Hoshikawa, Hotaru

星川ほたる

Hotaru Hoshikawa was born in Tokyo and is a high school friend of Aoba Suzukaze and Nene Sakura. Aoba and Nene met Hotaru in the art club room when she was unwell. She suffers from anemia, which causes her to become fatigued and faint relatively often. The two helped her, and they soon became friends. As their final year of high school concluded, the three graduated together, and Hotaru attended a fine arts college to become a professional illustrator. She also studied in France before returning to Japan.
Hotaru has short, gray-blonde hair and purple eyes, and she usually wears two small flower pins on the left side of her hair. In the anime, she wears a yellow shirt and a blue cardigan along with navy jeans, whereas in the manga she is seen in different outfits. Hotaru is a very nice, caring, and polite girl who is not easily angered. She loves puns and often laughs at her own jokes. She is a hard worker and tends to overexert herself. Hotaru is also not good at handling peer pressure and is easily influenced. Due to her condition, she is prone to collapsing easily. Additionally, she enjoys sports, despite not being very good at them.
Other information:
- Hotaru resembles Colette Ehle from "Komorebi no Kuni," one of Shotaro Tokuno's earlier works
- The name Hotaru is written in hiragana (ほたる), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (蛍), it could possibly mean "firefly". Hotaru's surname Hoshikawa means "star" (星) (hoshi) and "river, stream" (川) (kawa)