Who Is Lily Franky, Tupas' Boss on 'Terrace House'?

After many months of waiting, Terrace House fans can finally enjoy new episodes of the latest season: Terrace House: Tokyo 2019–2020. While the Terrace House members are certainly the central focus of the show, sometimes an outsider captures fans’ attention (like Kojima Hisato, the ruggedly handsome garden shop owner who has employed and given solid life advice to several house members).

Those who have already binge-watched the 12 new episodes of Part 3 have met a new outsider who is actually kind of a big deal. His name is Lily Franky and he’s famous for being involved in several different industries in Japan. Here’s what you need to know about Lily Franky from Terrace House. 

In Episode 26, we’re introduced to new member Johnkimverlu Tupas (aka Tupas). He’s a 22-year-old personal assistant who moved to Japan from the Philippines when he was 8 years old. But he’s not just any personal assistant — he’s the personal assistant to Lily Franky, a famous Japanese illustrator, writer, and actor. 

The way Tupas became Lily’s assistant is also pretty interesting. As it turns out, Terrace House isn’t Tupas’ first experience with television. Upon moving into the house, Tupas mentions that he became Lily’s assistant after winning a television competition show. After doing some digging, we found that the competition show was actually hosted by Lily himself. As for the competition part of the competition show, Tupas was voted the most handsome guy among all of the contestants.

While Tupas is relatively new to the entertainment industry, Lily’s career is quite prolific. He has appeared in more than 40 films since 2001 and has also been in several TV shows. In fact, you can see him in The Naked Director, which is now streaming on Netflix. He plays a high-ranking police officer named Takei.

Oden-Kun is also the name of the main character in the children’s show. He’s a small, yellow dumpling of sorts who can apparently squeeze mochi out of a hole in his head when he takes off his headband. All of the characters of Lily Franky’s Oden-Kun are foods who live in a kettle and wait for customers to eat them.

Lily Franky is also the creator of a spinoff series called Ganbare! Oden-kun! As the creator of all of those adorable creatures and someone who is obviously very talented and famous throughout Japan, it will definitely be interesting to see how Lily and Tupas interact. So far, it seems like they have more of a father-son relationship than a strictly employer-employee one. Lily has already given Tupas some romantic advice, telling him his crush Emika “exists on a different planet” compared to him.

Will Lily Franky be the new Kojima Hisato? Of course not. No one can ever replace Kojima-san. But we do certainly look forward to seeing more of Lily as the show continues! Part 3 of Terrace House: Tokyo 2019–2020 is available to stream on Netflix now.