| Fraiya | |
|---|---|
 フライヤ | |
| Information | |
| Seiyu | Yoshiko Matsuo |
| English voice actor | {{{English voice actor}}} |
| Gender | Female |
| First Appearance | The Town of Fireflies |
Fraiya is a young woman who works for a hotel on Mariko's Firefly. She has an interest in creating anime and plans to use her skills as way to escape her life of poverty.
Biography[]
During their journey, Maetel and Tetsuro have a 24-hour layover at a station known as Mariko's Firefly. While on the planet, the duo decides to stay at a hotel where they meet a maid named Fraiya. Tetsuro notices that her clothes are raggedy so he offers to give her money. The act hurts Fraiya's pride and she refuses it, saying that while she may be financially poor, she isn't poor in her heart. Later, she returns to Tetsuro and Maetel's room and tell Tetsuro that if he comes to her apartment, she would be willing to sell him something if he wanted to buy it.
Tetsuro decides to visit her and is shocked to see the poor conditions in which she lives. Fraiya tells him that what she wanted to sell him was storyboards for an anime that she is creating called, "A Cat's Tale." Fraiya says that the only one to improve one's lot in life on Mariko's Firefly is by being talented at something others are not and that she has chosen anime as her escape from a life of poverty and servitude. Once he is back at the hotel, Tetsuro reads the storyboard and is touched by the story it tells.
The next morning Fraiya stops by and Tetsuro decides to give her two gold coins for it, far more than she ever expected to receive. Tetsuro also returns the storyboards to her so that she can create an anime from them. She initially feels that Tetsuro is patronizing her but Tetsuro explains that she can use them to make her anime and then send her the final storyboards once they are done. Fraiya is moved by his kindness and kisses him on the forehead, which makes Tetsuro extremely happy.
Later that day while Tetsuro and Maetel are boarding the 999, they overhear Fraiya as she has come to see them off but is being harassed by the same young man that Tetsuro met the night before. Tetsuro challenges him to a fight and the young man bitches up and apologizes to Fraiya. Maetel tells the young man that he's in for a rude awakening if he plans on traveling through space and hopes that his good looks and glowing will be enough to get by on. Fraiya hands a wooden statue that she carved and wishes him safe traveling.
The end narration for the episode reveals that Fraiya's anime was eventually produced, but that she never found out if Tetsuro got a chance to see it.