Zombies

""Why, does there have to be more?! A little of this, a little of that and BANG! You’re outta the grave! That’s all you need to make a zombie, kiddo!""

Zombies (ゾンビ Zonbi) are the main focus of the anime and is what the idol group, Franchouchou, is made up of. Like their real-life counterpart, zombies are described to be corpses of deceased people whose souls are still, somehow, bound to their bodies.

Description
Initially, they had not awakened and wandered moaning, but by giving a stimulus, they could "wake up", that is, regain their "ego". Sakura was the first member to wake up, but she did not fully recover her memory from when she was alive, and only recovered them in Episode 11 in exchange for her memories as a zombie, luckily the end of the series she gains her entire memory.

The other members (except Tae) woke up to the appearance of Death Metal Live in Episode 1. Although she doesn't wake up immediately, her zombie "ego" increases as the story progresses.

Kotaro's special makeup makes them look alive and removes grinding from their joints, but the makeup will fall off if it gets wet with water, except when sealed, like when Kotaro uses shoe spray before the group goes onstage for Saga rock.

When their bodies are abused, their joints and even eyes may come loose, but they can be reconnected. They can resist violent movements in live performances, and are not damaged even when electrocuted by lightning, and displaying an electronic voice and glow while discharging instead. Since they have no body temperature, they're easily affected by extreme cold.

Speaking of joints breaking though, this shows that their bodies are still very fragile due to being dead for a time. The joints break apart with a clean "hit", which means whatever is the cause of their unlife probably keeps them together constantly and keeps them alive. This means that Junko would probably fall apart without it. Still, their bodies are strangely tough, as they never bleed or bruise, despite being hit hard enough multiple times. Sakura and Junko hunkered down (for the most part) being hit by a truck, Saki had her explosive bicycle accident and came up just fine, Ai had her brain impaled and was completely unaffected, aside from some trauma, and so on and so forth.

Another interesting thing that Is that they are very strong. None of them have really realized it yet, but each of them possesses almost superhuman strength. If their cells are constantly kept unalive, the muscle fibers cannot break, which means they can use 100% of their strength at all times. Sakura rammed a heavy poker through Ai's skull by accident, Junko completely jumped the front door with a jump, Saki dropped a man's gorilla with an attack, Yugiri's slaps seem especially powerful,Tae has jumped through the glass multiple times, in addition to spinning the thing in the yard fast enough to throw Sakura, as well as stop her completely with just her arms, etc.

They have an appetite, and can eat and drink, basically having the same functions as humans, like sweating and crying, but with the body being more prone to dismemberment.The bodies are capable of remembering past traumas or events, such as when Sakura lost her memory but she could still do the choreography for Arpino, the same thing happens with their past traumas, as demonstrated in Episode 11 when Ai's instinct kicked in to protect her head from the poker stick that Sakura took to defend herself, like in Episode 1.

Their behavior as zombies in Episode 1 is not erratic and random, they seem to actually still remember their traumas, with their bodies are acting as if this trauma never happened, their actions being related to events that affected their bodies.

The reason why their bodies seem have this behavior is that since their death was such a tragic event, it was etched in their muscle memory and now that they have consciousness within their bodies, this behavior remains deep down and only active if there is a stimulus.About halfway through Episode 1, we see the mindless zombies roam around the room where Kotaro would usually gives out his briefings. By paying close attention to their mindless actions, you can actually see that each member of the group are doing specific actions...that can be tailored to what happened to them at the moment of their deaths.


 * Saki, who died in a fiery (and also explosive) motorcycle crash, reaches her hands out, as if she was holding onto handlebars.
 * Ai, who died center stage during an outdoor concert via lightning striking down onto her, tries to get to the center of the room, as if she was going to do her big finish for the song she performed at the moment of death.
 * Junko, who was fatally blown into pieces from a fatal plane crash accident, tries to grab onto the cell-bars of the room, as if she was looking out from the plane's windows.
 * Lily, who died from a fatal heart attack that was due to sheer stress thanks to her father (as well as the fact she was about to go through the early parts of puberty), waits at the door of the room, as if she was waiting for her father to come in.
 * Finally, Yugiri, who currently is the only zombie (besides Tae) that has yet to reveal her backstory (and her death), rests her head against the wall, as she slumps down. This could actually give us a hint of her actual death: being beheaded. This is because of how she places her head against the wall, as if she was placing her head a la execution (via beheading). And considering her neck scars, it is slightly safe to say that her death was exactly what you'd think it would be.
 * The idea that the girls were trapped living out their final moments is horrific enough but then you realize that Tae still hasn't woken up yet. While it seems like she is slowly waking up herself, does that mean in the first few episodes she's still reliving her final days? Given that her whole body seems to be bandaged and barely hanging together, and that her behavior in the scene listed above is her appearing on and off screen (which many fans interpret has her being in hiding), it's easy to assume that her death wasn't pretty, which makes all of this even more horrifying.

Appearance
Zombies' skin color is turquoise, with red, sunken eyes that glow brightly withing darkness. Wounds are commonly seen among them, such as scars, stitches, or the bandged areas, with the exception of Lily. Zombies' bandages and scars act like tattoos, so they will never fall off. Their bodies tend to creak when they are in stressful situations.



At the beginning of the series, the girls' eyes only emitted a white color but after they waking up it began to shine with the characteristic red color, according to popular beliefs that the eyes are the window of the soul, it can be intuited that it is the soul of the girls what causes this.

It is also worth noting that Kotaro possibly makes them wear contact lenses to cover their undead eyes. An example would be in Episode 5, when they all have fallen into the mud after bicycle racing, they have normal eye colour. They go wash themselves, wash off their make-up along with the mud, and their eyes change colour to red, as their zombie skin is exposed. Afterwards, they once again fall into mud, and since their zombie skin is once again covered, their eyes change colors again.

Although the girls are supposed to hide their identities as the undead to the public, this does not seem to be the case for Romero, as he can be seen with his head head detached during the shooting for the Drive-in Tori jingle in the fifth episode.

Abilities
Most, if not all, zombies share the following traits:


 * Immortality - As zombies, they are granted the ability to remain the age at which they died forever without any physical change after the resurrection process, as well as immunity against death. They are able to withstand circumstances that human bodies cannot normally handle, such as lightning in Episode 7, being run over on various occasions, large explosions, and even decapitation.
 * Detachable Limbs - Like most zombies in media, they also have the ability to detach and reattach parts of their body from their sockets with little to no effort, either intentionally or accidentally.
 * Phosphorescent Vision - They get dark red eyes that can glow in the dark after being resurrected into a zombie.
 * Muscle Memory - They might actually still remember their traumas and the way they died, reflecting it in their post-life. The reason why their bodies seem to have this behavior is that since their death was such a tragic event, it was etched in their muscle memory and now that they have consciousness within their bodies, this behavior remains in the background and only active if there is a stimulus.
 * 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 Episode 7, their bodies demonstrate a battery-like capacity by receiving an electric shock from lightning and glowing a pale blue, as well as releasing laser beams with their fingers.
 * Energy manipulation - In the second season it is shown that they are still capable of using electricity to illuminate their bodies, and in addition to being able to use them as a special effect and they are able to give it different shapes and colors and the energy rays that they give off when discharged.

Weaknesses

 * Muscle Fatigue - As seen in Episode 7, despite having physical resistance over human, their bodies is still susceptible to the load that is placed on it. Since they do not have a known regenerative capacity, their bodies are still fragile in certain aspects.
 * Hallucinations - Due to stress they can begin to hallucinate with their way of death, this also causes they to react involuntarily to their hallucination.
 * Dehydration - As shown in Episode 14, despite the zombies still having the ability to eliminate bodily fluids, doing so is shown to dehydrate them at a faster pace than any regular human, seeing as how Sakura’s entire body dried up after she started crying.

Necromancy
One thing about the Necromancy used on the group is evident is evident: it is currently active in their bodies.

It not only brought them to life, it constantly keeps them alive along with other things. Necromancy forced each and every one of its cells to come back to unlife, "Bound" because they are not really alive, as they cannot be divided. This explains why they don't grow or age, and why their skin is discolored, because cells that divide and die are a critical part of how the skin works. This is probably also related to how their skin works differently with regard to absorption of medications (patches) and moisture (hot springs). (If this is true, it means their hair is not growing either.) This is supported by the fact that all of their organs can function normally. Their hearts are beating because we can see them blush, and Lily's heart visibly beats. They also don't smell. They can breathe, eat, and sleep, but they don't need to, because necromancy would keep them alive anyway. But then, why don't they bleed out when the body parts break? Necromancy somehow connects everyone if their body parts, even when they are not physically connected. This is supported by the fact that dismembered heads can speak without lungs and headless bodies can move normally without being connected to their brain. It could also prevent them from losing blood because they can no longer do more.

It is no coincidence that necromancy covers practically everything that cannot be hidden with makeup. Obviously this is so they can make more compelling idols, Kotaro seemingly urged an especially powerful necromatic ritual so that each of them, specifically Sakura, so that they could live normally. Sakura didn't even realize she was a zombie until she saw herself. The ultimate purpose of this specific brand of necromancy is to make Sakura happy. We don't know what Kotaro had to do to obtain such abilites, but it certainly wasn't easy.

Resurrection
While the anime has not responded to how they were revived and toyed with viewers by giving us more questions than answers, it also provides crucial clues. As most of us know, Saga is in real life a prefecture in southern Japan, not very well known until the series came out, however, in episode 11 a bartender who is over 150 years old appears because he says that he owes a lot to Yugiri, so it is assumed that he is immortal (long-lived) or a zombie. At the back of the bar and the name of the bar seems to imply that it is Jofuku (Chinese name: Xu Fu).

Xu Fu, was a Chinese alchemist, whom Emperor Qin Shi Huang sent to search the top of Mount Penglai for the elixir of the immortals and Anqi Sheng. Before that the first Qin Emperor traveled to eastern China for fear of death because he suffered several attempts on his life and spoke three days and three nights with the magician, offered him gold and jade, but Anqi rejected the offer and went to Penglai. Years later, Qin sent Xu-fu and he never returned.

According to the archaeological files found at Yoshinogari, Saga, Xu Fu would have come to the city of Morodomi 2200 years ago (where there is a statue of him next to the Saga Jihen bridge) and when he met the natives, they told him that there was a 1000 year old hermit who had the remedy of immortality. Xu Fu, along with Otatsu and Genzo, his companions, went to Mount Kinryu and found a hermit who gave them the plant of immortality that was in a kettle.

In Chinese mythology, the island Anqi Sheng lived on is often considered the seat of the Eight Immortals, or at least the place they travel to have a party with the magician Anqi Sheng. Supposedly, everything on the mountain looks white with palaces of gold and platinum and trees that grow jewels. There is no known pain or winter on the island and the rice bowls and wine glasses are never emptied, no matter how many people drink them. In Penglai magical fruits grow with healing powers capable of curing any disease, giving eternal youth or even raising the dead. Although the anime has not confirmed it so far, it is the closest answer to the big question of the series.

It should be noted that if the elixir of Xu Fu is given by Anqi Sheng, the "immortal" Taoist, for the understanding of the Taoists. They are not exactly "immortal" as in the western understanding of "eternal" or "not aged" forever; instead, they would simply live an incredibly long life and eventually die of old age at some point (possibly inconceivably far in the future).

Awakening
The resurrection process is followed by the awakening process, where the subject regains consciousness. This is subject to various interpretations, but the most obvious is that it was planned.

During the death metal concert, the girls moved erratically and shouted loudly, implying that the loud sounds were the stimulus come from, the death metal music that plays in the background when Sakura is run over could be Kotaro giving her stimulus to wake up.

This makes clear something that many of us overlook; Kotaro tried different ways to awaken Sakura, when he saw that death metal was giving him the desired effect, he wanted to try it on a large scale in others.

Tae could feel before episode 1, and it gives us a clear clue that part of the puzzle is missing here and if Tae will eventually wake up or she is different from the type of zombies we know in the series.

Trivia

 * So far, only Sakura, Junko, Ai, Tae and Romero have had parts of their bodies detach onscreen.
 * The girls may be or are more likely to be Jiangshi or, literally, "Stiff corpses", Chinese zombies, known in the West as Chinese vampires or zombies, are bodies brought back to life. The Jiangshi are usually people who have died in a violent or unnatural way, or whose soul has not found rest at the time of death.
 * Romero is, so far, the first and only zombie who was not previously human.
 * And technically speaking, he is the first to wake up amongst the eight zombies that have been resurrected for the project. With Sakura only being the first in terms of the zombie humans Kotaro has resurrected.
 * He is also the only zombie to not have to hide his undead identity in public, though this was never explained why.
 * As revealed in “Episode 20”, Romero has been around since the late 1800s, once belonging to the Momozaki Family. Back then, he was already living as a zombie dog, implying that he is the only zombie from the project, so far, to be resurrected by Jofuku and not Kotaro, himself.
 * Apart from their cause and specific dates of deaths, Yugiri and Tae’s places of death are also not disclosed.
 * Whereas both Sakura and Lily died within the vicinity of their own homes.

Zombies