[3] Within the anime's narrative, Lily is introduced as one of several deceased young girls who have been resurrected as zombies to form an idol group which aims to revitalize the declining Saga Prefecture.

Lily was previously a child actor with the masculine name Masao Go, who, amidst her stressful television career and the resulting mounting conflict with her father, died from shock after finding a strand of facial hair growing on her body.

Owing to these considerations, many rewrites of dialogue relevant to Lily's character, in particular the line in which she openly rejected her previous name "Masao," took place during the voice recording sessions.

[7] In Anime Feminist, Vrai Kaiser also praised Lily's inclusion, saying her trans identity was depicted with "grace and empathy", but criticized her death as expressing "an unfortunate accidental message.

[8] In a feature for Otaku USA, Michael Goldstein stated he did not feel qualified to comment on the sensitivity of Lily's death or lack thereof, but generally offered similar praises of her story and character, saying "Who would've thought a zombie show would take deadnaming seriously?

[21] This was criticized by Otaquest writer Alicia Haddick, who highlighted the perceived dissonance between the messaging of the anime which affirmed Lily's identity, and the use of her previous name as a "selling point reliant on shock factor".

Haddick thus expressed the opinion that despite Lily's positive reception from transgender viewers, her presentation in the series' marketing ultimately served as "a reminder of the hurdles trans people face".

[21] Ana Valens of The Daily Dot also highlighted positive responses to Lily from Twitter users, although she also commented on conflict between fans of the character and viewers who expressed skepticism about her transgender identity,[22] which became a matter of dispute on the talk page of the series' English Wikipedia article.

[8] Such users often falsely suggested that Lily's gender identity or status as a trans character was an embellishment by the writers of the English subtitles,[22][23] or referred to her using the pejorative term "trap".

The most notable such meme was a photoshopped image which crudely depicts her holding a gun, with a caption spelt in stylized lettering that reads, "Shut the fuck up TERF",[26][27] generally used by social media users voicing their support of the transgender rights movement.

[26][29] On May 1, 2019, Scottish MP Joanna Cherry referenced the reply to Lewis while questioning a Twitter employee on how the platform handled cases of online abuse during a Parliamentary convening of the Human Rights Committee.