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 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.

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, 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 represents Lily's role as Masao (the obedient son behind Takeo's back); the little yellow star between 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: On episodes 1-6, Lily wears a multi-colored t-shirt with light blue, pink and yellow, 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.

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. In fact, her father was very proud of her daughter's success, but sadly, her relationship became strained as she 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 drained her emotionally, including a very strained relationship with her father and the overwork deprived of her job, the second that also drained her physically. The last straw for all this accumulated stress and depression was seeing a single facial hair begin to grow, with the impact 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 prior to 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 she must wear for the Gatalympics, she immediately and cheerfully declares that they are the ugliest shirts he 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 her big break, and even if they pass it on to Junko, Lily knows that won't make her come back. Yugiri shows how mature the reasoning is for Lily.

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

For understandable reasons, Lily hates being called her by her birth name her Masa or hers. Saki calls her "Chinchiku" (translated as "Shrimpy"), which is initially teasing and annoying 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 really 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 really loved her and was deeply sorry for having neglected her, and that he still loves her despite the unfortunate history of her.

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 meet 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 along the lines of a slow, ballad-like Broadway musical number.

When Sakura got depressed she got very bad knowing that she no longer remembered her and that the girl who once told her that she was a star was gone, after trying to convince her she regretted Sakura's attitude and left 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, she makes fun of the pet so much 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 that she was ready to perform for the finale into a scat- number jazz, adapting her outfit to a new costume, and improvising a full dance routine, all in the minutes it took for his 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 are able to 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 is able to 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 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, 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, Lily have the ability to detach and reattach parts of her body from their sockets with little to no effort, either intentionally or accidentally. This is partially demonstrated with her heart in various episodes that due to different circumstances is able to 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 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.

Etymology

 * The name Lily  is a feminine given name directly derived from the flower, Lilium.
 * Lillies 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 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.Lily OFA 2.jpg
 * 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 “living” zombies it's a bit of a stretch, but you get the point. 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, but 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 her parents.
 * 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 of 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 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, combining 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 will often be seen reading in the background. The end credits of Episode 8 reveal a flashback of Lily and her father sitting together on a shovel, 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 stagename 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.
 * 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 a 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!).