Lily Hoshikawa

"No, I’m never growing up!; Yes, I can and I’m going to (stay like this forever). I’ll always be just like this."

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 primetime shows of multiple networks. When she was born, she was named Masao Go (豪 正雄, Gō Masao) who died of a sudden heart attack stemming from a combination of severe exhaustion and the mental shock from growing a facial hair. She's also a member of the idol group Franchouchou.

She 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, brown shoes with white socks.

Lily had four stars on her head: the largest orange star represents pappy; the red second largest star represents her mother; the tiny yellow star hiding behind the large orange one represents Lily's role as Masao (the compliant son behind pappy's back); the tiny yellow star between the Orange and the Red represents Lily herself; Lily kept all four stars on her head until she saw pappy coming to her concert at the last moment, then she removed the Masao star.

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

Idol
Her idol outfit changes throughout the series: On episodes 1-6, Lily wears a gold T-shirt with the word "six" written on it, along with an yellow skirt with white ruffles. Using makeup, she and the other zombies make their skin look like a normal human. Lily also wears contact lenses to achieve her golden eyes that she had as a living person.

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

Pajamas
TBA

Personality
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.

As befits her age, Lily is prone to saying exactly what she has in mind without thinking it through, sometimes just not caring, or to be a hypocrite. For example, when Kotaro reveals the Franchouchou shirts that they must wear for the Gatalympics, she immediately and gleefully declares that the shirts are trash-looking.

Shortly before her death, 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.

One of the interests listed on the official site is in heavy machinery magazines, which will often be seen reading in the background. The end credits of Episode 8 also reveal a flashback of Lily and her father sitting together on a bulldozer.

Skillset

 * Musical Talent - She has proven her musical abilities during her time as a successful child prodigy in the music industry.
 * Dancing - Similar to her musical talent, she is also adept at dancing.

Unique Abilities

 * Immortality - As a zombie she is given the ability to not physically age and stay the age she died, appearance-wise, and the immunity to die from circumstances that could normally kill a human.
 * Detachable Limbs - Parts of her body are detachable whether she does this intentionally or not.
 * Phosphorescent Vision - Her undead blood-red eyes are shown to be able to glow in the dark.

Etymology

 * The name Lily  is a feminine given name directly derived from the flower, lily.
 * Lillies are often used to represent purity, passion and rebirth.
 * Lily's former name Masao means "right, proper" (正) (masa) and "hero, manly" (雄) (o), which literally means "righteous man".
 * Lily's surname Hoshikawa means "star" (星) (hoshi) and "river, stream" (川) (kawa), which a possible homage to the stars she has in her hair and her attire (idol ribbon and in a flashback on Episode 8).



Trivia

 * They 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 very important to the cuteness of the show, "the design of" Pappy "may seem like a joke, but it becomes more meaningful when you understand it in the context of the script.".
 * Lily was only 12 years old when she died in 2011.
 * Lily died one month after her twelfth birthday.
 * Lily is the only one out of the zombie girls with an exposed organ. Her exposed and often rapidly beating heart represents her cause of death, a heart attack/cardiac arrest which was caused by mental shock.
 * Lily is the only Zombie not shown with bandages or stitches (likely due to her death not being from an outward injury).
 * 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.
 * Lily was initially considered to be a pair of twins, but was later merged into just one character.
 * Some people predicted her true identity as a transgender female.
 * She is seen reading a magazine on heavy machinery.
 * Her reaction when Kotaro said they were going to the hot springs
 * The phrase "Age, gender and 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 b/w/h
 * The name Lily itself has an alternate meaning, "a feminine man".


 * All of these below are references back to Lily's background and her memory:
 * The shooting star at the end of the performance; Lily looking in the mirror (for facial hair) in episode 2 and being happy to become a zombie; her strange reaction after being told that the girls are going to an onsen in episode 4; her interest in heavy machinery magazine (pappy, her father, took her to see heavy machinery); her love of Mayonnaise, Ketchup, Mustard (all three sauces appeared on her food plate with pappy); her dislike toward Mozuku and Hijiki (resemblance to facial hair); her favorite color being yellow, the color of the little star(s) on her head (maybe orange and red are her parents' favorite color?); the show being officially described as "...across age, gender, time period...";all of these information were revealed before episode 8 aired.
 * All the extremely disproportionate "pappy" figures appeared in Lily's memory, especially in the scenes of eating, watching TV, and going to park; anyone can tell they are disproportionate, but they weren't intended to be accurate in the first place, instead they were the exaggerated "pappy" figure in Lily's eyes.
 * After Lily's death, in episode 8, we see Takeo put Lily's picture on the center of the home altar, and Lily's mother on the left; having lost his meaning of life, Takeo already cleared the right side for his photo.
 * Masao(まさお) ≈ まっさお ("grey-ish blue") ≈ "zombie", and Lily (リリ) ≈ リリー ("Lily" the plant) ≈ symbol of pure/living human; so basically Kotaro told the girls "The rest of you are Masao ('zombies'), and I am Lily ('living human')" in episode 8; on the other hand, Masao "正男" literally means "the righteous man" or "the righteous son", the exact opposite of typical girl's names; (note that some argue the correct kanji should be "正雄" instead of "正男", but that doesn't change it's literal meaning in this context.) after the concert, Lily is no longer the "zombie TV star" for pappy, but is an independent girl who chases her own dream.
 * In the ending concert, Lily intentionally omitted all objects in her sentences; similar to how the English word "you" can be both singular and plural, while appearing to have spoken to everyone in the audience, Lily addressed her feelings to pappy alone.