The One With… the two-for-one special! We see Franchouchou taking up their second chance at a sponsorship by performing a real-life jingle for a real-life Saga chicken joint, followed by the group all partaking in the Gatalympics, where the aim of the games is to do your best to win, or suffer a muddy fate.
While the two smaller stories are standalone, they are connected to each other with similar story beats...and a huge Brick Joke that pays off at the end.
The first story of Episode 5 begins with another delightful morning report from Kotaro himself...as in, preparing to play baseball against Franchouchou. Literally. As he pitches himself a perfect swing, he knocks out Saki in a single swoop, in which he considers a home-run...and that means Saki has every right to counter back with his ball, which goes right into Kotaro's leg. Ouch.
As he collects the basement sand of defeat, he goes over the metaphoric way of using baseball for today's mission briefing. Firstly, he reminds Franchouchou that they struck out from their last mission with the hot springs incident. Secondly, he reminds them once more that they're not safe within home base considering the team still doesn't have any money to do any big projects.
And lastly, this brings them to their next objective that can be easily given a good home-run: Performing in a commercial (complete with catchy jingle) for the (real life) Saga based chicken restaurant, Drive-In Tori. And with this hard hitting reveal, Saki's interests have peaked immensely.
As the girls go over what they have to perform for the commercial, almost everyone but Saki mentions that they've never heard of this place, which causes Saki to explode in rage. But nevertheless, they're doing the commercial filming today, right now in fact!
Franchouchou arrives at the joint, and Saki gleefully starts to reminisce about her good ol' days of drivin' to the Drive-In itself, with her old pals (who were also part of Saki's biker gang Dorami). Back to reality, and Lily starts to diss on the restaurant's mascot Cocco, which obviously irks Saki, who defends the mascot to this very day.
The group then gets acquainted with the (real-life) president of the (again, real-life) Drive-In Tori restaurant itself, who offers Franchouchou to try out the joint's famous yakitori (i.e. grilled chicken). As the girls happily accept, Saki bows down before him, as if she thinks the owner of the joint is a literal god.
As the girls chew and munch through their free meal, we see Kotaro learning the ways of perfecting the arts of making yakitori from the president himself, but the girls are far too distracted with the delight of their chicken-ey lunch. The president doesn't seem to mind though, considering the chicken they use is always fresh. That being said, Tae starts to gobble up a plate of raw chicken, which startles the president a bit. Luckily, Kotaro uses that trademark charm once more...which actually seems to work on males.
It's time for the commercial filming to commence, as we see Franchouchou dressed up for the advertisement! Sakura gives a compliment to Junko's chicken outfit; while Lily comments on Yugiri's chick outfit, in which the latter mentions that she wouldn't mind wearing it for a client back in her old job. Yikes...!
We are then introduced to the director for the commercial shoot, the assistant director (and his very hairy armpits), and last and not least- Cocco himself! Being a large chicken mascot, this causes Tae to drool and froth at the mouth as she attempts to go in for the kill. Sakura then stops Tae in her tracks before anything goes haywire, and reminds the poor hungry zombie that Cocco is just a man wearing a chicken suit.
With Cocco joining Franchouchou for the commercial filming itself, the camera starts shooting. As the girls sing the jingle, they're stopped half-way through due to the director not liking a particular singer in the group, which is obviously Tae (whose singing skills are non-existent). Sakura then gives Tae the option to do the rooster call at the end of the jingle, so that she doesn't feel left out. Take two, and Tae does that...before the girls start to sing.
Several takes later, and the commercial filming ends with a perfect new rendition of the jingle, thanks to Ai's professional skills helping out the girls, and of course, Tae's rooster call. With that out of the way, the girls should be done, right? Wrong.
While the commercial filming staff are satisfied, Kotaro isn't. He declares that the girls weren't showing off anything remotely chicken-y enough in their take on the ad, and Saki even agrees with him! Heck, Cocco is sadly breakdancing because of that. While Saki laments a bit more, Tae finally gets the perfect opportunity to taste that Cocco butt.
While the rest of Franchouchou attempts to stop Tae, Kotaro sees this as a great excuse for the director to resume filming, so we can see Tae assault that chicken mascot. But why though? Because according to Kotaro, the whole world needs to know about how much chicken they love to gorge down, and Tae's attack on Cocco is the perfect example of showcasing that. The director, despite not expecting this outcome to happen, does so with gusto.
At the end of the day, we see our girls rewarded for their hard work towards filming a new Drive-In Tori ad for the president. What are they rewarded with? T-shirts, and nothing else! While this saddens the girls, who expected more food from the joint, the t-shirts do give Kotaro another good idea for him to try out in the near future.
The following day, we see the citizens of Saga experiencing the brand-new Drive-In Tori ad for the very first time. Given that the ad credits Franchouchou as the new jingle performers, this finally gives the group some exposure. But this also manages to get the attention of one Shinta Okoba, who is the chief editor of the local Saga magazine, known as Sagazine. He starts to wonder about one of the girls in that ad, who he considers as 'familiar'...
Either way, the ad campaign was a complete success for Franchouchou, as they've successfully completed a mission without any negative repercussions in the slightest. And for that, Kotaro blesses them as "nice birds".
The second story of Episode 5 begins some time after, as we see Kotaro giving yet another morning report to Franchouchou. This time, he's gone full-on French mode, complete with beret on head and baguette on hand. Its Ai's turn to be 'assaulted' by Kotaro, albeit its moreso him trying to whisper sexy French sounding words to her ear, and referring to Ai as a "Saga Jeune".
Ai then yanks the baguette from Kotaro and slaps his face with the crusty bread roll (complete with similar slow-mo shot). Again, this causes Kotaro to collect the sand of defeat.
This transitions over to Kotaro giving the girls their next mission: competing in the muddy Olympian event known as The Gatalympics (which is also a real-life thing, just so you know)! This manages to get Saki's attention once more, being the local Saga 'know-it-all'. Again, the other girls don't know this sort of thing even exists, so Saki yells at them for a second time.
But why participate in such a sticky sporting event? Well, it's because Kotaro has managed to design Franchouchou shirts for the group to wear on the day! It's just the shirts have misspelt it a little. This confuses Sakura, and gets Lily to snark on him for making "the ugliest frickin' shirt [she's] ever seen". And when do they start this insane sport event? Right now, obviously!
At the Gatalympics, we see Franchouchou preparing to dress in their sporting gear, complete with Franchouchou branded shirts as a way to give the audience some free advertising. Tae accidentally damages her shirt, but is luckily given another shirt (as in, the Drive-In Tori shirt) to wear underneath the damaged shirt, thanks to Sakura. Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite her...
The first event of the day is the mud bicycle race! As the local Policeman demonstrates, you have to make it to the end of the very thin course on a bicycle without falling into the mud (in which he does, causing Saki to laugh at him). While the girls consider this to be a piece of cake, they all manage to fail one by one. Special mention goes out to Saki (who falls face first into mud), Yugiri (who fails instantly because she doesn't know how to ride a bike), Lily (who shoots through the mud), and Tae (who sinks into the mud. While riding the bike).
Sakura was the one who came closest to securing a win, but fails at the very end. Needless to say, this not only was a missed opportunity to get to the podium for an interview, but their shirts are now soaked in mud, which makes it so no-one can read what it says on them. Sakura then decides its best for them to wash the mud away at a nearby water fountain, and the girls go do just that.
...Unfortunately, the water not only washes the mud away from them, but it also washes off their make-up. Franchouchou then decides that they'd be better off covered in mud rather than having themselves killed by the public.
Back at the Gatalympics, the girls watch Kotaro have a go at the mud cycling race. Saki laughs at the idea of him falling down into mud, and everyone hopes that he'd give Franchouhou some shout-outs. But alas, Kotaro meekly just states that he'll do his best, and nothing else. He ends up winning the event, anyway.
But not all hope has been lost, as there's just one more event left for the Gatalympics: the Tarzan mud swing! If the girls manage to come first place, they will be able to secure an interview at the podium. So with their confidence boosted, the group partakes in the mud swing event.
Saki does an amazing job at gaining height for her turn...but no distance is gained, as she falls immediately down into the mud. Ai forgets to let go at the right time, while Junko literally slips up her chance at grabbing onto the rope. Yugiri manages to do a perfect presentation of swinging on the rope...and is disqualified for not actually swinging off the rope. She does manage to please the entire crowd though, and that's all she needed.
For Lily's turn, she pulls off an amazing trick to allow her to shoot through, and while she gets points for the distance and trick, she failed to gain enough height, which places her in fourth. It's all down to Sakura now, but as she concentrates hard enough...she lets go of the rope at the worst possible time, and belly flops into the mud. She's then declared as the worst participant in the event today as a result.
While most of Franchouchou lament on their losses for the day, Tae is nowhere to be seen...until the group sees her swinging on the rope. Tae manages to build up distance and height, and boy does she. In fact, the amount was so immense, it actually caused her entire body to split apart. Knowing this could lead into a huge problem, the girls rush into the mud as fast as they can to place Tae's parts back together again. Luckily, the judges and the entire audience were temporarily blinded by the sun while that happened, but they catch the end result of seeing Franchouchou perform some teamworking to help Tae secure her gold medal win.
Unfortunately, this is Tae we're dealing with, and is unable to speak coherently. So yeah, this was a loss as well. But then Sakura realized she placed one of the shirts Tae was wearing underneath the damaged muddy shirt. So, Sakura tells Tae to rip the current shirt off to reveal the Franchouchou shirt that she's expecting to see...and as Tae rips open...
...it turns out the shirt underneath it was the Drive-In Tori shirt.
With a hearty rooster call from Tae, this causes the audience to go wild, as they realize that she's the one chicken from the ad that attacked Cocco. As the jingle plays one final time, Sakura is now at a complete dismayed loss...but Kotaro is proud regardless, as it did manage to help Franchouchou get noticed. He then calls Tae...a nice bird.
Oh, and unbeknownst to literally everyone in the Gatalympics, we see Okoba and his assistant taking pictures of the event for Sagazine. Okoba then catches his eye on that familiar girl he saw in the Drive-In Tori ad...and that girl is Junko. From this moment on, Okoba will be spying on her and the rest of Franchouchou to know what's really going on...
Tropes
- Baguette Beatdown: Kotaro smacks Ai over the head with a baguette. She retaliates by striking him across the face with it.
- Breather Episode: A lower-stakes comedy episode where the girls get to experience some of the regional attractions of Saga.
- Call-Back: Ai and Junko freeze up seeing Policeman A again after he had tried to shoot them in a previous episode.
- Comically Missing the Point: Instead of using the rope to swing across the beach, Yugiri instead performs an elegant gymnastics routine, even bowing to the audience when she finishes. Despite not being the goal of the challenge, the audience loves it, and she's rewarded a high score based purely on artistry.
- Covered in Mud: The girls are completely caked in mud from competing in the Gatalympic events. They can't advertise with their shirts because of this.
- Creepy Monotone: Played for Laughs. The Drive-In Tori manager speaks with a very dry inflection that makes him sound inexperienced at reading anime lines. The English version achieves a similar effect by impersonating the original Japanese voice.
- Eat the Camera: The camera zooms in on Saki's mouth as she scolds the other girls for having never eaten at Drive-In Tori.Saki: "All of you fail at SAGA!!!"Camera zooms into her mouth
- Epic Fail: The girls' attempts at winning the Gatalympics challenges are disastrous.
- Gratuitous French: Kotaro ses it for one of the morning meetings with the girls, complete with baguette and a beret.
- Oh, Crap!:
- The girls are caked in mud from competing in the Gatalympics. They go to rinse themselves off only to realize their human makeup has been cleaned off too, revealing their zombified appearances. This understandably freaks them out.
- Tae's body breaks apart mid-air during the rope swing challenge. The others have to make a mad-dash towards and reattach her parts before the audience notices.
- The Olympics: The second half of episode has the girls participating in the Gatalymicsnote in an effort to raise the profile of the band. It goes about as well as could be expected.
- Product Placement: Both Drive-In Tori and the Gatalympics are real.
- Franchouchou performs a rendition of Drive-In Tori's ad theme.
- Kotaro sets up the girls to compete in the Gatalympics, specifically the bike race and the rope swing over the beach.
