Lily Hoshikawa

"No matter what, I’m always going to twinkle and sparkle. The girls in Franchouchou will, too. We're going to shine like stars forever! That's why I'm here today, I thought if I won the contest that it would help the group stand out even more."

- Lily to Light Oozora, about not giving up,

Lily Hoshikawa (星川 リリィ, Hoshikawa Ririi) was a breakout star in a long-running drama show and a famous actress who starred in multiple prime-time shows of multiple networks.

After being resurrected from the dead, she becomes a member of the idol group Franchouchou and is titled as The Legendary Child Actress Prodigy (伝説の天才子役 Densetsu no Tensai Koyaku).

Human
As a human, Lily has two bright blue pigtails with dark blue bows. She also has a large orange star and other stars in the middle of her hair. She has orange/yellow eyes and pale skin. She wears a school uniform which consists of a green shirt, a dark blue bow, a white skirt, and brown shoes with white socks.

Lily had four stars on her head: the largest orange star represents Takeo; the second-largest red star represents her mother; the little yellow star behind the big orange star represents Lily's role as Masao (the obedient son behind Takeo's back); the little yellow star between the orange and red represents Lily herself; Lily kept the four stars in her head until she saw Takeo arrive at her concert in Episode 8 at the last moment, then she removed the star from Masao.

Zombie
As a zombie, Lily has her literal heart stuck outside her body, and like the other zombies, her blue-gray skin.

Idol
Lily's idol outfit changes throughout the series; in episodes 1-6, Lily wears a multicolored t-shirt with light blue, pink, and yellow, with the word “six” written on it, along with a yellow skirt with white ruffles. Using makeup, she and the other zombies make their skin look like normal humans. Lily also wears contact lenses to achieve the golden eyes that she had as a living person.

After Saga rock, her idol outfit changed to a red jacket with a plaid decoration, a yellow skirt with cotton inside it, and knee-high boots.

Before Death
When she was alive, Lily was very close to her father, who raised her alone. Since her father loved to watch television, she, Lily, decided to become an actress in the hope that she could make him happy by appearing on television. Her father was very proud of her daughter's success, but sadly, her relationship became strained as he began to pay more attention to her career. Lily was very concerned when her body began to enter puberty because she never wanted to become an adult and develop a body that would conflict with her gender identity. Her death was caused by a combination of things that wore her down emotionally, including a very strained relationship with her father and being overworked. The latter of which also wore her down physically. The final straw of all this accumulated stress and depression was seeing a single facial hair begin to grow, with the shock of even her body going against her wishes. Causing her to suffer a fatal heart attack.

Afterlife
Despite having no experience before deciding to become an actress, she took it very quickly and every show she was on became a hit. She also proves to be a quick learner as an idol, quickly learning the skills required for song and dance.

Once she was revived as a zombie, there was nothing in the way of her perpetually identifying as a young girl anymore (since zombies don't age). She eventually gave up her birth name “Masao Go” and dropped her accent for a “prettier” way of speaking.

Lily is often seen with a smile, and due to her young age, she is also shown to be quite playful. She has also shown a professional aspect of her experiences before her death.

She tends to sprinkle her speech with positive English words like “magical” and “wonderful”, which probably make her look prettier. As befits her age, Lily is prone to saying exactly what she has in mind without giving it a good thought or sometimes just not caring. For example, when Kotaro reveals Franchouchou's shirts that they must wear for the Gatalympics, she immediately and cheerfully declares that they are the ugliest shirts she has ever seen in her life.

Since she is still a child. She will cry easily if she feels threatened or hurt by others. Ai makes her cry while she is heated by her fight with Junko, and Sakura attacks her during a depressive episode, sending Lily crying herself to sleep.

She also has a relationship with Yugiri and likes to be told nice things. Despite being so young, she is quite mature mentally even more than the other girls who are older than her, but she is still a child emotionally. Lily argues that they better do Saga Rock even if Junko doesn't come back, explaining that the event is their big chance. And even if they try to get Junko back into the group, Lily knows that won't bring her back. Yugiri shows how mature her reasoning is for Lily.

In episode 8, a really big man appears and seems too interested in Lily. She later explains that the man was actually her real father, and while she was still alive, she spent a lot of time with him. Although she is already the smallest of the group, she is extremely small when she is standing next to him. A photo reveals that she got it from her mother, which only came up to her absurdly large husband's waist.

For understandable reasons, Lily hates being called by her birth name Masao. Saki calls her “Chinchiku” (translated as “Shrimpy”), which initially annoys Lily, but eventually turns into a funny nickname. She even accidentally calls her that during a performance, but Lily is unfazed.

The last time Lily and Takeo saw each other, they got into a big fight that ended with Lily dying of a heart attack. Years later, when the two speak to each other again (although Lily hides her identity), Takeo admits that he feels horrible about the way he treated Lily and regrets not being able to reconcile with her. Later that night, Lily, normally happy and cheerful, breaks down in tears in Sakura's arms when she realizes that her father, Takeo, truly loved her and was deeply sorry for neglecting her and that he still loves her despite their unfortunate history.Despite not having a good relationship with her father before her death, it shows that she still loves him for everything he did for her, being puzzled and nervous when he appeared in the girls' performances. After returning as a zombie and meeting her father again, Lily realizes how much he regrets what happened to her and forgives him. While she cannot tell him that she is her daughter, she writes him a song known as “To My Dearest”. She sings this song to her father, as a way of thanking him for being a part of her life, through all the good and bad parts. It is performed similar to a slow, ballad-like Broadway musical number.

When Sakura got depressed, she was very upset to find out that she no longer remembered her and that the girl who once told her she was a star was gone. After trying to convince her to come back, she regretted Sakura's attitude and went to cry.

She will occasionally display nasty childish behavior. Not out of malicious intent, but more because she doesn't know any better; when the girls are brainstorming their idol group names, Lily complains when she thinks a suggestion isn't cute enough for her; makes fun of the pet of Drive-In Tori as well as the Gatalympics telling Saki that she's too excited about it; she and Tae fight over a piece of dried squid during a van ride, and she tries to get the squid out of Tae's mouth.

Not only does she deliver a heartwarming rakugo performance that brings much of the audience to tears, including the judges, Saki, and Sakura, but she then manages to rearrange the song she was set to perform for the finals into a scat-jazz, adapt her outfit to a new costume, and improvise an entire dance routine. All in the minutes it took for her opponent to finish his performance.

During the talent show finale, Lily is forced to change her song routine at the last second after Light Oozora reveals that he is going to sing the same song as her. She sings the same song but makes her performance much more child-oriented, being simple, repetitive, and poppy, which delights the children who watch her. This contrasts nicely with Light's more adult-oriented performance. Towards the end of the episode, her performance is shown to have become an instant hit on the Web and is especially popular with children.

Skillset

 * Musical Talent—Lily has proven her musical abilities during her time as a successful child prodigy in the music industry.
 * Dancing—Similar to her musical talent, Lily is also adept at dancing.
 * Knowledge on Survival—Because Lily previously took part in a summer camp, she remembers her workouts and helps the girls start fires and other things when she is on the mountain.
 * Hula Hooping—Lily and the rest of the girls can perform while twirling hoops made of electricity during their performance in “Episode 16”.
 * Scatting—Lily demonstrates this during her last-minute change of performance of her own remastered version of the song “Life” during the Japanese Got Performance talent show in “Episode 17”.
 * Improvisation—Shown in the seventeenth episode, Lily can improvise by remastering the song “Inochi” so it would not make her performance look like a mere reenactment of Light’s.
 * Drawing—Lily leads the morning assembly of the seventeenth episode by showing the rest of Franchouchou and Kotaro Tatsumi her plan via her drawing on the blackboard.
 * Craftsmanship—Aside from remastering the song “Inochi”, Lily adds improvements to her outfit for her performance during the last minute, all the while Light was performing onstage.
 * Rakugo Performance—Lily has displayed her skills in Rakugo performances during her turn at the Japanese Got Performance talent show, performing one of her father’s favorite soap operas.

Natural Abilities

 * Non-senescence—Because Lily is a zombie, she is given the ability to remain at the age at which she died forever, so upon discovering this, Lily is happy with her new life. There is also no physical change after the resurrection process, as well as immunity against death. As she, along with the other girls, can endure circumstances that human bodies normally cannot handle. Like the lightning bolt in the seventh episode; and instead of suffering a third-degree burn, the girls end up becoming luminous and self-possessed-tuned voices.
 * Detachable Limbs—As a zombie, Lily can detach and reattach parts of her body from their sockets with little to no effort, either intentionally or accidentally. This is partially demonstrated by her heart in various episodes that due to different circumstances can go out of its usual place and beat quite fast.
 * Phosphorescent Vision—Lily's undead blood-red eyes are shown to be able to glow in the dark.
 * Element Absorption—Their zombie bodies can accelerate the process of absorbing chemicals like those seen in Episode 4 by instantly absorbing the medicinal patches, causing their muscles to relax and not be as stiff. In addition to the fact that in their following concerts and practices, they continue to use the patches. In Episode 7, their bodies demonstrate a similar capacity to batteries by receiving an electrical discharge from lightning and glowing a pale blue, as well as releasing laser beams with their fingers.

Etymology

 * The name Lily  is a feminine given name directly derived from the flower, Lilium.
 * Lilies are often used to represent purity, passion, and rebirth.
 * Lily was also the name of the first woman to get SRS in Japan, as well as the chosen name for another popular trans character in anime (although they only chose the name in a part which the anime did not adapt).
 * Lily's surname Hoshikawa means “star” (星) (hoshi) and “river, stream” (川) (kawa), which is a possible homage to the stars she has in her hair and her attire.

Birth Name

 * The name Masao means “right, proper” (正) (masa) and “hero, manly” (雄) (o), which literally means “righteous man” altogether.
 * Masao's surname Go means “overpowering, great, powerful, excelling, Australia, fine feathers, writing brush, little” (豪).



Trivia

 * Staff said they were aware of the “childish” aspects of Lily's design, like the width of her shoulders. They liked designing Lily's clothes, as she seems to be particularly important to the cuteness of the show.
 * Lily was only 12 years old when she died in 2011.
 * Lily died one month after her twelfth birthday.
 * Lily is the only zombie not shown with bandages or stitches, due to her death not being from a physical injury.
 * However, her death was visceral: a heart attack/cardiac arrest caused by mental shock. This makes Lily the only member of the group with an exposed organ.
 * Lily was initially considered to be a pair of twins, but was later merged into just one character.
 * This is further examined during the official Zombie Land Saga x Sanrio merch collab, wherein Lily is featured with The Little Twin Stars. Specifically, with both twins dressing up as Lily.
 * Lily is the first, and so far only, official LGBT+ character in the series and the first canonically transgender character in a popular idol franchise.
 * In addition to the gender issue, Lily also died at a very young age, and that of course was difficult to address properly. But, they wanted to make her a very strong person who stays positive no matter what and lives life to the fullest… well, as a “living” zombie. They worked very hard to include scenes like Lily talking to her father, but at the same time, they didn't put too much emphasis on it. Since everyone is a zombie, nothing stops them anymore, least of all gender. Whether it's someone like Tae or Lily, who was born as a boy, none of that matters to the other members of the group. They see beyond that. They had to be careful and considerate with this kind of thing; otherwise, it could become troublesome. Of course, the easiest option is to just avoid it altogether and not have to worry about a thing. But in the end, they relied on intuition, striking the right balance between funny and serious elements while asking themselves «will viewers understand what we’re trying to convey?» It's not something the writers could know for sure. Sometimes they were sure that doing this or that would be okay, but they were still nervous about how things would turn out until the broadcast. Due to such concerns, they did a lot of dialogue modifications during the recording sessions.
 * Fortunately, Lily's inclusion was received by Western and Japanese fans, so it all worked out. As the creators of the show, they didn't feel it was absolutely necessary to bring the topic of gender to an idol group. But on the other hand, they wanted to defy convention and do what other idol series didn't.
 * Some people predicted her identity as a transgender female.
 * She is seen reading a magazine on heavy machinery.
 * Her reaction when Kotaro Tatsumi said they were going to the hot springs
 * The phrase “Age and gender are timeless” in the introduction of the official website
 * In the illustration of the swimsuit, she does not wear a bikini but pants.
 * In the description of the relation to her, b/w/h.
 * The name Lily itself has an alternate meaning, “a feminine man”, although this would contradict Lily's identity as a girl.
 * Lily is the first to have her relatives be shown in the show. In her case, being Takeo Go and Sachika.
 * Her official profile says that she doesn't like mozuku and hijiki, which are seaweed foods. Episode 8 suggests this is because she thought she had seaweed leftovers on her face before realizing it was budding facial hair.
 * Lily shares the same English voice actor as Yuki Kusakabe from Interviews with Monster Girls and Tohru from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid.
 * Her English voice actor also voices Ruby Kurosawa, another idol character from the anime series Love Live! Sunshine!!.
 * As of “Episode 13”, Lily works part-time for the local milk delivery service in their area.
 * Lily currently has two episodes centered around her, with the first being “Episode 8” and the second being “Episode 17”.
 * Interestingly, her episodes come after the group performs Mezame Returner (Electric Returner).Lily OFA 2.jpg
 * Lily being a transgender girl is hinted at twice in “Episode 17”.
 * Its design incorporates teal and pink, two of the colors that represent the transgender flag. Her final outfit for her performance in Episode 15 incorporates a lot of white, pink, and teal. Special mention should be given to her bow which has pink and white stripes, combined with her teal hair to fully correspond to the flag.
 * And during the scene wherein Lily enters the men’s bathroom, to which she responds to Light questioning her about it as “Lily does whatever she wants to.”
 * One of the interests listed on the site is heavy machinery magazines, which Lily often reads in the background. The end credits of Episode 8 reveal a flashback of Lily and her father sitting together on a bulldozer, and the last episode of Revenge shows that her father is a construction worker.
 * Lily’s first performance at the Japanese Got Performance talent show in “Episode 17” is a pun based on “Roku-go performing Rakugo”, with her stage name as Zombie #6 (Roku-go) performing Rakugo onstage.
 * Later in the Drama CD 1: Secret Before Christmas SAGA, it is revealed that Lily's inspiration for making the Rakugo was a Christmas book she had received from Sakura.
 * During her flashbacks of Episode 8, a Rakugo program can be seen on television that possibly inspired Lily later.
 * Because Lily refers to herself in the third person rather than the first-person pronoun in Japanese, she unintentionally revealed her name to Maria Amabuki by saying, 「リリィはもう永遠の小学生だも！」(I'm/Lily's a permanent grade-schooler, though!).