Franchouchou -- Tokkou DANCE ~DAWN OF THE BAD~（特攻DANCE）

 

Didn't think that I would be starting off with this, but it is indeed happy news within the anime community. This morning, I found out from Mixi that seiyuu/singer Asami Tano（田野アサミ）got married to fellow seiyuu and actor Ryo Kitamura（北村諒）. Many congratulations to them!

Of course, Tano has been involved in a number of anime franchises for many years but the first time that I got to know about her was through one of the "Pretty Cure" shows, "Smile Precure" as the vivacious Cure Sunny with the Kansai dialect almost a decade ago. I think that one of my favourite scenes involving her was her sudden discovery that she actually had feelings for an overseas exchange student in her school.

However in the last few years, she's also been popularly known as Saki Nikaido（二階堂サキ）, the Saga Prefecture bike gang leader-turned-zombie aidoru singer in the band Franchouchou（フランシュシュ） in the "Zombieland Saga"（ゾンビランドサガ）franchise. Franchouchou No. 2 definitely has a lot more crust and rough-n'-tumble to her and initially, she wasn't exactly a team player but it turned out that there was a heart of gold (and fried chicken) under all of that leather and toughness.

Nikaido has even gotten her own time as lead vocalist in "Zombieland Saga". In honour of Tano's marriage, I was trying to search for that particular song, thinking that like with Franchouchou No. 6's (aka Lily Hoshikawa) "Parappo"（リトルパラッポ） in the second season this year, she'd be given solo credit for performance. However as it has turned out, the song is still under the overall Franchouchou banner for Saki's turn at the mike for "Tokkou DANCE" (Special Attack Dance) which was featured during the ending credits of Episode 9 in the 2018 first season.

Having some influence in music and presentation from the rock band Kishidan（氣志團）, "Tokkou DANCE" just seems to be the desired battle cry for Saki and her old gang Saga Ladies Team Dorami（佐賀レディースチーム怒羅美）as Shin Furuya's（古屋真）lyrics rouse someone and the buddies to take on all comers large and small and kick some major ass (motorcycles not included). Takeshi Isozaki（磯崎健史）came up with the music and arrangement.