Ai Hoshino

**Ai Hoshino** (星 (ほし) 野 (の)  ア ({{{2}}}) イ ({{{2}}}) , *Hoshino Ai*) was the lead idol of the now-defunct B-Komachi. Originally hailing from an abusive and solemn past, Ai was a bumpkin with no professionalism and didn't try to fit in. Over time, through the help of Masaya Kaburagi, a producer with many connections, she got into the Lala Lai Theatrical Company, and through Ichigo Saitou, the former president of Strawberry Productions, became an idol for B-Komachi.

Ai Hoshino's life took a turn when, through an undetermined amount of time, she became pregnant with twins. Not wanting to squander her reputation, the final decision by Ai and her company came -- to hide the fact; Ai needed to play the role of idol and mother. All this and more would pile into a life of lies and deceit. Her work, personality, and life, in general, are but a façade to hide the ugly truths beneath -- a form of "love" in her eyes. It would be the case for her for many years, at least until tragedy struck. It was the realization that she genuinely loves her children, a love devoid of lies.

Ai's influence would become the driving force for many of the events in the series. Many people are sympathetic to the plight of those left behind to clean up the mess, and her children be left motivated to create a world where her image and legacy be left unsullied. Aqua, her son, seeks vengeance against the person who wronged his family while Ruby, her daughter, hopes to make bygone dreams a reality.

## Description

### Appearance

Ai was a beautiful and quite thin girl with purple hair, gradient-colored eyes from purple to pink and a six-pointed star in each of her eyes.

Her idol outfit was adorned in a pink aesthetic of varying degrees of lighter and darker shades. The outfit's design is an overall ruffled appearance. A black belt is located on her waist, and other miscellaneous accessories are present throughout the design: three blue stars on her chest, a heart-shaped necklace on her neck, and a bunny hairpin accentuated by two gold stars and a pink ribbon.

### Personality

When Ai was very young, her mother was arrested on a theft charge, and even after her release, she did not care enough to raise Ai anymore, which made her grow up in an orphanage. The environment she suffered being with her abusive mother caused her to think of ways to protect herself. Ai lacked any memory of loving or ever being loved herself -- prominently shown when Ichigo Saitou scouted for idols to start a group. She believed she lacked the qualification to become due to these reasons, showcasing a lack of faith in herself. She became quickly convinced to join when Saitou told her that lying is fine and is, in fact, a desirable trait.

Thus, Ai's perspectives started to shift. She convinced herself that lies are a form of love -- a love harbored out of the selfish desires of both sides of the spectrum. Ai sought to find an object for her "love." She wanted to learn how to love by telling her fans that her deceitful lies are, in fact, love. This desire also came when she bore children, but in a different context. She never once said that she loved them because being disingenuous towards them would be terrifying. Nonetheless she was shown to enjoy her time with her children, and was particularly delighted when the twins did an eye-catching performance with idol lightsticks, which stunned the entire venue.

No matter what, lies allowed her to process the world around her. Within these contexts, she never sought to make things right to the point where she was fine to face the consequences of her actions. Lies were her way of expressing love -- hoping that one day, they would become the truth. Only when a terrible event happened did Ai finally realize -- She loved her children, a genuine form of love, free from impurity and dishonesty. She was relieved and satisfied from finally being able to experience these true feelings. Even before this realization, Ai, had grown concerned over their wellbeing and stressing over the prospects of getting better paying jobs in order to provide for them.

According to several characters through the series, Ai had a unique charisma capable of drawing all the attention to herself when she was on the spotlight, Miyako Saitou and Taishi Gotanda commented that Ai was a very uncommon idol and probably they would never get to see anyone like her stating that she was a rare case among countless idols who wish to be at the top. Ai was notoriously ambitious, and a risk-taker to the point of recklessness, best evidenced by her intentions of both continuing her idol career, while having children in secret, which was by all accounts, extremely dangerous, as it would jeopardize not only her entire career, but have harmful ramifications both to her company and coworkers.

When it comes to her private life outside the stage, Ai wasn't very social and most of her relationships were people related to the entertainment industry showing that Ai used to be a loner. Aqua pointed out that Ai didn't have any close friendships even among her fellow partners of B-Komachi. The seemingly bright and cheerful personality was nothing more than an act that hid her true personality.

It is noted by multiple characters, that Ai had a disorderly, impulsive, reckless, clumsy, asocial behaviour with a low level of education; a direct result of growing in an abusive environment. It wouldn't be until meeting her boyfriend that she would have a drastic change in attitude, acting more cheerful, taking better care of her own appearance, acting more feminine and reduce her self-destructive inclinations. Although said information was private, observers such as Masaya Kaburagi, and Akane Kurokawa were able to correctly deduce that she had found a special someone, the latter in particular, was able to observe certain character traits common amongst girls with teen pregnancies, and accurately determine that she had given birth in secret.

## Etymology

* The name **Ai**, when written in katakana (アイ), means "eye", but when written in kanji (愛 or 藍), it could mean:
	+ 愛 - "love, affection".
	+ 藍 - "indigo".
* Ai's surname **Hoshi** means "Star" (星), and **No** (野) means "Field" or "Wild" (野生), the pronunciation Hoshino (ほしの) is similar to (欲しいの) which means "Desire of".
	+ Together, her name Hoshino Ai means wild star eyes as a caricature of her double star eyes.
	+ When pronounced, it can also be interpreted as desires of love.

## Trivia

* Ai's death resembles the real-life stabbing of Mayu Tomita, a 20-year-old Japanese singer and actress, in May 2016. Tomita originally became famous by playing a fictional idol named Ai Takano in the web drama *Secret Girls*. The perpetrator in Tomita's stabbing was a 27-year-old fan who had harassed her online and sent her unsolicited gifts. Twelve days before the attack, Tomita reported the harassment to the police out of fear for her safety, but they dismissed the case. Tomita survived the attack, but received lasting physical and psychological injuries. The incident led the Japanese national government to revise its anti-stalking laws to include online harassment.
* Ai's death is also similar to that of John Lennon's as both were assassinated by an extreme fan.
* Ai has two stars in her eyes compared to her children, who only have one each (Aqua has one in his right eye, and Ruby has one in her left).
	+ As the mix of Aqua and Ruby's eyes colors results in purple, this is an allusion that they are half of their mother.
* Ai's smartphone & blog account password "45510" is the initial of the four founding members of B Komachi. The number corresponds to the Japanese flick keyboard :
	+ Takamine (た Ta) : 4
	+ Nino (に Ni) : Double 5 (If using a flip phone, double press な Na to get に Ni)
	+ Ai (あ A) : 1
	+ Watanabe (わ Wa) : 0
* The Crow Girl remarked that Ai's children were originally "soulless" before the souls of Gorou Amamiya and Sarina Tendouji entered their bodies, implying she had a stillbirth.
* Ai's glowstick idol colour is red, which is the reason why when Ruby becomes an idol like her mom, she also chooses red as her glowstick colour.