Lily Hoshina

 is one of the protagonists in  The Beginning. She comes from a family of luthiers and is a detective that works for the Royal Investigative Services.

Personality
Lily is very immature, rash, and unprofessional, often behaving like a scatterbrained child. Despite this, she is an extremely competent detective who takes her job seriously when necessary.

Lily loves food especially Red Bean Buns and won't miss an opportunity to eat and can be very driven when push comes to shove. Her intelligence and latent talent is on par with Keith's. Lily also enjoys techno music.

Appearance
Lily has straight shoulder-length black hair and brown eyes. She is left-handed, and comes from an Asian background

On the job, Lily wears the standard RIS uniform, however, she wears more casual clothes on her days off.

Childhood
Lily Hoshina was born into a family of luthiers. She was raised by her mother and father, alongside her younger brother. In high school, Lily had a boyfriend who loved the stars and was very knowledgeable about the starts. Lily used to go on dates with him at the planetarium next to the church, until they later broke up for an unknown reason.

Joining the Royal Investigative Service
After graduating from high school, Lily joined the police academy where she met Mario Luis Zurita and Brian Brandon. Upon graduation from the police academy, Lily joined the Royal Investigative Service, where she was eventually recruited by Eric Toga to join his team which Mario and Brian were also already members of.

At some point, Lily becomes acquainted with Koku who ends up being employed at her family's shop.

The IVF case
During the Killer B incidents, Lily's team were the main investigators on-site for most of the Killer B incidents. At the start of the series, Lily wakes up after receiving an angry phone call about there being a murder. Realizing that she's late, Lily rushes to get ready and runs out the door, bumping into Koku who had bought 'Red Bean Buns' for her. Already way late, she runs past him and heads to her car before driving off. A few seconds later, Lily returns having forgotten her RIS ID badge, after being scolded by her mother and grabbing some bean buns from Koku, Lily rushes over to the crime scene.

At the crime scene, Lily fails to sneak past the tape and bumps into Boris Meyer who scolds her for being late. Offering him a red bean bun, Boris reluctantly accepts it after claiming that she has some gall for eating it at a crime scene. As the two walk, Boris explains the details of the murder (while eating the bean bun) and leads her to the Killer B mark carved into the tree. After staring at it and thinking for a while, Lily hears some nearby cops telling a mysterious person to leave the crime scene.

Seeing the stranger, Lily yells at them to tell her who that guy is. The cops explains that the guy said that he is with RIS, but Lily denies it and angrily scolds the cops for letting a civilian into the crime scene. Lily then turns her attention to the guy and tries to tell him to leave, however, the man continues staring at the black feathers on the ground. Finally noticing the man, Boris comes up and happily greets him, addressing him as "Genie." Confused, Lily turns to the man who gets up and greets Boris.

Later at RIS headquarters, Lily attends a briefing session in the squad room where they go over the crime scene details. As Jean Henri Richard finishes his report, Erik takes point and introduces the mysterious man from earlier as Keith Kazama Flick. Signalling Kaela Yoshinaga, Erik closes the blinds and starts going over the crime scene details from that morning. After explaining the basic crime scene details, Erik indicates to Mario who explains about Killer B and all the cases that he is suspected to be involved in. However, Lily isn't listening, instead, focusing on repeatedly sketching Killer B's trademark in a attempt to figure out the meaning behind it.

Later that evening, Lily and the rest of the squad are alerted to a mysterious red IVF attacking cars on the main road, which was stolen from a military facility earlier that day and heading on direct course towards the city. Upon receiving the request to help, Erik starts issuing orders and instructs Boris and Lily to pursue the IVF. Lily complies and heads to the garage with Boris, taking off in her official police car.

During the pursuit car chase, Mario instructs Lily to block the IVF off. Not sure what to do, Boris tells her to take a shortcut through the park. Understanding, Lily literally and speedily rampages through the park, with Boris yelling at her to use the roads, not the footpaths. Lily though manages to make it in time to catch up with the vehicle. Leaping her car onto the freeway, Lily attempts to block the IVF, but fails to get close when the IVF starts firing its guns on her.

Pulling back, Boris instructs Mario to get in front of the IVF with his van, while Lily tries to block it from the rear. However, before they can, the IVF goes into a tunnel using a smokescreen and disappears through a secret passage underneath it. Stopping at the tunnel entrance, Lily goes on standby with Boris and awaits further instructions. After waiting for a while, Lily and Boris receives instructions from Erik to head to the Museum of Flight on top of the hill near Mt. Ulm.

Lily complies with the orders and starts dangerously racing her car towards the Museum of Flight. Upon reaching there, Lily drives into the forest and eventually reaches the IVF, only to find it abandoned upon opening it. At dawn, Lily is surveying the crime techs who are scavenging the area around the derailed train for clues. Turning to the IVF on the truck, Erik signals to a upset Lily that the army has decided to close the case to cover-up what happened. Complaining, Lily remarks that something smells fishy.

Suddenly, Brian runs up to them and shows both Boris and Lily a satellite image of the area around the accident. Looking at the image, Lily and the other two become shocked when they see that Killer B had purposely derailed the train next to some houses to form his trademark mark.

Koku/Killer B
Lily and Koku are friends who know each other well because Koku works in her father's violin repair shop. Lily actually treats Koku more like a little brother and even offers to set him up with one of her girl friends.

At first, Lily is completely unaware of Koku's secret identity as Killer B and remains ignorant about until Episode 9, when she sees him transform for the first time. After Keith explains about Koku, Lily helps the pair out. After the case is over, their relationship goes back to normal with Lily now doting on Yuna as well.

Keith Kazama Flick
For most of the series, Lily is kept at a distance by Keith because of her resemblance to his younger sister, Erika and to himself.

At first, Lily thought that he was a weirdo, but eventually comes to understand that he is similar to herself. She hates being compared to Erika and finds Keith's fear about putting her in danger and his annoyance insulting. As they continued working together, Keith develops an appreciation of her skills, even though he still finds her pushy and annoying. After his sister's case is over, Lily and Keith become partners though they still get on each other's nerves.

Boris Meyer
Boris is Lily's superior at the RIS. He treats her like a daughter and constantly worries about her safety, while Lily similarly treats him like a father figure. However, Boris can't stand Lily's dangerous driving skills.

Etymology

 * Her name, Lily Hoshina (星名リリィ, Hoshina Ririi), is composed of kanji and katakana.


 * Her given name is Lily. Lily is a feminine given name directly derived from lily, the flower. Lily can be short for Lillian, Liliana or Lilith.


 * Her surname is composed of the kanji for stars (星) and name or notable (名).

Trivia
Lily is left-handed.