How did Kotaro get ahold of the girls’ bodies, anyway? Some of them (Yugiri especially) died long before he was presumably born. Even for those who died during Kotaro’s own lifetime, the dead in Japan are normally preserved only with dry ice to keep them reasonably fresh for the few days until they’re cremated according to Buddhist custom. There shouldn’t be anything left of them to zombify, unless their earthly remains were somehow transported across time and space before this could happen.
While this has yet to be explained, this seeming contradiction is acknowledged in Episode 4, indicating that an answer may yet lie in wait.
What's the deal with Romero? Sometimes he's cute, sometimes he's drawn realistically horrifying. Is that an actual change thats happening in-universe, or some kind of audience visual filter?
Likely the latter, to show that everyone sees him as cute until they remember "Yeah...he's a zombie."
Like the girls really. I mean even as zombies they're kinda cute and adorable, but when we seem them from the perspective of outsiders we're reminded that they're a bunch of rotting corpses.
That kind of raises another issue then: how the hell do people casually carry him? Numerous times his more cutesy form is shown being carried by Kotaro or Sakura with only a single arm, but if his cutesy form is just a visual filter, meaning he always looks like his more realistic form, how are they just casually one arm holding a medium sized zombie dog. It's not like dogs that size are lightweight, and that's not even accounting for the fact he's a literal corpse still meaning he's likely "deadweight" when not moving.
So Kotaro Tatsumi puts the make-up on the girls, right? I assumed it would only be the parts not covered by their clothes, like faces, necks, arms and legs. But since they wear short skirts, he must have gone all the way up to their thighs and lower buttocks. And later in Episode 4, we see he did their bellies and backs too. Did this man maybe do like a full body-paint on the girls? Would they even be okay with that, and why?
Well the make up is clearly ludicrous anyway (how do you get Ai and Junko looking presentable, considering the condition they're in?) but if I was to make a serious guess... maybe the girls do each other, and let Kotaro do only the more visible areas? Though honestly Ai, Yugiri, Lily and Junko are professionals and are likely used to being dressed and made up, I must admit I don't see Kotaro getting anywhere near Saki without her applying a baseball bat to his skull. At least Kotaro isn't a pervert (in fact he's never shown legitimate interest in anyone), just a wierdo.
If it's enough for him to just trowel make-up onto their faces like we saw him do with Sakura in Episode 2, I honestly don't think it would be much of a stretch to say the girls don't need to be particularly amazing at make-up to handle areas like those which would need less detail than their faces anyway.
There's a scene in the theme song—after all the nonsensical Tokusatsu stuff—where Sakura sits up in a bath, and she's in her makeup. Maybe the girls soak in some pinkish liquid, and the makeup applied is just ordinary blush and whatnot to cover the scars after they've been turned pink?
Kotaro's strategy of gathering legendary girls to create a legendary idol group is sound at first...but won't recruiting ex-idols like Ai Mizuno and Junko Konno run the risk of someone recognizing them? Someone is bound to notice that one of the idols in this new music group looks exactly like the idol who was struck by lightning in front of millions.
Somebody has noticed, even if they haven't connected the dots. 'Back from the dead' is kind of improbable, but the news people are investigating the situation. Of course, if you're questioning Kotaro's logic... It's Kotaro.
This also becomes a plot point in Episode 8, when a strange large man shows a little too much interest in Lily to the point of appearing to be a paedophile stalker. Lily later reveals that the man was actually her real life father, who said she looked exactly like his daughter. Unfortunately for obvious reasons she can't reveal her true identity to him, though they thankfully give both her and her father a little closure regarding their fight right before her death.
This seems to be a plot point for the sort-of Sequel Hook at the end of Episode 12. The two magazine reporters lay out photos of Ai, Junko, and Lily next to photos of the girls from when they were alive. People have indeed noticed, especially people involved in media.
Episode 10 of Revenge implies it wouldn’t matter if individual people found out about the zombies, the curse would prevent the public from taking notice of Saga.
...or perhaps he chose those girls precisely because "Idol group who might have, at the very least, plagarized recently-deceased popular figures" are the sort of thing the media would eat up, as said above. He's trying to break Saga's curse of anonymity by refuging in audacity.
Notably, Ai and Junko, the two who were famous singers in life, are also the only ones who, in Season 1, don't get any solo leads, presumably because, without another girl's voice, people would notice "Hey, wait, that sounds a lot like..."
How does Ai manage her extensive bandaging? We've seen several times that she still wears her bandages beneath her make-up after it gets washed away but would they really be so immobile that they wouldn't interere with her make-up on their own? (Making cracks etc.) Also, does she bathe with or without them? We saw her seemingly just returning from washing up in Episode 3 with them on. There was no indication that anyone helped her and it seems like it would be ridiculously hard to put them back on herself, least of all as skin-tightly as the make-up conundrum makes her wraps out to be. Note: We've also been led to believe that she does not stink, so she must be washing adequately... How does she do it!?
...Kotaro is a really good make up artist. It isn't the only weirdness surrounding their bandages, Sakura's pretty much wearing a skirt of them, which completely disappears whenever she's wearing her idol gear.
In Episode 11, when Sakura loses her memories of her time in Franchouchou and falls into a depression due to remembering her long string of bad luck, why don’t the other girls try to jog her memory and cheer her up by showing her videos of their performances and magazine reviews detailing their success as an idol group. Ai, Junko and Saki could’ve mentioned about orig they weren’t interested in the whole zombie idol group and thought it was doomed to fail yet it was Sakura who inspired them to make something of their unlives and Franchouchou owes its growing success to her. If dancing on stage was enough to give her glimpses of her past life then watching videos and pictures of the group could’ve helped Sakura to remember her time in Franchouchou and could’ve been a boost to her self confidence
They actually do try this in Episode 12. Tae shows her a magazine article about their break-through at Saga Rock and all it manages to do is further frustrate Sakura; a result that Ai then indicates she predicted would happen.
How the hell and why do their eyes even change colour? Do they wear some contact lenses? And if so, where do they come from and where do they suddenly dissapear whenever their zombie nature is revealed/concealed? Just to give an example: In Episode 5, after they all have fallen into a 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 a mud, and since their zombie skin is once again covered, their eyes change colour again.
Either Kotaro knew they're gonna wash themselves (implying by his reaction before the next scene) so he probably gives them a temporary contact lens before he participate the contest, or could be the remains of contact lens are still there due to sunny condition within the playing area, or perhaps the producers left that on purpose so that viewers can easily identify them.
At the start of season 2, the group ended up having a debt of 20 million due to Kotaro's decision to host Franchouchou at Ekimae Real Estate Stadium, a large stadium with a capacity at 30,000 seats. Why did Kotaro make the group perform at the stadium in the first place when their current audience clearly wasn't even close to the 30,000 minimum? It feels off to see Kotaro make such a huge mistake after seeing him in season 1.
It is revealed during episode 10 of Revenge that Kotaro had placed too much confidence into saving Saga that he didn't attempt to advertise or pre-plan their concert at the venue at all. Hence why he was depressed throughout episode 1 of Revenge as he felt he couldn't save Saga.
Specifically, Kotaro seemed to be hoping that he would make Franchouchou famous more quickly by turning them into an overnight success story, rather than an idol group who slowly and surely gains followers. If they were able to pull off such a large venue while being relatively obscure and having little advertising behind it, then they'd become legendary for being able to get that many people off talent alone—he says as much in the anime. It was an absolutely boneheaded move, but it's implied he feels pressured by Jofuku's possibly deteriorating condition/the catastrophe approaching Saga (the storm, which was at that point only a year away).
As of writing this, it just got mentioned under Social Services Does Not Exist that Lily, who's 11-12, falls under the compulsory school attendance age, so how the hell hasn't any Truancy Officers or Social Services showed up? Yeah, I know - metawise it'd be for pure plot convivence, but what about in universe?
Assuming Kotaro didn't just manage to evade and hide under those social services, he could also dealt with them offscreen by giving a mistruth for Lily's age, by adding the years she was dead into her age.
When Ai wakes up Sakura in morning in episode 11, why does she have make up on?
