Juliet Starling is the protagonist of Lollipop Chainsaw. A student and cheerleader at the fictional Californian San Romero High School, she is forced to take action when the institution is inundated with a zombie outbreak on her birthday. The descendant of a long line of zombie hunters, she is well-equipped to handle the situation. Her weapon of choice is a powerful chainsaw, which, combined with her personality and love of cute things, lends the game its name. She is also capable of performing various unarmed combat techniques based on her cheerleading.
Appearance and Personality[]
Juliet's default costume is a San Romero High School cheerleading uniform, featuring a blue and white colour scheme and thigh-high tights. Other costumes can be purchased for Platinum Medals from Chop2Shop.Zom, such as American Casual, a pink shirt with daisy dukes, or a school uniform similar to a character from the BLOOD+ anime.
She is an energetic, enthusiastic girl who is little fazed by the situation into which she has been thrust, and her enthusiasm barely flags for even a second. She feels a great deal of love and loyalty for her family, as well as her boyfriend, Nick Carlyle. Though at times she appears to be oblivious, she is not unintelligent. Despite her perfectly normal proportions, she also believes herself to be overweight, referring to things such as her "ginormous butt," and with her "secret kink" listed as "likes to be told she's not fat."
Her favourite colour is pink, and her hobbies include cheerleading, karaoke and dismembering zombies. She has a notable habit of swearing frequently during fights, referring to a zombie as an "undead douchebag" and later calling another a "fatass." Juliet has a great love of lollipops, which she claims she consumes to keep her strength up for cheerleading. Her favourite flavour is strawberry.[1]
Story[]
High school cheerleader Juliet Starling awakens on her 18th birthday with plans of meeting her boyfriend, Nick Carlyle, before school, attending class, and then gathering for a family celebration afterwards. Unfortunately, when she arrives she is met only with the scene of a zombie outbreak. Luckily, it transpires that she actually hails from a long line of zombie hunters, and is thus well-equipped to deal with the crisis. Hefting a magical chainsaw, she sets to work.
She manages to locate Nick, but not before he sustains a serious zombie bite to the arm. Thinking quickly, Juliet severs his head with her chainsaw, then performs a ritual to keep him from dying. With no other choice, she attaches him to her hip and he accompanies her like this for the rest of the journey. At San Romero High School, they track down her teacher, Morikawa, before encountering Swan, who summons five powerful zombie overlords from the so-called Rotten World into ours.
Juliet swiftly defeats the first of these, rocker Zed, at the nearby Junkyard, then proceeds to the Stadium to take down the Viking Vikke. On the way to this showdown, she runs into her older sister Cordelia several times. At O'Bannon Farm, she meets up with her younger sister, Rosalind, who has purchased a school bus and is driving it around the property; Juliet is called upon to protect it at several junctures, and battles the hippy Mariska at the end. At Funci Fun Centre, she and her father take down Josey, and finally, all four of them combine their abilities to best the biker Lewis.
At this point, however, Swan reveals that this was his plan all along: By defeating each of the five Dark Purveyors and unknowingly allowing them to recite an unholy chant as they expired, Juliet has unleashed an even greater evil: Killabilly, an enormous zombie resembling the late Elvis Presley. However, Juliet is able to triumph with the support of both Nick and Morikawa, who is calling from the afterlife via the phone in her chainsaw. He reveals that the only way to defeat Killabilly is to enter a self-destruct command, which only Nick can deliver, and which will kill him in the process. After some persuasion, Juliet tearfully slots him in and the two kiss goodbye.
Killabilly is destroyed and Nick seemingly killed, but as his head orbits the Earth, Morikawa's disembodied voice informs him that the great powers of the universe have given him a reward, and restored his body, but there is a slight mix-up. As it turns out, they have accidentally given him Morikawa's former body instead of his own, but he and Juliet shrug it off. Everyone then returns to the Starlings' house. In the "Horrid" ending, Juliet's mother has been turned into a zombie, and announces she is about to eat everyone present; in the "Happy" ending, she unleashes a freshly baked birthday cake, and Nick gives her a bouquet of roses and lollipops as a present.
Special Abilities[]
Juliet is skilled in both cheerleading and in wielding a chainsaw, which she uses in tandem when combating zombies. As she progresses, she can expend Medals to purchase additional fighting moves, as well as increase her health, physical strength, etc.
She is also able to make use of a mechanic called Sparkle Hunting, in which she can gain a medal bonus by decapitating three or more zombies in a single stroke. If she accomplishes this feat, the background will momentarily change to a psychadelic starry vista as she completes her move in slow motion.
Her chainsaw has a telephone built into the handle, which she frequently uses to keep in touch with her family.
Trivia[]
- Juliet bears some minor similarities to Reiko Himezono from Reiko the Zombie Shop by Rei Mikamoto. Both possess similar hairstyles and temperaments, are of adolescent age, possessed an undead sidekick as a companion (Juliet's undead companion being her boyfriend's severed head and Reiko's undead companions being the serial killing sisters Saki and Midori Yurikawa), have proven to be skilled fighters, and are experienced in dealing with matters concerning the undead as well as coming from bloodlines experienced in dealing with the undead (Juliet being a zombie hunter and Reiko being a necromancer for hire).
- Her boyfriend's severed head Nick is similar to Johnson from Shadows of the DAMNED, who was also a severed head and assisted the protagonist on several occassions. He may also be a reference to Susie Sumner from killer7, who was also a talking severed head who would assist the protagonists.
- Nick is a reference to Kyoko Kazan from Moonlight Syndrome as both helped the protagonist of their games respectively.
- Juliet makes a cameo appearance in Killer is Dead, where she hides in a barrel in Sebastian's wine cellar. This appearance was the subject of a contest for Japanese residents, in which a replica Gekkou katana was awarded to the player who could discover her quickest.
- There is speculation that the character appearing in Travis Strikes Again, Juliet Chesterfield is in fact Suda's take on Juliet Starling, who has become jaded and distanced herself from the happy-go-lucky cheerleader life she used to live.