week just makes Ookoba follow his instincts, revealing the girls' true identities after following Yamada all day.
 * Episode 19—After accidentally knocking out Maimai Yuzuriha, Tatsumi brings her unconscious body over to the mansion, thinking she’s dead and makes her a temporary member of the group. Although her skills were good, she left the group on her own accord, thinking she needed to make the most of her life first.
 * Episode 20—Kiichi Momozaki’s incompetence at his leadership skills accidentally causes a war within the prefecture.
 * Episode 21—In an attempt to stop the rebellion, Ito attempts to get rid of Kiichi and Yugiri only to be stopped by her fatally injuring him, which subsequently led to Yugiri's beheading.
 * Episode 22—The natural disasters are growing more prevalent as it has shown to have tried to off Kotaro twice in the present.
 * Episode 23—The curse has tried to drown and kill Kotaro in different ways, unsuccessfully. It has also made Franchouchou homeless and without a place to practice the event
 * Episode 24—Minor manipulations to prevent Franchouchou from reaching the stadium, causing it to constantly rain. However, it seems to have finally finds Kotaro's weak point, attacking his immune system, as he was seen coughing up blood after talking backstage with Franchouchou.

Zombie Land Saga Gaiden

 * Chapter 1—Eikichi suffers a shoulder injury that prevents him from being a better baseball player.
 * Chapter 2—A Sagako makes couples start fighting each other.
 * Chapter 3—The Maryina club is attacked by Sagako due to its popularity.
 * Chapter 4—Karatsu Burger stores begin to close due to the influence of the curse.
 * Chapter 6—A Sagako prevents high school students from confessing. This curse repeatedly strikes Takeo.
 * Chapter 7—A Sagako on the coast and a missing Anna cause the group to weaken.
 * Chapter 8—A storm seems to approach Saga. The Sagako is defeated.
 * Chapter 9—The Sagakos multiply, the curse prospers.
 * Chapter 10—The curse is powerful enough for Magatsuhi to manifest.
 * Chapter 11- Magatsuhi begins to recover her powers and kills Higashino.
 * Chapter 12—Sagako is born from a strange-looking child, murdering the people at the university and Tae's parents in the process.
 * Chapter 13—Magatsuhi manifests with a fox mask kidnapping women in the Takeo city, all between 20 and 40 years old. Hanako and Anna are also victims of this being.
 * Chapter 14—Tae and Eikichi are captured by Magatsuhi.
 * Chapter 15—Magatsuhi gathers all the power of the curse and attacks the Busters
 * Chapter 16—Tae dies by merging with Magatsuhi.

Franchouchou and co.

 * Sakura Minamoto—Sakura's bad luck makes much more sense in the context of the curse. It wasn't because SHE was unlucky, the curse of the Saga prevented her from succeeding and pursuing her dreams, since then, she would have saved Saga herself, and the universe set out to make sure that didn't happen. And after trying and failing several times to discourage Sakura, only for her still not to give up, it finally decided that the only way to stop her would be to kill her. According to Arata's files, the driver of the truck was blind by a mysterious light and his truck, and like a toy, was thrown at high speed towards Sakura, killing her immediately. When Sakura turned out to be physically unkillable because she is a zombie, the curse tried to kill her in an emotional sense by recreating the incident that killed her and giving her amnesia, causing her to lose her memories of her time in Franchouchou and get depressed again and not want to continue. Though, thanks to the efforts of her friends, Sakura was able to move on and finally regain her passion for being an idol as well as her memories of her.
 * Saki Nikaido—She was the leader of a biker gang who wants to take over the island of Kyushu and then her country. Saki was discovered alive at the crash site, but suffered severe lacerations from the crash and burns from the blast, and died approximately two hours later in hospital. The police suspected the involvement of a group called “Dorami”, suggesting that the Saga police are as stupid as they are now, or Saki (if she was still aware) and/or Reiko Amabuki manipulated the details to avoid implicating other Dorami members. Due to her influence and the growth of the gang, the curse tried to stop Saki and as a last resort left her to die in a motorcycle accident which she initially survived, but leaving her alive for her gang to be traumatized by the accident. Stopping the project of them taking over Kyushu.
 * Ai Mizuno—Iron Frill was a very popular group and Ai is their center, a living legend. Her concert at Tosu Stadium (EFS) would be one of the biggest in the area. The curse killed her before the concert became a success and in a way that will leave a negative impact on the place, so no one wanted to remember the place, much less Saga. Even newspaper articles highlight the rarity of the incident, as she was the only one affected by lightning.
 * Junko Konno—She was already become popular and well-known, a living legend, similar to Ai. Junko's flight (“DSN Airlines Flight 842”) appears to have crashed into the sea, as the Japan Coast Guard was responsible for recovery efforts. Other glimpses of the article suggest the plane “broke up in two” around the middle of the fuselage, and that there was something strange in one of the parts of the fuselage. The curse was not afraid of collateral damage, as Junko was in a plane crash with hundreds of other passengers.Farewell S2E21.jpg
 * Yugiri—Victim of the curse or, more accurately, of an exchange. Kiichi was a nameless boy who wanted to get Saga back, but who became a potential victim of the curse (and politics) in the process. Meanwhile, Yugiri had friends in high places and her death was almost covered up and wiped off the map. If her death had been made public in some way, and it had been made public that by helping a child to recover Saga, it was accidentally started caused a riot/attempted revolution. Saga would have gotten a lot of attention from that kind of news, like newsworthy of a history book. The curse would have had a harder time keeping Saga “forgettable”, preferably “non-existent”. This also implies that the wars that destroyed Saga after its prosperity were the fault of the curse itself in the area.
 * Lily Hoshikawa—She was a popular actress in Saga. She makes Saga popular and well known. Which goes against the intent of the curse. So, the curse killed her by taking advantage of her mother's weak heart condition and her hair as a trigger, causing a cardiac arrest.
 * Tae Yamada—She was not a victim of the curse as such, but of a sacrifice she made to seal Magatsuhi and save Saga from Sagako's curses.
 * Kotaro Tatsumi (attempted)—The curse has tried to kill him many times by trying to drown him in the sea and the bar where he is, as well as trying to crush him with a figure from Tosu's stadium. As of now, he has been shown coughing up blood once (and hid it from the girls), suggesting that he's not well on the inside.
 * Romero—Though it is currently unknown what caused his death, he is the first ever known zombie to be successfully resurrected by Jofuku.

Others

 * Mr. Hibiya—Who bought Yugiri and took her to Saga, was a victim of the curse, as he was someone powerful and could bring prosperity to Saga. He was killed from a “sudden illness.”
 * Tae's parents—They were killed by the physical manifestation of the curse when they planned to bring prosperity to Saga Prefecture. They both unknowingly raised the first Sagako and when she manifested, she indirectly killed them.
 * Kiichi's father—Who was in the revolt of Saga and died at the hands of the enemy.
 * Sachika—She died shortly after giving birth to Lily due to her frail heart condition.

Influence
The Zombie Land Saga Gaiden manga takes place 3 decades before the events of the anime, and thus, there are still people in Saga who remember the times when the Sagakos roamed the prefecture and spread stories about them. This explains why almost everyone who sees the girls in their zombie states immediately classifies them as monsters. As for the various reactions to the supernaturalness of the girls, that could depend on the age of the characters.

Policemen and rappers, who were young adults, would not have existed when Sagako were prevalent, yet they would have heard stories of monsters attacking people in Saga. When a group of reanimated corpses move around at night, naturally their reaction would be: to get scared.



In the second episode, the audience in Saga's castle hardly reacted to Tae's head falling, which could be attributed to special effects. However, since they would have been old enough to live in Saga when the Sagako were prevalent, they may have recognized Franchouchou as something supernatural. Clearly, the Franchouchou girls weren't hostile, with Tae's head only eating the squid and not chasing after the humans. Thanks to Sakura and Saki's performance inspiring them to make the most of their lives with their rapping, they decided not to make a fuss about it.



The Hisanaka Pharmaceutical Company Manager in the bathhouse, like the old ones, would have been living in Saga during the Gaiden manga. Unlike the old men who would see the girls in a more neutral setting at a performance, the lady of the company had the misfortune to see the girls at night with them, apparently acting hostile (yelling and chasing her). The fact that the bathhouse was apparently the previous site of a Sagako attack, as depicted in Gaiden's manga, would only have reinforced the escort lady's fear that these “beings” were clearly malevolent.



Then there's Maimai, who immediately recognizes the girls as zombies and accepts them. Like the policeman, she would have heard stories of supernatural monsters prowling Saga. Unlike the policeman, who had no idea who these zombies were, Maimai recognized them as Franchouchou and, being a fan of them who had been regularly attending their concerts, she wasn't afraid of them; it also helps her that she wasn't wearing her glasses, so she couldn't clearly see their zombie forms, which made them look less hideous.



Finally, the children at the shelter did not believe that Franchouchou were real zombies at all. Ironically, compared to the older characters, being young children, they would not have existed when Sagako existed in Saga and their families might have avoided telling stories about Sagako to avoid scaring them. Not knowing that real monsters like zombies could exist outside of fiction, they wouldn't be scared. Like Maimai, they would have gotten used to Franchouchou so as not to see them as a threat. Furthermore, the zombie reveal takes place during a performance, making it easy for Franchouchou to pass her off as zombie makeup.

Trivia

 * After being mentioned to by Jofuku in the anime, the curse manifests in a devastating storm that destroys Saga and leaves Jofuku incapacitated.
 * It doesn't seem to be a living being in the traditional sense, but rather a force of nature that can influence the events of Saga and the people around it.
 * The power of Saga's curse comes from Saga itself and its inhabitants, so the more prosperous Saga is, its power increases.

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