Franchouchou

Franchouchou (フランシュシュ) is an idol group founded by Kōtarō Tatsumi, which is made up of 6 legendary girls/zombies and one normal 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.

Because they can be persecuted when their real identities are exposed, they are presented with their aliases in public. Because they do not all come from the same period and some are unaware of the contemporary, they tend to show a conservative and old-fashioned stance. Tatsumi's original idea is to "support everyone's feelings beyond the ages" as a reason to collect members from different ages together.

At the beginning of the story, Sakura was the first to awaken her senses; then the others except for Tae Yamada, awakened their senses after the first performance. The group's names were provisionally "Death Musume" and "Green Face" respectively in their first two performances; but at the decision of the members of the group it was changed by "Franchouchou".

For all of them it is possible to eat and drink normally like a living human being, but because they are zombies, their bodies have injuries, scratches and stitches wrapped in bandages that would reveal the cause of death of each one in addition to having red pupils. When their bodies are under too much pressure, they cause their joints to click and loosen, causing eyeballs to open, limbs, torso, and head detach from the body.

When performing as normal idols, they take on an appearance no different from normal people thanks to Kotaro's abilities, however, being makeup, it easily comes off with water or rain. In addition, in their current state, they are unharmed by serious and fatal injuries such as gunshots, lightning or traffic accidents.

The work that Tatsumi offers them always wears them down because they are from one day to the next and two of the seven maintain a relaxed attitude. They practice singing and dancing in a studio located in a western-style house.

History of Franchouchou's name
Before the group got its official name, they were initially called Death Musume, later on changed to Green Face, both names by Kotaro. However, the group members found the names to be unsatisfactory and ultimately decided to rename to Franchouchou based on the sound Tae made when she sneezed.

Franchouchou in real life
The group were made up of the girls seiyu's: Kaede Hondo, Asami Tano, Risa Taneda, Maki Kawase, Rika Kinugawa 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: Started on Friday the 13th April, 2018.
 * Episode 2: Started after they woke up, which is April 14, and the second concert is one day after they woke up, on April 15.
 * Episode 3: Started 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 was mentioned at the beginning of the episode, but the Gatalympics was also mentioned, an event that only happens once a year, and in 2018 it happened on May 27.
 * Episode 6: Started between July 5 and 8.
 * Episode 7: At the beginning of the episode, it was 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: Started sometime between September and early December.
 * Episode 10: Started 18 days before Arpino, on December 3.
 * Episode 11: Started between December 12 and 17.
 * Episode 12: Started between December 17 and Friday December 21, when it is performed in concert at 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 explain 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 refer to Saga's accident in real life, it crashed in the mountain ranges)
 * Yūgiri: 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. Generally, [changing one's name or symbol] is strictly prohibited and would bring extreme bad luck, but In this 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.
 * Kotaro's old surname Inui 乾 (Heaven) means north west. Meanwhile his current name Tatsumi 巽 (Wind) means south east. He changed his name to make way for Sakura so she can take "乾".
 * They are both completely opposite on the bagua, Inui (乾 Qian) and Tatsumi (巽 Xun)

General trivia

 * Tae's seiyu was credited as "???" During the first 2 episodes, Kotono Mitsuishi was subsequently credited in episode 3.
 * In addition, Kotono is the only one who does not appear in live performances (this because Tae does not sing).
 * Yūgiri and Lily's intergenerational friendship makes sense when you realize that Yūgiri probably hasn't treated Lily as if she were her 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 arc: The girls, dressed as Sentai heroes, saves Sakura from a monster: her 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; Ai is part of a J-Pop). 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.

Gallery
Franchouchou