Junko Konno

"“I’m going with you because I’m an idol! My name’s Junko Konno, the Showa Idol!”"

Junko Konno (紺野 純子, Konno Junko) was an idol from the 80s whose popularity caused the idol boom of said decade.

She is a member of the zombie idol group Franchouchou and is titled as The Legendary Showa Idol (伝説の昭和アイドル, Densetsu no Shōwa aidoru).

Personality
Junko always seems to be calm, collected and a bit shy of her surroundings. As the series progresses, she manages to feel more secure about it, both on stage and with the group.

After being shocked by the drastic changes in the idol industry while dead, she barricades herself in a room (with warning signs and "do not cross" tape) and sulks in place for weeks, even growing mushrooms on her head.

Junko does not hate the idea of ​​acting in a group, but she is not sure that she can work well in one, since she had always acted alone, which compounds her reluctance to cooperate with Kotaro's plan, defends the idea that idols should be figures of perfection for fans to admire and showing any imperfections in front of them is inexcusable. Just the idea of ​​interacting with her fans makes her uncomfortable because they can find fault with her offstage.

She is very prone to blushing, either from embarrassment or from the rude comments of others. When she saw Yugiri in her Oiran outfit, she blushed in amazement at seeing someone so elegant.

She is very reserved and soft-spoken, and is deeply intimidated by Tae. She is also very uncomfortable with the idea of ​​fan photoshoots, both due to her shy nature and because idols didn't interact as much directly with their fans when she was alive. The band decides to sidestep this and start marketing simply by handing out signed "candid" photos of themselves as "The Shy" of the group, instead of meeting and greeting. Junko's soft, meek voice turns into a hoarse alto when she sings. She is frequently shown to be nervous when it comes to heights. The fact that she died in a plane crash probably contributed to this fear.

In the last episodes of season 1, Junko can be seen with a quite calm and collaborative personality with the other girls, in addition to giving advice to Sakura on looking at what happens around her. Her personality change upon realizing the new era and accepting it makes her relate more to Sakura and when she loses her memory she goes to talk to her, but her shy personality does not allow her to do so and she simply gives up and starts crying. At the end of Arpino's concert, she looks happy because Sakura finally recovered her memories.

When Iron Frill arrives at Saga she cares a lot about the group and says that she is useless belittling herself for not knowing how to guide the girls, after they witness Shiori trying to recruit Ai, Junko looks nervous and sad because she thinks that Franchouchou is not the best for her. Kotaro later encourages her to break everything in her path and get Ai back by breaking everything, words that she takes very literally since she later breaks his electric guitar, but now Junko is determined to get what she wants by giving a great impact and giving herself that. her time and her way of being must change to have what she wants, leaving aside once and for all her shy personality and becoming determined.

Human
Junko has short, white hair that curls near the bottom. Her bangs are bunched in the middle, and she has ice blue eyes. Junko sports a rather very slim and slender figure which is proportionally identical to those of Ai Mizuno, with only slight differences in sheer numbers.

Normally, Junko wears a navy sailor dress with white accent lines and a white tie. She also wears white socks and black shoes.

Zombie
Like the others, it has grayish-blue skin like a zombie and stiches all over her body with different skin tones in each section that make it an homage to the Monster of Frankenstein.

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

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

Skillset

 * Musical Talent - Similar to Ai, being a former pop idol, she is gifted with amazing musical talent. According to her flashbacks, she was capable of playing the piano and doing incredible solos.
 * Dancing - On top of her musical talent, she can also move fluidly to the beat of any music. But unlike the others girls, she is not as talented as Ai or Lily because she acted more alone, however it does not seem to be a problem throughout the series
 * Fishing - In the tenth episode, she reveals that she loves hobbies that involved being alone and concentration, thus showing that she loved to fish as well. In addition to that it helps she to see things from different points of view.
 * Carpentry - Junko has not only fixed the door Kotaro kicked down in the seventh episode but has also re-enhanced it so that even Tae can not knock it down.
 * Lock-picking - As shown in “Episode 13”, Junko is successfully able to pick the lock to Kotaro’s room.
 * Guitar-playing - As shown in “Episode 15”, she can play the guitar as back-up to her vocals.
 * Hula Hooping - Junko and the rest of the girls are able to perform while twirling hoops made of electricity during their performance in “Episode 16”.

Natural Abilities

 * Non-senescence - Due to being a zombie, Junko is granted the ability to remain the age at which she died forever without any physical changes after the resurrection process, as well as immunity against death. As she, along with the other girls, is able to 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, she also have the ability to detach and reattach parts of her body from their sockets with little to no effort, either intentionally or accidentally. However, it is one of the zombies to which no part of its body has fallen for now.
 * Phosphorescent Vision - Her dark red eyes that can glow in the dark after being resurrected into a zombie.
 * Element Absorption - Their zombie bodies can speed up 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 their subsequent concerts and practices continue to use the patches. In Episode 7, their bodies demonstrate a similar capacity to batteries by receiving an electrical discharge from lightning and glow a pale blue, as well as releasing laser beams with their fingers.
 * Plantlife Fertilization - As shown in Episode 7, being a zombie gives Junko the ability to grow mushrooms out of her head without her intentionally doing so. Though, this feat may only be triggered if said zombie were to not move around as often and stay stagnated in the appropriate environment. In the mushrooms’ case, in a cool dry area like The Isolation Room.

Etymology

 * The name Junko means "pure, clean, simple" (純) (jun) and "child" (子) (ko).
 * Junko's surname Konno means "navy blue" (紺) (kon) and "field, wilderness" (野) (no).



Trivia

 * Junko is the revived representation of the idols "Showa" of the 70s and 80s. Calm, reserved and fearful, Junko is the image of what the artists showed the public on the small screen.
 * Junko's body is full of stitched patches, as the impact of the plane where she was caused by a great explosion completely destroying her body and giving her serious burns, which is why she has patches of different colors.
 * Junko died three months after her nineteenth birthday.
 * Based on the timeline, Junko's actual age is 54, as she remarked in Episode 6 that she would have been a grandmother if she was still alive.
 * Her age is indirectly mentioned in her solo, “50 and 4 Things Left Behind”.
 * Junko's fate is similar to that of singer Kyu Sakamoto, who died in the crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123.
 * Junko has same cup size and body type as Ai Mizuno, both of them having two of the slimmest figures in group.
 * She shares the same English voice actor as Hayasaka Ai from the series Kaguya-sama: Love is War.
 * Junko's death was most likely even more painful, especially when it comes to her mentality and personality as a zombie. Considering Junko was stuck on a plane that was plummeting straight into the ground, she was forced to hear the painful screams of many, many passengers that all succumbed to their sudden death alongside Junko. While Junko was a lot more confident when she was a human, the whole death experience she went through, literally broke her mentality. This explains why Junko is the most cowardly, the shyest, and the quietest of the bunch. Because she never got over her traumatic death.
 * She shares the same date of death as Romero.
 * According to the events of the CD drama 1, Junko has a Christmas song.
 * Despite being the most softspoken member of the group, she has the deepest vocals during her performances in the original dub.
 * When asked if Junko and Ai have the possibility of developing a romantic relationship, the crew responded that they did not think of the two as such outside of just “An idol from the Showa Period and another from the Heisei Period.”
 * As of “Episode 13”, she works part-time as someone who retouches the paint of ceramic figurines at an unnamed establishment.
 * There are currently four episodes that focus on her which she shares with Ai. The episodes being “Episode 6”, “Episode 7”, “Episode 15”, and “Episode 16”.
 * With both “Episode 7” and “Episode 16” being direct continuations of their previous episodes.