Ai Mizuno

The immovable leader of Idol Frill, the idol unit that was at the top during the 21st-century idol war.
While she's good at singing, she is confident in her ability to dance. She is determined and is not afraid to speak her mind out. Extremely skeptical of Kotaro's schemes.
On a side note: the flowers on her head increased when she's in idol form.

## Ai Mizuno

* Human
* Idol
* Zombie
* Manga
* Seiyuu
* Stage

## Name

### Aliases

* Number 3 (3号)  (San-gō)
* Tweedlefame {by Sakura)
* Lady Ai (by Yugiri)
* Sanko Tatsumi (巽 三子) (work alias)
* Miss Three (by Kotaro)

### Title

The Legendary Heisei Idol (伝説の平成アイドル *Densetsu no Heisei aidoru*)

## Characteristics

### Status

Zombie (Active)
Human (Deceased)

### Age

**Physically*** 16 (as of 2008 onwards)

**Chronologically**

* 26 (as of 2018)
* 27 (a month before “Episode 13”)
* 28 (as of “Episode 24”)

### Occupation

* Zombie 3 of Franchouchou (Currently)
* Lead Singer for Iron Frill (Formerly)
* Kojima Food Factory employee (Part-Time)

### Eyes color

* Red (Zombie)
* Garnet Red (Human)

## Relations

### Others

* Iron Frill (rivals;former co-idols)
* Kotaro Tatsumi (manager)
* Romero (pet)
* Franchouchou (co-idols)
	+ Junko Konno (best friend)
* Maimai Yuzuriha (former co-idol)
* Skull and Bull (fans)
* Policeman A (acquainted)

## Interests

### Hobbies

* Idol research
* Collecting freaky but cute mascot merchandises

## Portrayal

### English voice actor

Bryn Apprill

**Ai Mizuno** (**水野 愛**, *Mizuno Ai*) 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* (伝説の平成アイドル, *Densetsu no Heisei aidoru*).

## Appearance

### Human

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.

### Zombie

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.

### Idol

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.

## Personality

### Before Death

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.

### Afterlife

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.

## Abilities

### Skillset

* **Musical Talent**—Ai was the lead singer of her group Iron Frill back when she was alive and continues to showcase this amazing feat even during her afterlife.
* **Dancing**—As a member of a pop idol group, not only is Ai gifted with musical talent, but she can also move fluidly to the beat of any song.
* **Moped-driving**—From Season 2 onwards, she drives a moped on her way to her part-time job at the Kojima Food Industry.
* **Hula Hooping**—Ai and the rest of the girls can perform while twirling hoops made of electricity during their performance in “Episode 16”.

### Natural Abilities

* **Non-senescence**—As a zombie, Ai is granted the ability to remain at the age at which she died forever without any physical change after the resurrection process, as well as immunity against death. As she, along with the other girls, can 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, Ai can detach and reattach parts of her body from their sockets with little to no effort, either intentionally or accidentally. This is demonstrated in episode 7 where due to stress her body collapses, causing her limbs to fall off.
* **Phosphorescent Vision**—Gain dark red eyes that can glow in the dark after resurrecting into a zombie.
* **Muscle memory**—They actually still remember their traumas and the way they died, reflecting it on their post-life. The reason their bodies have this behavior is that since their death was such a tragic event, it was etched into their muscle memory, and now that they have consciousness within their bodies. This behavior remains in the background and is only active if there is a stimulus. In the first episode, she is impaled by a heavy poker rod that Sakura throws at her, even without waking up she maintains that memory, and 10 episodes later Sakura takes the same poker rod causing her body to react instinctively.
* **Element Absorption**—Their zombie bodies can accelerate 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 the fact that in their following concerts and practices, they continue to use the patches. In Episode 7, their bodies demonstrate a similar capacity to batteries by receiving an electrical discharge from lightning and glowing a pale blue, as well as releasing laser beams with their fingers.

### Unique Abilities

* **Enhanced Vision**—As shown in the 10th episode, Ai reveals that she has sharper vision compared to the rest of the group and took it upon herself to search for food.

## Etymology

* The name **Ai** means “love, affection” (愛).
* Ai's surname **Mizuno** means “water” (水) (**mizu**) and “field, wilderness” (野) (**no**).
	+ **Mizuno** is a residential name that means “field of water” from a town so named in Owari (now part of Aichi prefecture). The surname is found mainly along the east coast.

## Trivia

* Staff has commented that because it was a popular hairstyle at the time, they wanted to incorporate a “short” haircut in a design. Furthermore, Ai being a “legendary idol” was through the blooming flowers on her head.
* According to the official art book, zombie girl bandages are like body tattoos, so they will never be removed. This explains why Ai can speak without any problems, despite having bandages on her mouth.
* Ai died in 2008, only 4 months after Sakura Minamoto was struck and killed by a truck.
	+ She died in the stadium of Tosu, Tosu City.
	+ Additionally, the numbers depicted on the license plate of the truck that hits Sakura in the tenth episode are Ai’s date of death.
* Ai has better kinetic vision and hearing than the other girls in the group.
* Ai has the same cup size and body type as Junko Konno.
* Because of her cause of death, she has developed astraphobia alongside PTSD, in her afterlife. She overcomes her fears when performing at Saga Rock during a lightning storm.
	+ When Ai was directly struck by lightning. Her live performance was immediately canceled and Mizuno was taken to the hospital, but her burns were severe, and she had no pulse after arriving at the hospital.
* When asked if Ai and Junko have the possibility of developing a romantic relationship, the staff responded that they did not consider the two to be such, outside just “An idol from the Heisei Period and another from the Showa Period.”
* As of “Episode 13”, she works part-time as an employee of the Kojima Dried Squid Factory, under the alias “Sanko Tatsumi.”
	+ The working alias Ai uses, Sanko Tatsumi, is a combination of her order in Franchouchou as Zombie #3 (San-gō) alongside the last name of Kotaro’s alias, Tatsumi.
* There are currently four episodes that focus on her, which she shares with Junko. The episodes are “Episode 6”, “Episode 7”, “Episode 15”, and “Episode 16”.
	+ With both “Episode 7” and “Episode 16” being direct continuations of their previous episodes.
* She shares the same Japanese voice actress as Erina Nakiri from *Shokugeki no Soma*.
* She shares the same English voice actress as Cyan Hijirikawa from *Show By Rock!!*, who is another singer that has blue hair.
* The flower earrings that she wears multiply when she goes on stage.
* Ai also seems to fear screaming people, as she always screams back when someone screams of panic in the front of her.
* She is the third member of Franchouchou (and overall character of the series) to get a *Good Smile Company* Nendoroid modeled after her. With her figure being announced on October 28, 2022, with a set release date of July 2023.

## References

1. ↑ Episode 13
2. ↑ Episode 14 of the English Dub
3. ↑ Zombie Land Saga Revenge Interview