A Bokukko is, literally, a girl who uses the first-person Japanese Pronoun boku, primarily used by boys and young men. Even with Japanese speech patterns becoming more gender-neutral over the years, this would be considered unusual in real life; nonetheless, it is a common character quirk in anime and Japanese Video Games.
Most bokukko are tomboys, but not all; sometimes it just indicates that the user is a Plucky Girl or unaware of social norms. In particular, a Farmer's Daughter or Fiery Redhead is likely to speak like this. Although none of this has to be reflected in her appearance, bokukko are usually either flat-chested, athletic, or extremely well-endowed.
This speech pattern can also be used to keep a character's gender obscured — is that a boyish girl, or a girlish boy?
A related but somewhat rarer character type is the Orekko (AKA Ore-onna), who refers to herself with the Hot-Blooded/macho ore — such characters are almost invariably The Lad-ette. The Gender Inverted version of this is a boy using extremely feminine pronouns like atashi or their own name, typically used to mark he's In Touch with His Feminine Side, clownish, Camp, or at worst, often a Sissy Villain.
When a bokukko permanently switches to a more feminine pronoun, it's usually significant. When the show is dubbed, however, this will invariably lead to a Dub-Induced Plot Hole due to English first-person pronouns lacking such hints.
The phenomenon of bokukko should not be confused with the tendency of female singers to use boku in their songs' lyrics. This usage is purely for metrical reasons, and does not indicate how they see themselves.
See also Cute Bruiser and Shorttank. Since this trope is weird in real-life Japanese society, it may overlap with Asian Rudeness.
Not to be confused with the manga Boku Girl, whose title is a pun on this phrase (which almost literally means "boku girl"), but (as detailed below) is not exactly a straight example.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Matsuri of Ayakashi Triangle still uses ore after being turned female, despite presenting himself at school as if he was always a girl. "She" pretty quickly becomes known as an orekko, which is said adoringly by Yayo, but his male classmates use as more of an insult. He tries some more "girly" speech (leaving out a pronoun and drawing out some vocalization) when in disguise, and the effect is conspicuously overplayed.
- Sechs from Battle Angel Alita was at first a masculine woman than used ore, but then she actually become male.
- In Bleach, while the tomboys tend to use the girlish atashinote or uchinote pronouns, there are some genuine bokukkos:
- Yoruichi's cat form is often mistaken as male because of the way she refers to herself/voice in anime. She uses the old sounding washi and the cat has a deep male voice.
- Kuukaku Shiba has a rough personality that's emphasised by her use of ore when referring to herself. It goes with her masculine name.
- Giselle Gewelle is a young woman who actually uses boku. She is accused by Yumichika of being a Creepy Crossdresser. While she doesn't outright confirm or deny it she identifies and presents herself as female, her girl friends treat her as one of them, and she is VERY angry with Yumichika for his accusations. (Plus, Mayuri refers to Giselle as female, and he should notice something going on.)
- One of Giselle's aforementioned friends, Liltotto Lamperd, is a rude little girl who uses ore.
- Hilariously inverted with Urahara, a male who actually uses... atashi to refer to himself. His use of it exaggerates his role of a 'humble' shopkeeper. In the flashbacks, however, he seems to have been more of a boku user.
- Boku Girl:
- The title is a play on the phrase in reference to Mizuki's various gender issues: He is a boy who uses boku, but he's so feminine-looking people assumed most of his life that he was female anyway. Then he is actually turned biologically female, but maintains his male identity. This leads characters with various knowledge of Mizuki's current and previous sex to assume he is a post-transition transgender boy or a closeted transgender girl. About halfway through, Mizuki is outed as biologically female and required to attend school as a girl. At the end, they spend some time biologically male again, but decide to become female in all respect (as Mizuki may have been a transgender girl from the beginning). Throughout all of this, Mizuki still uses boku, which ends up as one of her few outwardly masculine traits.
- The manga's version of the Norse god Loki is female (and not just sometimes taking a female form), and specifically looks like a little girl. She still uses ore, which signifies her true age and power.
- Priss didn't usually call herself "ore" in Bubblegum Crisis — she only started doing so in Bubblegum Crash, after Ryoko Tachikawa replaced Kinuko Oomori as her voice actress.
- Case Closed:
- Natsuki "Detective of the South" Koshimizu. She doubles as Bifauxnen, and it's thanks to this combination that she accidentally ends up pulling an Unsettling Gender-Reveal on Heiji, Conan, and Hakuba; they had just assumed she was a boy like them until they saw her wearing a sailor uniform. Though at the end of the Koshien arc, she switches from boku to watashi, most likely because having become a Sympathetic Murderer robbed her from her youthful innocence.
- This happens again with another Bokkuko Bifauxnen Masumi Sera. And everyone who doesn't know her believes she's a boy.
- Mayu from Cat God talks just like Yoruichi, right down to the use of washi.
- In Change 123, the female protagonist has three alternate personalities. One of them, Hibiki is a very aggressive and tomboyish Blood Knight karateka and refers to herself as ore, but she can also be very gentle (and sexually very extroverted) to her Love Interest, and at times her emotional vulnerability can also be seen.
- Likewise, Helena from Claymore both refers to herself as ore and speaks in an extremely masculine dialect.
- Kanon and Shion Ozu from Coppelion both use ore and boku respectively.
- Tsugumi Higashijuujou in Cyber Team in Akihabara is a 13-year-old girl who uses ore.
- In Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini, Suou Pavlichenko, the new female protagonist, uses boku. This doesn't help the fact that she looks almost the same as her twin brother if she is hiding her hair.
- In DARLING in the FRANXX, Zero Two uses the first-person pronoun boku despite being a girl. While she does have some tomboy traits, her choice of pronoun seems to represent how she isn't fond of following the rules of society. Episode 15 reveals that she uses this pronoun because she heard Hiro use it to refer to himself when they first met.
- Blond Launch in Dragon Ball uses ore, and is very ill-tempered and foul-mouthed compared to her demure blue-haired personality.
- Fruits Basket:
- Akito Sohma addresses herself as boku. This is largely because she was forcefully raised as a man by her mother, and acted like one until she was about 20.
- Also Arisa Uotani, a former delinquent.
- Tomokane from GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class does not use boku — she uses ore, among other things that would lead to Viewer Gender Confusion.
- Hajime Ichinose from Gatchaman Crowds uses boku in addition to several other non-standard speech patterns. Unusually, Hajime is a very feminine character, so this probably isn't to sound masculine at all and instead highlight how odd her manner of speech is in general.
- Gintama has a few female (or biologically female) characters who do not use feminine pronouns.
- Yagyuu Kyuubei, born female, uses boku because they were raised as male (as the heir to the family). This is used to conceal their biological sex in their introduction arc; however, they continue to use it even after The Reveal. At first, it's because they're conflicted as to whether they should see themself as male or female. Eventually, they come to identify as neither and continues using boku presumably out of habit.
- Tatsumi the firefighter uses ore and also refers to herself as onii-chan when speaking to children. It's likely that she adopted this way of speaking due to being raised in a very masculine environment; her adoptive father believes that women can't be firefighters, but Tatsumi still idolizes him and wants to follow in his footsteps.
- In Good Luck Girl! we have Ranmaru. But instead of boku, she uses ore.
- Itsuki from Heart Catch Pretty Cure because of her Wholesome Crossdresser situation. As Cure Sunshine, she uses watashi.
- Hetalia: Axis Powers:
- When Hungary was a young Cute Bruiser, she assumed that she would grow up to be a boy and that everyone eventually grew a penis. She eventually grew into a Ninja Maid Cool Big Sis, even marrying one of the two Team Dads in the cast, and while she switches to watashi once she's grown up, she remains badass nonetheless and is often considered to be one of the manliest characters in the cast.
- Austria and the Holy Roman Empire thought Italy was one when he used to use boku to refer to himself in the days everyone thought he was a girl.note He has switched to ore since then.
- Actually, the closest to a canon bokukko is... the very feminine Monaco, who is said to have speech patterns akin to an old man's.
- The protagonist of Ice Revolution is an androgynous girl raised in a hypermasculine karate dojo who uses ore as a matter of course. She takes up figure skating as a way to reconcile her macho, hyper-competitive athleticism with her burgeoning but deeply buried femininity.
- Makoto Kikuchi from The Idolmaster, who became an Idol Singer to get in touch with her feminine side.
- The game has a dialogue choice of asking her age or gender, with the latter causing her to insist that she's a girl: "Boku wa onna no ko desu!"
- There's also Subaru Nagayoshi from iDOLM@STER: Million Live who uses ore to fit with her tomboyish demeanor and appearance, however her voice is a bit higher than you'd expect.
- Rindou from In the Heart of Kunoichi Tsubaki uses boku to refer to herself as a result of her previous village's upbringing, as they initially tried raising her as a man to make up for their low male population. When she eventually transfers to the Akane Class, an all-female ninja clan that has never once seen a man in their lives, her usage of boku causes a bit of confusion amongst them as they believed Rindou was a man until she proved otherwise.
- Ririchiyo Shirakiin from Inu × Boku SS uses boku as referenced in the series' title. She's no tomboy, though; she's a feminine Ojou.
- Kido of Kagerou Project refers to herself as ore and uses a though, guy-like speech pattern. She's actually not all that boyish in anything but appearance, and it's mostly just an act that she put on rather recently. She's even slipped up and called herself watashi once or twice.
- Nui Harime from Kill la Kill is one. Unlike most examples, however, she's an adorable, pink-wearing Elegant Gothic Lolita, on top of being a remorseless psychopath. Kind of a plot point, too — because it's a masculine pronoun, no one suspects anything when she refers to herself as boku... while disguised as a male student.
- Madoka Ayukawa from Kimagure Orange Road used to be a Bokukko as a child, so much that she's mistaken as a boy by a time-travelling Kyōsuke. As she grows up and has a Girliness Upgrade, she switches to Tsundere.
- Salsa from Lapis Re:LiGHTs uses boku to refer to herself and also acts in very tomboyish manners, from her short, messy hair, to her love of sports, and her tendency to accidentally cause large amounts of property damage due to her supernatural strength.
- Touhara Asuha from Lotte no Omocha, justified because she was raised by her single father.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha:
- Otto uses boku, adding to her Bifauxnen appearance and her crossdressing attitude, confusing not only the viewers but also her own sisters.
- Miura Rinaldi as well. She's more or less a Tomboy and she's an ass kicking Cute Bruiser.
- Harry Tribeca uses ore along with very masculine language.
- In all of the opening theme songs plus insert songs, the singer, Nana Mizuki, uses boku. This is fairly common in singing or poetry because watashi can sometimes throw off the meter.
- In Maria†Holic, Creepy Crossdresser Mariya uses watashi for his demure feminine persona and ore when alone or with people who know she's a he. His Half Identical Twin Shizu uses boku when maintaining her Wholesome Crossdresser masquerade.
- Medaka Box: Youka Naze AKA Kujira Kurokami, the titular heroine's older sister, uses ore, while Najimi Ajimu uses boku.
- Minami-ke:
- Touma Minami an Ore Onna, a Bifauxnen and a Tomboy. She has three older brothers and has her first female friends in the fifth grade.
- "Mako-chan" is subversion; a boy disguised as a girl who manages to pass as female despite forgetting he still refers to himself as ore.
- Lucoa from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid isn't exactly tomboyish, and would never be mistaken for a man. Rather, she uses boku in reference to the fact that she is a Gender Flip of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl.
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: Chuatury "Chuchu" Panlunch refers to herself with the Edo era first person pronoun asshi (あっし), a slang version of watashi (わたし), the typical Japanese first person mostly used by girls. Asshi was mainly used by blue collar men, like the ones Chuchu spoke to on the phone in Episode 4. When angered, she also calls people temē (てめえ), a very hostile form of "you" primarily used by men.
- Strangely for the sheer number of girls in the story, the only girl in Negima! Magister Negi Magi that uses a masculine pronoun is Fuka Narutaki, who is described by Akamatsu as being the tougher and more boyish of the Narutaki twins.
- Akira Okuzaki of My-HiME uses ore, as she is pretending to be a boy.
- Elliot Chandler of My-Otome 0~S.ifr~ uses boku on herself.
- Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo has Chane speaking with like this. She, like her twin sister, also dresses in a Victorian boy's style.
- One Piece:
- Big Mom is an Ore Onna, and while she is very violent and often behaves like a barbarian, she's still an Evil Matriarch through and through, having given birth to 85 children and she's prominently wearing a pink dress. It is more or less appropriate for someone who aims to become Pirate King like her.
- Atlas, one of Vegapunk's satellites, is also an Ore Onna. Fittingly, she represents the more violent aspects of Vegapunk's personality, and serves as a way for him to vent his anger while the rest of the satellites are working.
- In Ouran High School Host Club, Haruhi (who poses as a boy at school) starts the series referring to herself as jibun. It makes sense since jibun is technically gender-neutral (though often used by men in the military), so is often used to "mask" a character's gender. After becoming a host club member, she refers to herself as boku. She also once considers referring to herself as ore in front of the guests. (In the English dub of the scene, she wonders, "Maybe I should call everyone 'bro' and 'dude' from now on?") Tamaki, who prefers her feminine side, is less than impressed with her wanting to use such "dirty" language.
- Noise from PandoraHearts uses boku to differentiate her from her Split Personality Echo, who is a Third-Person Person.
- Persona 4: The Animation has Wholesome Crossdresser Naoto Shirogane using the boku pronoun.
- Beth from Petite Princess Yucie uses ore. She is one tough cookie, alright.
- Miyuki Chitose from The Prince of Tennis. Tezuka even mistook her for a guy until she dropped her Signature Headgear and her Girlish Pigtails were revealed.
- Salon Maiden Anabel/Tower Tycoon Reira in Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire also used boku to refer to herself in Japanese, and thanks to her Boyish Short Hair and androgynous clothing she was mistaken as a waifish boy in the beginning, even successfully fooling Brock.
- Yellow from Pokémon Adventures started using boku when she disguised herself as a boy, and continued afterward.
- Kaoru Matsubara/Powered Buttercup in Powerpuff Girls Z refers to herself with the aggressive-masculine pronoun ore.
- Ranma ½:
- Ukyō Kuonji uses ore to refer to herself. She's also the most boyish of the fiancées (i.e., she goes to school wearing the boys' uniform, whereas Akane uses the girls' one), but according to Ranma she's still the "cute one" among them.
- Ranma himself uses ore even when in female form, which is one of the reasons "she" draws so much attention.
- Akane Tendō is a subversion: she actually has rather girly speech patterns and tastes, specifically referring to herself with atashi, but almost everyone treats her as if she was a tomboy. Kunō even refers to her as "Akane-kun", which she really doesn't like.
- Akane's sister Nabiki has been known to use washi on occasion, which makes her sound rather like a creepy Yakuza loan shark.
- Lal Mirch from Reborn uses ore. This probably has something to do with her extreme badassery.
- In Revolutionary Girl Utena, the titular girl who wants to be a prince uses boku. It conveys that she is not traditionally feminine, but not quite as masculine as some people assume either.
- In Rozen Maiden, Souseiseki, the most boyish of the dolls, refers to herself as boku.
- Sailor Moon:
- JunJun of the Amazones Quartet refers to herself with ore. She is also the only member of the Quartet to wear pants (of course, this being the Amazones Quartet, the pants hardly count as pants and you'd be hard-pressed to find a guy who would want to wear them, but it still counts for something, right?) According to Naoko Takeuchi, she also talks like a yankee and is a biker chick.
- Haruka AKA Sailor Uranus uses the boku pronoun. Between that and the fact she also wears a boys' school uniform and has masculine interests such as car racing, she's easily mistaken for male when not transformed.
- The Seven Deadly Sins:
- The giantess Diane uses boku.
- The tomboyish knight woman Jericho uses ore.
- Asa Shigure and her mom, Ama in SHUFFLE!.
- Tomboy Yuzuru Nishimiya from A Silent Voice uses ore. Consequently, Shoya initially assumes she is a boy.
- Yun from Simoun calls herself ore, and it's a significant plot point when she switches to atashi.
- Symphogear GX introduces Elfnein and Carol. Elfnein being a homunculus with No Biological Sex, but is treated as a girl by the entire cast, she is this trope because of her boku. Carol, who is heavily hinted to be the original inspiration of her creation Elfnein, uses the tough and more masculine ore, fitting to her status as the determined Big Bad and Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, even though she's very feminine.
- Tomo from Tomo-chan Is a Girl! used the very masculine pronoun ore as a child, which was part of Jun's confusion over her gender. In the present day, she uses the more feminine pronoun atashi, though aside from that her speech patterns are still rather masculine.
- Sheila from Tweeny Witches uses ore.
- Ryuunosuke from Urusei Yatsura, when assumed to be male, often replies "Ore wa onna da zo!", which is "I'm a woman!" said in the most masculine way possible. Lampshaded and made more ridiculous by the resident Ataru and Mendo trying to teach her to talk like a girl and showing themselves really proficient at it.
- Variable Geo: Yuka Takeuchi and her best friend, Satomi Yajima, are a couple of combat waitresses who're cut from the same cloth. Yuka habitually refers to herself using the boku wa pronoun, while Satomi uses ore wa and ore no instead. In the latter's case, it's partly a nod to the fact that she's a gender flip of Kyo Kusanagi.
- Played with in Video Girl Ai. Lead female Ai Amano was supposed to be a Yamato Nadeshiko, but since her video was played in a broken VCR, she became a Tsundere-ish Bokukko. She refers to herself as ore, i.e.
- Moemi Hayakawa invokes the trope when she cuts her hair short and starts acting and speaking more boyishly to make herself look more appealing to Youta. It doesn't work. In the end, she keeps her hair short but returns to her Yamato Nadeshiko self.
- Reconstructed in Wandering Son: Takatsuki Yoshino is a pre-teen transgender boy, and everybody refers to him as "Takatsuki-kun". He went on town with his friend Nitori, a trans girl, and he noticed that she still uses boku when talking, even when wearing a dress. Yoshino says it suits her and says that he'll continue to use watashi despite dressing like a boy.
- Hinagiku, aka Angel Daisy from Wedding Peach uses ore, even while wearing a pretty yellow wedding dress.
- Momoe from Wonder Egg Priority is a Bifauxnen who uses boku to complete her boyish image.
- In The World God Only Knows Yui Goudou starts using boku and begins dressing like a boy after she returns to her body.
- Anna Kaboom/Kozuki from Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL uses the hard-masculine ore pronoun to match her tough girl attitude.
- Subverted in Zetsuai 1989. Kouji Nanjo thought that Izumi, the angry and tormented child he met and fell in love with as a 12-year-old kid, was a Bokukko... but "she" WAS a boy all along. Cue Gayngst when he finds out the truth several years later and realizes that yeah, he's still desperately in love with Izumi. In Kouji's defense, 'Izumi'
is both a very common last name and a Gender-Blender Name (though mostly used by women) in Japan, and Takuto Izumi looked kinda girlish at the time.
Fan Works
- True to her tomboyish nature, Luffy uses the super masculine ore to address herself in Sol Invictus.
Literature
- Aiko Kudou from Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts uses boku to refer to herself, and she's a tomboyish girl with Boyish Short Hair.
- Nagi in the Boogiepop Series often uses masculine forms of speech, being something of a Bifauxnen whenever she's on the prowl.
- Kei, the more tomboyish half of the Dirty Pair, tends to devolve into this style of speaking whenever she gets particularly angry. In the anime Dirty Pair Flash, she even said "Ore wa onna da!"note at least once.
- Fate/Apocrypha: Mordred, Knight of the Round Table, is female in this series much like Arthur. However, Mordred lived as a man in Camelot and always uses masculine speech, including "ore" as the first person pronoun. Mordred tends to get extremely angry if anyone ever refers to her as a girl. She also refers to King Arthur as "father", despite knowing full well that "Arthur" is in fact a woman. However, this has nothing to do with gender identity, and more to do with Mordred's complex about being seen as weak and unworthy of the throne, as she similarly dislikes being called a man. (Oddly, Artoria herself is never shown using masculine speech in any of her appearances, merely opting for formal, gender-neutral options.)
- The Fruit of Evolution: Altaria Grem uses ore, which befits her brash and rough nature as a very strong adventurer. In a subversion, it's implied that this is mostly a front to keep people at bay due to being The Jinx and bringing misfortune to others, as once Seiichi cures her of her bad luck curse, she's shown to be very sensitive and kindhearted.
- Ryougi Shiki from The Garden of Sinners uses ore after the car accident in order to imitate her lost male persona. At the end of the seventh movie, she switches back to watashi upon accepting the loss of her male persona.
- In Haganai, Yozora Mikazuki used ore during her childhood days with Kodaka when she Used to Be a Tomboy. Along with her short hair and masculine clothing, this led Kodaka to think his friend "Sora" was a boy until years later when it's revealed "he" was actually Yozora.
- In Haruhi Suzumiya, Sasaki is an interesting case; she uses male speech patterns with boys, but feminine speech with girls. It's currently unknown why she does this; Kyon's best guess is that she believes romance is a waste of time and tries to seem masculine around boys so they subconsciously think of her as One of the Boys and don't become attracted to her.
- Alice from Heaven's Memo Pad use boku to addresses herself.
- Hundred: The protagonist Hayato had a childhood friend named Emilia. When she reunites with him in high school, she has created a male persona named 'Emile', which included switching from watashi to boku, and she continues to use it after her true identity is exposed. The young scientist Charlotte also uses boku, and since she'd been taking care of Emilia, she's likely an influence.
- Fino Bloodstone, daughter of the (late) Demon Overlord, from I Couldn't Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job uses the over-the-top arrogant ore-sama.
- Charlotte Dunois of Infinite Stratos addresses herself as boku, despite being the Proper Lady type. Justified as she was previously trained to be male by her father.
- Tayune from Inukami!. Fitting as she's the token tomboy of Kaoru's harem.
- Tomonori/Yuki/Maelstrom from Is This A Zombie?. In fact, her speech patterns, not just the pronouns, are entirely like a boy's, so much such that initially, Ayumu mistook her for a guy. The reason why she's called Tomonori is that it's how you would read the kanji of her name, if it was a guy's name.
- Kino from Kino's Journey only uses atashi in flashbacks when she's still conflicted about her identity. It's an Establishing Character Moment when she switches to boku for good.
- Ōkami-san's Ryoko Ōkami, who fits both the "masculine pronoun" and "tomboyish appearance" parts of the trope.
- Re:Zero has the Witch of Greed Echidna who uses boku to refer to herself despite not being tomboyish at all.
- Eve/Abe from Spice and Wolf refers to herself as ore.
- Sword Art Online: Yuuki Konno uses boku to refer to herself. Funnily enough, when the story first makes reference to her as 'Zekken', most characters assume she must be a male, so she catches everyone (especially Asuna) by surprise when she reveals herself as a girl.
Live-Action TV
- Hiyori Kusakabe from Kamen Rider Kabuto uses masculine pronouns.
- Mashin Sentai Kiramager's Yodonna is one of these. She's higher-ranking than the other commanders, and she likely uses boku as a reflection of her power.
- Go Min Nyeo in the Korean Series You Are Beautiful. Understandable, since she is a Wholesome Crossdresser pretending to be her brother.
Music
- Evillious Chronicles: Michaela uses boku, which is kind of odd as she's otherwise a Girly Girl. Though, this is somewhat justified due to her originally being a genderless spirit and a male human prior to that.
- Guest vocalist Michi Hirota growls the Japanese translations of the English lyrics in David Bowie's "It's No Game Part 1", using masculine forms of words including the first-person pronouns.
- Hitomi Yoshizawa, from Morning Musume, does not use the masculine pronouns, but it's been noted by other members and persons in talk shows that the rest of her speech is quite masculine
- La Roux: The name chosen by the the band's singer; a mixture of la rousse (redhead female) and le roux (redhead male).
- The unnamed protagonist of the song "Revenge Syndrome". She refers to herself in the lyrics several times using the boku pronoun. Not much is known about her other than her unstable mental state and her tendency to be bullied by her peers.
- Lead guitarist Mami Sasazaki of Scandal.
Video Games
- Advanced V.G.: Both Yuka and Satomi are tomboy types, with each using "boku" and "ore" respectively. They trained together at the Kyokushin Dojo and have been competing with each other since childhood.
- Razzly from Chrono Cross refers to herself as boku, possibly because she's the closest thing the game has to a male fairy (who are all female). Kid uses ore while calling herself a "cute, frail girl" in one breath.
- Susie from Deltarune uses "ore" in the Japanese localization, and generally speaks like a young hooligan. The only exception is when she meets Toriel, and, while trying extremely hard to be polite, switches to "atashi" (which still ties in with her usual characterization due to "atashi" being a common characteristic of The Idiot from Osaka).
- The Dept. Heaven series has a long-standing tradition of including at least one of these in every game:
- Riviera: The Promised Land has Rose (which is supposed to obfuscate her gender) and Lina (who only uses this pronoun while introducing herself, as she's otherwise a Third-Person Person).
- Yggdra Union, Blaze Union, and Yggdra Unison have Emilia, who otherwise uses feminine speech patterns. Given her background, she likely was never taught to use a different pronoun while growing up, and since her brother is now Emperor, no one's going to tell her not to speak the way she wants to.
- Knights in the Nightmare has Oryza, the youngest of the knights.
- Gungnir has Isabeli, who is just weird like that.
- Gloria Union has Pinger, who actually uses keigo. Justified in that the person who raised her wanted her to be a marketable rarity, and may have trained her to have a weird speech pattern to increase her worth.
- Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War: Tailtiu is a Tomboy Princess whose speech patterns are rougher than the other women in Sigurd's army.
- Cagliostro of Granblue Fantasy uses the variant "ore-sama" to reflect that she has a pretty high opinion of herself as the founder of alchemy, which can strike most people as odd that such a petite and friendly little girl would use such an arrogant and manly pronoun... until you learn that Cagliostro was originally born male — and still retains a pretty large chunk of her masculine personality behind the facade she puts up to deceive others.
- May from Guilty Gear is a Cute Bruiser pirate who uses "boku" as a reflection of her free spirit and tomboyishness. From the same game, the coarse and anti-social samurai Baiken uses the more masculine ore to refer to herself.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Under her Sheik disguise in the game, Zelda uses "boku".
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: It's explained that Ashei was raised by her widowed father, an exiled knight, who basically treated her as a boy. She's a really good warrior, and cute with a nice figure, but doesn't know much about social niceties and is a little self-conscious about it.
- The Justice refers to herself as "boku" in the Japanese version of Magical Drop 3. Fittingly, she's a tomboyish Action Girl.
- Material-L/Levi the Slasher, Fate's Evil Twin in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable, who overuses "boku" as part of her highly aggressive personality.
- In Mitsumete Knight (one of the series' Spiritual Successors), Hanna Shawski is a Bokukko, while Gene Petromolla is a Ore-onna.
- Kumatora from Mother 3 uses ore, and is very tomboyish, even being introduced (in the English fan translation) as "A strong, wise, and somewhat masculine girl."
- Anna Hottenmeyer from Mr. Driller has a very tomboyish behavior and uses "boku".
- In Neptunia, Shrinking Violet Idol Singer Lyrica/5pb. and Bifauxnen Kei use boku, and otherwise-not-overly-tomboyish factory worker Chian uses ore, as do Croire, Uzume, and Kurome.
- O.N.G.E.K.I.'s Riku Yuuki, the tomboyish rocker, uses ore.
- Panel de Pon:
- Lip, the main protagonist, is a downplayed example. She uses the feminine atashi but otherwise has a relatively masculine way of speaking, such as using the plain copula da and ending her sentences with the masculine zo.
- Sherbet is a more traditional example, being a tomboy with a somewhat boyish appearance.
- Naoto Shirogane in Persona 4 pulls this trope off so well (in the game-verse at least) that everyone is convinced that she's actually a guy.
- Arle from Puyo Puyo is a good example from the '90s, which accentuates her tomboyish nature compared to the peppy Amitie ("Atashi") and subdued Ringo ("Watashi"+keigo) in the modern games. This trope was not prevalent back in 1989, when she debuted in the first Madou Monogatari game. Her Bokkuko behavior caused a translation oversight in Puyo Puyo Fever, where Amitie refers to her with male pronouns.
- In Sakura Wars, Leni Milchstraße from the second game, Coquelicot from the third, and Gemini Sunrise from the fifth game use "Boku" in the Japanese script. In addition, Gemini's twin sister/dual personality Geminine uses "Ore".
- Elh from Solatorobo. Her companions actually mistake her for a boy initially, which doesn't make as much sense in the translated version of the game, due to the lack of Japanese pronouns.
- Cheldia Rouge, one of the female leads in Super Robot Wars K.
- Touhou Project:
- Wriggle Nightbug canonically uses watashi but, due to Viewer Gender Confusion around her first appearance, it became a popular meme to depict her as constantly mistaken for a man and sensitive about it. Such depictions tend to make her a bokukko to increase the confusion.
- In Hidden Star in Four Seasons, Mai Teireida, one of the stage 5 bosses in the game, refers to herself with "boku", thus making her the first bokkuko in the entire series.
- Momoyo Himemushi, the Extra boss of Unconnected Marketeers, is an all-around rough figure who refers to herself using "ore".
- Rhyme from The World Ends with You. Not really obvious in the American version.
- Margie/Marguerite from Xenogears.
Visual Novels
- Sakura from Da Capo uses Boku, despite only being slightly tomboyish and a lolita.
- Danganronpa:
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
- Junko Enoshima is a rather odd example. She normally uses the super-girlish atashi... but when she's revealed to be the mastermind as well as being such a Mood-Swinger that her entire voice and personality changes with her mood, her "punk" personality uses the very manly ore.
- Chihiro Fujisaki rarely uses any first-person pronouns but uses boku when she does, which is kind of odd considering that she's a timid petite girl. Later subverted. Chihiro is actually a timid petit boy.
- Akane Owari from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is The Lad-ette and uses "ore".
- Miu Iruma from Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony uses the very arrogant "ore-sama". Sure, she wears a pink serafuku, but the way she likes to act and speak is far from feminine.
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
- The very female Nya from Demonbane uses masculine speech. It's an early clue that she is not actually a woman... or even human, for that matter. "Nya" is not one of Nyarlathotep's more imaginative aliases.
- Nagi from ef - a fairy tale of the two., claims to use Boku because it's easier to say than Watashi. Two syllables versus three. Go figure.
- Higurashi: When They Cry:
- Hanyuu and Rika Furude use "boku". This is despite the fact that neither fits the pattern for the trope at all, though in Rika's case, it's probably a habit acquired from Hanyuu. She also uses "watashi" whenever she's not Obfuscating Stupidity. Hanyuu, on the other hand, only uses boku because she's Really 700 Years Old and comes from a time when boys and girls apparently didn't use different pronouns.
- The boyish Mion refers herself as "Oji San" or old man.
- Ayu Tsukimiya from Kanon, although she's rather moe. Yuuichi tries to make her switch to the even more masculine ore.
- In the original game, you get a choice of trying to switch her to the masculine ore, the gender-neutral watashi or the very girly atashi.
- The Tokimeki Memorial series host a few of them. 1 has Nozomi Kiyokawa ; 2 has Akane Ichimonji ; and 4 has Itsuki Maeda.
- Hazuki of Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito. Interestingly, she uses the more masculine "ore" in the manga version.
Web Animation
- Tomboy catgirl Nekomata Okayu from hololive uses boku to refer to herself.
- When speaking Japanese, Hakos Baelz of hololive English - Generation Two -Council- also uses boku. With Baelz, it might be due to her (lore-wise) being the Anthropomorphic Personification of chaos.
Western Animation (Japanese Translations)
- 12-year-old Toph Beifong, who is The Lad-ette, in the Japanese dub of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
- Rainbow Dash, in the Japanese dub of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, uses boku with an overall grammatical style reminiscent of a shonen Idiot Hero.
Real Life
- The voice actress Akeno Watanabe uses boku in real life. And voices many tomboys, too.
- While it's very rare, some real Japanese girls do use masculine pronouns. Those who do so fall into four types — girls who use them as a feminist statement, those who are just plain tomboyish, those who do it to imitate anime and game characters to be cutesy, and very young (preschool-age) girls who haven't been trained to use traditionally feminine pronouns by societal expectations (the more cynical may think of it as "gender policing"). The Japanese page on this phenomenon on Wikipedia notes that this began as a late 20th-century thing. See also this case study on use of boku vs. use of watashi in young girls.
- On a historical note, while Ore Onna characters exist prominently in some anime and manga, this trope is Older Than They Think: Ore was also actually used by women until late Edo period. It is still found in some dialects, mainly rural women in the Tohoku region.
