The one where the girls go to the mountains for a Rocky IV inspired training montage. Also, Yugiri does something useful for the first time. Sort of.
Several weeks have passed since we last saw our zombie girls, and Franchouchou have come so far despite them not achieving true idol stardom across the nation just yet. Ever since Sakura came back to life as a zombie just a few months ago, she's been able to help the rest of these random undead legends get together and become the best of friends in an idol group like no other.
So far, we've had the two veterans Junko and Ai making amends with their idealisms in the idol business and becoming a co-operative duo, we've had the shining superstar Lily reconnecting with her father and letting him move on from her untimely death, and we've had the badass biker girl Saki manage to stop the Dorami and Korosuke gangs from trying to destroy each other- all while being able to see her old friend Reiko once more.
That only leaves us with Yugiri (who won't be getting a backstory this season), Tae (who totally doesn't need a backstory...maybe) and Sakura. And considering Sakura still hasn't reclaimed her past memories, it's only a matter of time before she can be able to remember who she really was back then...
During the group's latest morning rehearsal, we have Kotaro making a very sudden announcement: Franchouchou shall be pulling off their very first concert on their own! Sakura is completely caught off-guard by the news, but Kotaro will make sure the girls are fully prepared for Franchouchou's first full concert at Arpino, a huge exhibition center in Saga.
The girls are suddenly taken to Arpino, and the place is massive to say the least. Not only that, but Ai fondly remembers performing at Arpino for one of the last Iron Frill concerts that Ai pulled off when she was alive. Sakura also starts to notice that the Arpino stage itself looks quite familiar, and wonders if she's able to recollect her memories from performing in the group's Arpino concert. Kotaro states clearly that if Franchouchou are able to successfully pull off the Arpino concert without any issues, they will be able to move on to the next phase of saving Saga.
Later that night, we see our sleeping zombie girls- save for Sakura, who is restless and a bit too excited. She thinks to herself about the possibilities of reclaiming her past memories, but she gets too pumped up about it and decides to rehearse by herself...in the middle of the night. This bodes well...
The next morning, we see Sakura having a little too much fun with her rehearsing, as she rushes too far ahead for the rest of Franchouchou to catch up during their practice (for one of the upcoming new songs). Not helping is Sakura's more exaggerated upbeat attitude, as she wants the group to do anything it takes to rehearse in style...even if she wants them to rehearse outside. On the roof. Kotaro, of course, is watching the group's rehearsing from afar, and notices Sakura's unusual behavior. This manages to give him a new idea on what to do with the group for the next few days.
And sure enough, Kotaro gives his next plan out during the following morning's briefing. As he yodels a hearty "Good mornindle-lay-hee-hoo" to our girls, he gives them their new mission to pull off as part of their practice for the Arpino concert: Surviving in the middle of the Mount Tenzan. That's right ladies and gentlemen, our idol producer is forcing our poor zombie girls to survive out in the coldest mountain in Saga.
With only a map of where the girls need to stay for the next few days until Kotaro comes to check up on them, Franchouchou are forced to stay there and work as a team to hunt, gather, and make camp. Sakura, being the savvy one of the group this time, doesn't think the group should be doing this- considering none of this has to do with idol work, and definitely has nothing to do with Arpino.
Despite the fact they're zombies, the girls still need nutrients and warmth so they don't suffer the harsh cold environment. And the place is so cold, that Tae managed to freeze into an ice sculpture within less than an hour. Luckily, the majority of Franchouchou have the skills to survive.
For starters, Lily can be able to make a campfire (thanks to her work on a 'girl scout mystery show' back in her day), so the girls can be able to stay warm in moments time. Ai and Junko will hunt down for whatever protein they can find, while Saki will gather sticks and other burnable objects for the fire. Lastly, Yugiri will gather mushrooms for the girls to have as their only source of vegetables.
Sakura, on the other hand, is not thrilled about the idea of the group going off to work on building camp and gathering things, however. Yugiri tells Sakura to worry about practicing for Arpino after everyone has worked hard enough on this survival mission. With a warm smile from Yugiri, Sakura goes on with her day, doing absolutely nothing for the time being.
As Lily continues to help out with the fire, which is starting to heat up, Saki returns from her next round of collecting firewood. Tae (who is now unfrozen), makes a beautiful ice sculpture with pinecones, and Yugiri returns with a bunch of delicious- and very poisonous mushrooms. But of course, poison wouldn't affect zombies now, would it?
Sakura gets fed up with staying at the campfire, and goes off on her own, knowing the girls still don't want to practice. Sakura accidentally manages to disrupt Ai from shooting down a baby boar, which would've made a delicious dinner. Ai suggests Sakura to help her out, but Sakura leaves her be, seeing as it's not related to practicing.
Sakura eventually finds Junko (and Romero!) at a nearby river, fishing for food. Junko doesn't mind fishing, as it lets her think about things for longer periods of time. She talks to Sakura about what's been happening with her attitude, and gives her best advice about dealing with the situation with the usage of fishing metaphors. Unfortunately for Sakura, she's not quite one for understanding metaphors...
The entirety of Franchouchou (well, except for Sakura, obviously) managed to finally set up a shelter! Hooray! Now with their mission looking brighter than the cold snow, our girls can survive. Sadly, Sakura is ignoring her idol buddies on purpose as she's far too busy focusing on the Arpino concert practice...alone.
An entire week has passed since Franchouchou's survival mission started, and everyone has settled in perfectly. Now there's just one more thing they need to take care of. And no, it's not related to Arpino...it's related to food! Saki declares that the group should search for some meat for that sweet delicious protein, but Sakura is pretty much devastated that the rest of the group aren't realizing that the Arpino concert is only ten days away. Regardless, Sakura follows the group behind their backs.
Eventually, the group finds a perfect spot to set up the trap for any nearby animals to fall into. Sakura, who we all know is the klutzy type, falls into the trap after everyone scatters into hiding for the oncoming prey. And what sort of prey have they caught? Why, the baby boar of course! As well as the daddy boar to boot. Uh-oh...
As Sakura panics the hell out of her wits, the big bad boar (with it's child on top) starts getting closer and closer to her face...luckily, Yugiri knows a trick about dealing with this sort of predicament, and advises Sakura to 'play dead' (even though she's undead, obviously). Sakura does just that...and the boar immediately chomps her head off clean as a result. Oops.
Tae manages to rescue Sakura by rushing into the daddy boar, biting his butt off. Saki catches Sakura's disembodied head like a pro baseball player, and the father-and-son boar duo runs off into the forest. While the boars managed to escape cleanly, Sakura's head is completely covered in boar drool- which ain't a clean sight at all.
At the base camp, Sakura sadly gives the group her brutal honesty about this so-called 'pointless mission' that she suffered through. She wanted the team to practice for Arpino together, instead of wasting time by surviving in the middle of nowhere. Kotaro then arrives at the scene and gives his reasoning behind this dumb idea in the usual form of weird zany metaphors, but Sakura snaps back at him and declares that she has had enough. She then starts to leave the mountains and heads her way home, with Kotaro declaring the rest of Franchouchou to do just that as well.
As our girls continue to rehearse for Arpino, Sakura has become quite upset over how much time her friends have wasted during Kotaro's mountain mission. This causes Sakura to panic during the rehearsal from the immense anxiety given to her.
Eventually, Sakura tells the entire group that she wanted to get as much practicing as possible at the mountains, but no one wanted to join her. So because of that, she ditches the group temporarily out of spite. This seems to worry Yugiri a lot more than the others, and decides to do something about this.
At a nearby sushi bar, we see Kotaro relaxing after a hard day's work as he drinks a shot of sake. Yugiri then enters the premises as the courtesan of legend, and gives Kotaro a serious one-to-one discussion while she entertains the guests with her dancing.
She talks about how Kotaro wanted to take Sakura and the rest of Franchouchou to the mountains so the group can work together as a team without relying on dancing and singing practice, but she also tells him that he made one fatal error: he never told Sakura the reason why they were going there, and even if he did, he used his metaphoric way of speaking to hide his true meaning away.
However, Kotaro knows that he wants to save Saga, and he wants to help Sakura a lot more compared to the other girls. And just before Kotaro starts to say something negative about Sakura...he gets a powerful bitch slap to the face from Yugiri.
Yugiri does not take negativity for an excuse, and declares sternly that he should have faith in Sakura. Which is funny, because Kotaro just stated that he has faith in her. Then again, he did managed to mess up his plan on helping Sakura for the past week, so the courtesan's got a point.
Sakura continues to panic in anxiety as the Arpino concert inches ever so closer, but she still wants the show to be a success regardless of what happens. She decides to go and check up on the rest of the group, and realizes that the group are working as a team. Something that she never did during the mountain mission.
The fact that Franchouchou was able to work together as a team during their time up in the cold environments, helped them in the long run as a result when it came to practicing for Arpino. Sakura now completely understands that Kotaro wanted her to help the others survive in their mission, so she apologizes to the rest of the group for not sticking with them.
The girls fully understand her, and Kotaro can be relived now that Sakura understood what he meant by his metaphors...and even then, Sakura can't even get the meaning of his metaphors- even if he explains the meanings behind them.
Either way, Sakura has now snapped out of her brief anxiety issues and decides to selflessly join in with Franchouchou in order to finish practicing for Arpino. Yugiri then condescendingly informs Kotaro that she's very glad it all worked out in the end, which annoys Kotaro a bit. But now that Sakura is back in action...
...it seems like she's gonna do her best as always! Sakura begins her morning run with Romero, and while Ai advises Sakura to watch where she's going...
...Sakura meets the full frontal end of another goddamn truck.
Only this time, this 'truck-to-the-face' collision reverses Sakura's amnesia...and removes every memory she had with Franchouchou. But hey, she finally got her past memories back. Hooray...?
Now with a week to go until Arpino, our dearest Sakura is currently laying on the ground, in a comatose state. As Romero yelps for her to wake up, it seems like Sakura may just as well be out of commission for a while. But will this effect the rest of the group as a whole? And what were those brief glimpses we saw of Sakura's memories? Things are about to heat up for Franchouchou...
Tropes:
- Call-Back: Sakura being hit by a truck is almost identical shot-by-shot to the first episode.
- Cliffhanger: Sakura, having all of her memories rush back into her head, faints in the street with Romero barking in concern.
- Eaten Alive: Sakura’s head is swallowed by a wild boar.
- Hidden Depths:
- Ai is able to fashion a working bow and arrow to go hunting with. She also seems capable of animal tracking alongside this.
- Junko enjoys fishing, finding it a very calming experience.
- Lily has rudimentary survival knowledge thanks to working on camping PSAs in the past.
- Tae is strangely apt at ice sculpting, being able to create a large-scale replica of Romero.
- Jerkass Realization: Sakura realizes her single-mindedness to prepare for Arpino has caused her to neglect working in sync with her group mates. She apologizes to everyone and resolves to be a better teammate.
- Mood Whiplash: The episode ends with Sakura once again being hit by a truck. While initially darkly humorous, she sits up from it looking lost and confused, as if she’s forgotten where she is. Suddenly all of memories of her past life flood in at once, causing her to faint as Romero helplessly barks and whines at her to wake up.
- Oh, Crap!: Sakura has accidentally been caught in a hunting trap, just as a giant wild boar comes in to snack on her head.
- Trapped the Wrong Target: The girls, while spending a period of time on the mountains, set up a trap to catch an animal for food. However Sakura proceeds to walk straight into the pit and is left defenseless as the boar they were trying to capture looms towards her.
- Wham Episode: Sakura's memories of her life return, but she seems to have forgotten where she is in the first place.
- Wham Shot: Sakura getting hit by a truck.
