Lily Hoshikawa

Lily Hoshikawa (星川 リリィ) is a fictional character from the Japanese anime series Zombie Land Saga. She was created by the team at production studio MAPPA and in particular series composition writer Shigeru Murakoshi and producer Nobuhiro Takenaka, who developed her character. She is voiced by Minami Tanaka in Japanese and Sarah Wiedenheft in the anime's English dub and played by Riri Takanashi in the stage play of the series.

Within the anime's narrative, Lily is introduced as one of several deceased young girls who have been resurrected as zombies to form an idol group which aims to revitalize the declining Saga Prefecture. She is later revealed to be a transgender girl and former television child actor, who died at a young age from the shock of witnessing the prepubescent growth of facial hair on her body.

Lily's character has been well received by critics, who have praised her inclusion within Zombie Land Saga as a positive example of transgender representation. She has also appeared in internet memes, most notably a crudely edited image depicting her holding a gun which features the caption "Shut the fuck up, TERF".

Fictional character biography
Lily first appears in the series' inaugural episode, "Good Morning SAGA," where she is introduced as one of several deceased young girls who have been resurrected as zombies in order to feature in the idol group Franchouchou which aims to revitalize the declining Saga Prefecture. Within the group, she is publicly known as Number 6 (6号), one of several number aliases used by the girls in order to disguise their true identities.

Her backstory is later explored in the episode ""Go Go Neverland SAGA", when she is recognized and approached by her father and past manager, Takeo Go. Lily was previously a child actor with the masculine name Masao Go, who, amidst her stressful television career and the resulting mounting conflict with her father, died from shock after finding a strand of facial hair growing on her body. The other members of the group respond supportively to Lily, all collectively affirming that learning of her transgender identity does not change her place in the group or how they treat her. Lily expresses that she is glad to have been resurrected as a zombie, as she will now never grow older and experience the gender dysphoria that puberty would otherwise cause her. Realizing how much Takeo cared for Lily, Franchouchou invites Takeo to a special concert where Lily performs a song to give him a proper goodbye.

Lily appears in a major role in the fifth episode of the series' second season Zombie Land Saga Revenge, "Little Bodda Bope SAGA", in which she competes on a talent competition television program against fellow child actor Light Oozora.

Development
In an interview with Mipon, producer Nobuhiro Takenaka and composition writer Shigeru Murakoshi said that they found Lily a difficult character to approach owing to the challenging themes of gender in her story, which they wanted to approach sensitively and with "a suitable balance of comedic and serious scenes." Owing to these considerations, many rewrites of dialogue relevant to Lily's character, in particular the line in which she openly rejected her previous name "Masao," took place during the voice recording sessions. Although they acknowledged that including transgender themes in the anime's story was not "absolutely necessary", and the difficulty could have been avoided by simply not featuring them, Takenaka said that they chose to do so as they desired to "challenge the conventions" so as to set the series apart from other idol anime.

Critical response
Lily's character has been received positively by critics. The narrative framing of her story, particularly her positive assertion of her gender identity and the supporting cast's immediate acceptance, was commonly characterized as remarkable in light of a perceived dearth of similarly positive transgender stories in anime, particularly as many other comedy anime had been seen as handling similar characters poorly. In reviewing the eighth episode of the series for Anime News Network, Steve Jones praised her character arc and particularly her relationship with her father, which he described as "a real tearjerker." However, Jones did say that Lily's death was "bizarre," saying that its comical presentation could come off as "trivializing" the matter of gender dysphoria, but also said it "might also work as a comically exaggerated representation of relatable feelings trans girls go through." While Jones said that Zombie Land Saga was not a "gold standard" for transgender representation, he nonetheless commended it for being "kind and unambiguous".

In Anime Feminist, Vrai Kaiser also praised Lily's inclusion, saying her trans identity was depicted with "grace and empathy", but criticized her death as expressing "an unfortunate accidental message." Writing for Crunchyroll, Cayla Coats deemed Lily the "Best Girl" of 2018, saying her arc "struck a rather personal chord" as Coats was also a trans woman. In an feature for Crunchyroll, Carlos Cadorniga also wrote that they empathized with Lily's experience of gender dysphoria as a trans person, calling her story a "wonderfully inspiring tale" and an example for future trans representation to follow. In Anime Herald, Samantha Ferreira opined that Lily's "exaggerated" death was nonetheless an emotionally resonant depiction of gender dysphoria. Ferreira called Lily a "desperately needed" example of positive transgender representation. In a feature for Otaku USA, Michael Goldstein stated he did not feel qualified to comment on the sensitivity of Lily's death or lack thereof, but generally offered similar praises of her story and character, saying "Who would've thought a zombie show would take deadnaming seriously?" Writing in Neo, Andrew Osmond said that Lily's storyline covered the transgender themes "without making an issue of the issues" and avoided making Lily's trans identity the focal point of her character.

Lily's role in episode 5 of Revenge was also praised. In his review, Jones complimented the decision to instead focus on guest character Light, as he felt Lily's arc was already generally complete, and also praised her dance number. While Jones felt the episode was not as interesting as her episode in the series' first season, he nonetheless praised the continued appeal of Lily's character as "a powerful little polymath". Reuben Baron of CBR felt similarly, saying it was a "likable half-hour" in spite of not being as memorable as the series' previous Lily-focused episode.

In her book Distancing Representations in Transgender Film, researcher Lucy J. Miller commented positively on Lily. Miller said that Lily differed from other examples of gender-nonconforming characters in anime, typically limited to characters cross-dressing for reasons often unrelated to their gender identity. Additionally, Miller praised how her backstory addressed the "trauma of puberty" common to transgender experiences.

Promotional material in magazines such as Animage has described Lily as "a boy" and touted her deadname Masao as her "real name". This was criticized by Otaquest writer Alicia Haddick, who highlighted the perceived dissonance between the messaging of the anime which affirmed Lily's identity, and the use of her previous name as a "selling point reliant on shock factor". Haddick thus expressed the opinion that despite Lily's positive reception from transgender viewers, her presentation in the series' marketing ultimately served as "a reminder of the hurdles trans people face".

Audience response
Alicia Haddick of Otaquest said that Lily's introduction, and the reveal of her transgender identity, was positively received by both English and Japanese-speaking audiences who posted about her appearance on Twitter. Haddick also reported that the public display of a meme featuring Lily in UK Parliament prompted discussion of transgender issues amongst Japanese Twitter users. Ana Valens of The Daily Dot also highlighted positive responses to Lily from Twitter users, although she also commented on conflict between fans of the character and viewers who expressed skepticism about her transgender identity, which became a matter of dispute on the talk page of the series' English Wikipedia article. Such users often falsely suggested that Lily's gender identity or status as a trans character was an embellishment by the writers of the English subtitles, or referred to her using the pejorative term "trap". Carlos Cadorniga, responding to such commentary in relation to their Crunchyroll article, called the term's application "offensive and ignorant", saying it "discredits the impact" of Lily's story.

Lily's deadname Masao appeared on a list of popular anime buzzwords in Gadget Tsūshin.

Use in internet memes


Lily's image has been adopted into internet memes. The most notable such meme was a photoshopped image which crudely depicts her holding a gun, with a caption spelt in stylized lettering that reads, "Shut the fuck up TERF", generally used by social media users voicing their support of the transgender rights movement. In April 2019, a Twitter user sent the image as a reply to British journalist Helen Lewis in relation to a dispute that she had been engaging in with professional esports player Dominique 'SonicFox' McLean, after McLean referred to Lewis as a TERF. Lewis responded by tweeting a screenshot of the reply, which she criticized as a perceived death threat and suggested it was in violation of Twitter's terms of service. On May 1, 2019, Scottish MP Joanna Cherry referenced the reply to Lewis while questioning a Twitter employee on how the platform handled cases of online abuse during a Parliamentary convening of the Human Rights Committee. During this meeting, she physically presented a printed out copy of the meme, featuring Lily. Cherry described the meme as an obscene and misogynist threat, while incorrectly quoting its text as "Shut the fuck up, cunt". Cherry was later criticized by McLean for her "disingenuous" characterization of the related conflict. In an Anime News Network article covering the meme's unexpected public display, Andrew Osmond described it as "surely one of the strangest public representations of anime in history". Reviewer Steve Jones commented on the event in his review of the fifth episode of Zombie Land Saga Revenge, characterizing it as "absurd enough to sound like a cockamamie scene cooked up by the [anime's] writers".

On January 29, 2023, the meme was posted to Twitter by J. K. Rowling, who likened it to a piece of anti-suffragist art from the early twentieth century.