Don't Just Wear the Kigurumi, Be the Kigurumi

It takes talent to finish a promotion without a hitch. Even more to adapt to a situation you probably can't even begin to control. And way, way more astonishing it would be, if you can take that very unstable element and use it to your own brand advantage.

*Gulp*

That "unstable element" you see, is none other than Tae Yamada, the one and only still-feral member of the zombie idol group Franchouchou (a name somehow attributed to her, by the way).

She was already quite challenging to handle before, but this particular assignment by Kou makes it even more difficult for the group. Disregarding Saki, who is absolutely enthusiastic about their upcoming advertising deal with Drive-in Tori, their job was supposed to be to help create a very short ad recreating the original Drive-in Tori dance clip. Although this time, the entire crew of Franchouchou will be the performers.

"Come on, we need to wear this so we can wear our actual stage idol dresses someday!"

Of course, like the original advertisement, they will be wearing a few chicken-themed uniforms, as well as, you guessed it, chicken kigurumi!

"Yakitori's number one, chick n' rice number two, and salad's three for nutrition's spree!"

Things went rather smoothly at first actually. Singing and choreography were simple and direct, and the new takes only involved tweaks and variations to the scripted gig.

 "Saki, you can't convince her to sing properly if she can't even think or speak!"

 "What in the world was that weird voice?"

However, being that Tae can't really speak, or even converse for that matter, they ended up with a slight issue of "some eerie voice getting mixed in with the singing".

Which, of course, bothered (and probably slightly creeped out) the puzzled directorial staff.

"Okay here's the drill. Just do your growls when its time to cock-a-doodle-do, okay?"

Saki attempted to order Tae to start singing properly, with obviously empty results. Sakura then directed Tae to simply join in when the clucking sound effect comes in, with Ai further suggesting to change the pace a bit to sync with Tae.

The result? Tae single-handedly took the role of actually reproducing the clucking sound effect of the original advertisement. Which kind of worked out way better than everyone had expected, even if it did startle the director when she did it for the very first time.

*oddly accurate clucking noise*

So was that the end?

Nope. Their manager Koutarou doesn't seem to be exactly satisfied with this textbook accomplishment. Apparently, he was able to convince Saki too, and it was decided that another take was in short order. In particular, Saki tried to inspire the rest of the girls by challenging them to "gobble up" the main star of Drive-in Tori, to overcome him and go even further.

"Are we really going to let that Cuckoo mascot be more popular than us?! Let's gobble him up!"

"... Tae-chan?!"

"Tae-chan, Saki didn't mean to literally gobble him up!"

And with that cue, Tae managed to quickly do that extra take, much to the dread and horror of the Drive-in Tori mascot dude.

Aaaand that was the actual end. This fictional collaboration project eventually became another big win for Saga prefecture's tourism boosting efforts, as the actual, real-life Drive-in Tori is now officially one of the go-to destinations of all otaku around the country.

Regarded as one of the funniest (or at least the wackiest) anime of Fall 2018, Zombie Land Saga turns the performing idol unit genre into its head. Its wild plot and setting, character-focused crazy antics, and comedic unpredictability would tingle your curiosity just enough, to want to know what stunt they are going to pull off next episode.

Oh, if in case it wasn't obvious just yet, the "Saga" in its name is actually a pun, doubly referring to Japan's Saga prefecture, located south of the country, and northwest of the entire Kyuushuu island. And yup, each and every event and location in the anime are also real-life events and locations within the prefecture itself.