Chicken dance.
What They Say:
Episode #5: “The Nice Bird SAGA in Your Heart”
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When the episode opened with a line about the budget running out I panicked for a moment, but the girls were talking about their idol budget. The animation is on point in this episode, and it starts off strong with the manager once again screaming at the girls and taking it too far. He gets baguetted in the Key West style before telling the girls they will be shooting a commercial for a local Saga restaurant. Saki is thrilled because she loves the place.
Drive-in Tori is a real restaurant, and it appears they had the owner voice himself for the show. Real life locations in anime are common enough, but I don’t usually see shows take their promotional elements to this level. Especially with some of the nonsense that the zombie girls get up to. I love the fact that they took the whole thing to the most extreme level you could hope to achieve for what amounts to product placement. I’m shocked the restaurant was okay with the scene where Tae eats a bunch of raw chicken. (Or where the manager seduces the owner.)
The commercial shoot takes up the first half of the episode before the manager has the girls participate in the Kashima Gatalympics. It’s an event held on the mud flats and consists mostly of challenges which will land you in the mud. Wearing absolutely terrible t-shirts promoting their brand the girls all compete in the challenges. They all do spectacularly terrible, although some perform better than others. Then they discover they can’t clean themselves back off without taking off their human makeup and are forced to stay coated in mud to maintain the illusion.
This whole episode is on point with the humor. Also, for a show that’s about idol singers, there is very little singing in this episode, which for many viewers in probably a plus. It definitely feels closer to the first two episodes than the last two.
One other important thing to note in this episode is that Junko is recognized by someone. A man who has noticed the girls out and about suddenly realizes that Junko looks familiar and vows to look into it more. I was waiting for her to get recognized, and it looks like that’s something that will be addressed.
In Summary:
The zombie girls do promotions, and what a series of promotions they are. Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction, but combining the two is pure gold. Plus, someone finally recognizes Junko. This is the sort of chaos I want this show to deliver on the regular, and it’s a great return to the levels of insanity of the first two episodes. Simply wonderful.
Episode Grade: A –
Streamed by: Crunchyroll & Funimation
