Ai Mizuno

Ai Mizuno was the former lead singer of the idol group, Iron Frill. After being resurrected from the dead, she becomes a member of the zombie idol group, Franchouchou. She is titled as The Legendary Heisei Idol. Ai has short, dark, slate blue hair with two yellow flower clips. Her bangs are bunched up, and she has light red eyes. Ai sports a rather very slim and slender figure which is proportionally identical to those of Junko Konno with only slight differences in sheer numbers. Her casual outfit consists of an idol-style school outfit: a navy-blue jacket over a pale yellow top with a blue plaid skirt and bow. She also wears dark gray socks and light-brown school shoes. Like the other zombies, Ai's skin is grayish-blue and most of her body is covered with bandages, somewhat like a mummy. Ai's bandages cover her almost completely and bear witness to third-degree burns on her body, the lightning burning her skin until it was brown, except for her eyes. Since she died from being struck by lightning that charred her corpse, the bandages are likely not only to help her stay together, but also to cover up the massive burns all over her body. Ai's idol outfit changes throughout the series; in episodes 1-6, Ai wears a light blue T-shirt with the word “3” written on it, along with a blue skirt with white ruffles. Using makeup, she and the other zombies make their skin look like normal humans. Ai also wears contact lenses to achieve the red eyes that she had as a living person. After Saga rock, her idol outfit changed to a red jacket with a plaid decoration, a blue skirt with cotton inside it, and knee-high boots. Iron Frill was her idol group in her life. Ai seems to have mixed feelings about the current members who are active, as they treat her existence as a legendary top idol. Iron Frill had just started to take off when Ai died, so those who remember her for something apart from her death largely remember her as a rising star who could have gone far if she had lived. In an unusual case of this, while the loss of what might have been weighed heavily on Ai, nothing stops her from returning to the stage. In fact, getting another chance to be a famous idol again is what helps motivate her. At the beginning of the story, she is very critical of the Zombie Land Saga Project, which she feels is doomed the moment people find out. She begins to see promise in her fellow zombies after a few episodes, but is still the first to remind them how hard they will have to work to achieve it. Proving that she is more realistic than cynical. And given the superficiality with which Kotaro pitched her idea, her skepticism is not entirely unwarranted. After Police A nearly shoots her, she realizes that she really has nowhere to go and resigns herself to staying at the mansion, feeling too discouraged to act again. She begins to recover after she and Junko have to save the guerilla performance after Sakura messed up some lyrics, while she considers starting her career all over again with Sakura and her company. When she was alive, Ai displayed a cheerful and determined personality, but after turning into a zombie, she became quite skeptical and suspicious. As she gradually begins to warm up to her group, she begins to act like herself before her untimely death. She has shown a supportive side by helping the other members with her idol experience. Ai has a dizzying array of knowledge about the idol business, dance choreography, music theory, public relations… it's obvious why she was the leader of Iron Frill. Unfortunately, this comes with the logical weakness that she is often stubborn about her own perspective, and she gets along worse with Kotaro. She is also the only member of Franchouchou able to discern Sakura's recent memory exchange in Episode 11. Her stubbornness, on the one hand, can be her best tool. It is what fuels her deterministic attitudes of hers and her hope for the group, but it also makes it incredibly difficult to engage with her and persuade her. Ai's stubbornness also brings her into conflict with Junko, who is used to the old idol standards, and the two have a huge fight that lasts for an episode. She is the most responsible so far for the girls' training exercises, teaching newcomers the basics of the business, and is the one who speaks the most about the way of thinking with which they will approach their shared goal. When a member is struggling or has a particularly important role to play on a new song, she trains them directly by example, and takes it upon herself to review songs as a whole when the entire group is having trouble. Furthermore, although she constantly strives to be constructive and is generally no less sincere than the rest of the group. She firmly believes that they will get nowhere “just playing with friends all the time.” The hot and cold sides of Ai's demeanor are dictated in large part by her perception of the other girls' work ethic, rather than simple emotional provocation like many classic tsundere. She is very kind and supportive of each of the girls under any ordinary circumstance. Although she never resorts to violence unless she is directly attacked (as by Kotaro in Episode 5), she will become almost militantly severe in her expression if she feels that someone is not doing their gang duty seriously or conscientiously. This is most prominently shown in her confrontation with Junko in Episode 6 and, to a lesser extent, in her lectures to Sakura in Episodes 10 and 12. Ai trains quite a bit in rehearsals and is paired on songs along with Junko. Her incredible talent in singing, dancing and choreography, as well as possessing such musical arranging skills that at one point she was able to identify and properly alter the harmony of a song to avoid being continually confused by Tae, is one of the reasons why which is an essential member of the group. Ai hasn't had a great time going from a rising musical talent to a disfigured corpse. Her spirit is crushed as she realizes that she has nowhere to go among the living and that she is remembered more for her gruesome death than for her career or talent. After being dead for a decade, Ai takes advantage of Kotaro's computer to catch up on the phenomena of the years she's been away, specifically on the trends of idols that have come and gone, to gain a better advantage for the group and progress in popularity. Realizing that she has become nothing more than a sensational tragedy in the public eye hits her hard and influences her faulty behavior throughout episodes 5 and 6. Many idols have cited her as an inspiration for their careers, wanting to reach the same potential as her. Ai, on the other hand, is hurt that her life and her legacy have become nothing more than a tragic story told through the industry. Ironically, she spends the first few episodes refusing to work, but once she starts, her work ethic becomes obvious. She is almost always the first to address practical concerns about their careers. She becomes absolutely furious when she feels Junko is intentionally letting the team down, and when her arms and legs break after a prolonged session of choreography practice, and claims this is not unusual for her. She emphasized that she doesn't need to have friends to succeed. She is quite a selfish person when it comes to achievement. Her posture is the most antagonistic to Saki; who gains her trust through her comrades. In the end, Saki turns out to be right (the main point of why she is perfect to be the leader) and loosens her work obsession to the point that she respects her and constantly consults her before demanding from the rest. Ai functions as a second in command after Arpino. Episodes 3 and 4 of Revenge establish her as one for Franchouchou. The others depend so much on her knowledge and experience that Kotaro excludes her from the group's performance as the opening act of Iron Frill, under the (false) pretense of not wanting her former bandmates to recognize her. So, the others are forced to act according to their own expectations and initiative instead of constantly seeking their advice. Shiori tries to persuade her to leave Franchouchou and join Iron Frill, and she almost seriously considers the possibility of her. Eventually, she realizes that she wants to get away from her past with Iron Frill and that she can't abandon her fellow zombies like that. This culminates when the others join in when it appears that Shiori has come to take her away, and Ai confidently supports them. Even though she proves to be cold with her feelings and has no hope when she discovers that they are zombies, the reality turns out to be much better than she thought. In episode 11 of Revenge, she and the girls tend to a shelter after a flood. After their makeup comes off and their clay masks are broken, she realizes that other people do not see the girls as a real threat, and the innocence of the children except the group from being discovered. This act of love towards them makes her realize that they are not seen as monsters, but as girls who bring hope to Saga. Between tears, she accepts deep down that she was wrong with Kotaro's plan from the beginning.