Cute Clumsy Girl



Here's the formula: Take an attractive girl or woman and make her more approachable by adding in some klutziness.

Like many other klutz characters, a Cute Clumsy Girl's clumsiness rarely does her serious harm, but can often set off Rube Goldberg-like chain reactions of disasters. She's never seriously injured, though, and she always pops back up with a good-natured, but rueful, smile. It is almost inevitable that at some point her clumsiness will result in a Crash Into Hello.

Occasionally, the klutziness pseudo-flaw is used for a male character, but only rarely, as it is not quite as endearing in males, somehow.

See also: The Klutz (the superclass) and the fanspeak page Dojikko (for an examination of this character in anime-specific subculture). If the klutziness tends to take care of her enemies without her even realizing it, she is also The Fool.

Anime and Manga

 * Mihoshi in Tenchi Muyo!.
 * Kaho in Sister Princess.
 * Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon in Sailor Moon.
 * Yomiko Readman of Read or Die
 * Even more so is Joker's assistant Wendy, to the point where she considers it a major triumph to deliver a tray of tea unscathed. (However, by the TV series she appears to have lost all her clumsiness, probably as part of .) In the TV series' epilogue she does manage to drop a tray off-screen, giving one of the few signs of still being her old self underneath it all.
 * Wagashino Azuki from Sweet Ninja Girl Azuki, so much so that "I'm so sorry Master Sanae!" might well be her Catch Phrase. Combines this with Genki Girl traits, with disastrous(ly comical) results.
 * Similarly, Mutsumi Otohime of Love Hina.
 * Taeko from Ai Yori Aoshi.
 * Nodame of Nodame Cantabile.
 * Tashigi from One Piece. A slight subversion in that she's extremely capable in battle, but an infamous klutz in pretty much any other situation.
 * Tessa from Full Metal Panic!. At times it's hard to believe a girl who can't even keep her balance while walking is the captain of the world's most advanced submarine.
 * Lucia from Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch.
 * Ayu from Kanon.
 * Misuzu from AIR; the reason we can tell her past life the first time we see her is by her Crash Into Hello introduction.
 * ME-Tan, Anthropomorphic Personification of the Windows ME operating system from the "OS-Tan" Internet meme, has a tendency to crash a lot. Just like the operating system.
 * Matsuri from Ichigo Mashimaro. Lampshaded in an episode which summarizes her average day, showing that she can barely get through a day of school without constant help from Ana. After hearing the summary, Miu comments "That's the usual!? This isn't a manga for crying out loud! Do you really think Matsuri will be able to function in the real world!?"
 * Deconstructed messily by Kisaragi from Elfen Lied. Unfortunately, despite being one of the few characters with any significant dialogue in the first episode, she gets her head ripped off ten minutes in.
 * Nana also counts. It's justified since.
 * One of Doremi's (Ojamajo Doremi) classmates gives her the nickname Dojimi.
 * Kimura's wife waifu from Azumanga Daioh.
 * Male example: Hanatarô Yamada in Bleach. Also, sometimes Orihime Inoue - she even provides one of the examples listed (banging head into male lead's head)...heck, in the anime her first appearance is when she bumps into him and falls down.
 * Miyuki in Lucky Star. Also Deconstructed by Konata: Kagami asks her if she acts out this trope at her job at a cosplay cafe, like dropping her drinks (complete with demonstration), but Konata dismisses it as something cute in fiction but just annoying in real life.
 * The title character of Karin has so much trouble when excited that she might as well be wearing stilts on roller skates.
 * Priscilla from Claymore was introduced as one of these, first seen falling on her face, then babbling apologies for being held up by some youma in joining the hunt team she was assigned to. Shortly afterwards we (and her aggravated colleagues) look around the corner to see how many youma she just plowed through.
 * Haruko Akagi in Slam Dunk. A more-or-less recurring running gag is to have Haruko tripping over her own feet and falling to the ground when she attempts to play seriously. She's Genre Savvy enough to prefer cheering and helping the others out rather than playing, since her clumsiness would hinder her efforts at playing in her school's team.
 * The lead Hanamichi Sakuragi is actually a male example in the beginning. As he learns more about basketball he loses some of the klutziness. Not all of them.
 * Tokino Akiyama in the Genshiken spinoff Kujibiki Unbalance. As demonstrated in the swimming contest.
 * Though she might have been faking on that one- she was supposed to stall for time so that the aliens would have to use the bathroom.
 * The eponymous Princess Tutu. A ballet student who's actually a duck in diguise, Ahiru is constantly falling out of bed, messing up her ballet moves, and crashing into the other characters. Her walk is described as looking like a duck's waddle on at least one occasion.
 * Chiri from Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei tries to do this in one episode (which is the exact opposite of how she normally acts) because she thinks they get more love. This naturally ends in disaster.
 * Toujo Aya and Mukai Kozue of Strawberry 100% definitely fall into this, although Aya starts out as Hollywood Homely.
 * Minawa from Mahoromatic has never met an object she can't repeatedly trip over. This accounts for most of the apologies she spends all her time making. On the bright side, she's very unlikely to hurt herself.
 * Azmaria Hendrich in Chrono Crusade.
 * "Ack! I tripped!" "On what?!"
 * Rio Takeuchi in Spiral is a subversion. She acts cute and harmless, even pathetic. She kills a man by tripping in front of him, and then stabbing him when he helps her up. This man was previously established as cautious and intelligent, but having already formed an opinion of her as a meek and unlucky girl, he drops his guard, and she murders him right in the middle of a school.
 * Male example: Eisuke Hondou from Detective Conan A lampshade is hung on this when one of the characters comments that he would be very cute if he were a girl.
 * A case not Played for Laughs is Hikaru Yasumoto, the housekeeper for the Araide family. Her boss treats her very harshly for commiting blunders in her housework,
 * Sayo in Mahou Sensei Negima, who somehow manages to trip over her own feet despite being a ghost that doesn't have feet. Justified when she gets a body though: Having feet for the first time in decades can do that to you.
 * Nodoka also noted that she "falls over a lot" as a justification for carrying some first aid. One of the first things she does in the series is fall off of a staircase while carrying a massive stack of books.
 * Sakuno Ryuzaki in the Prince of Tennis anime. In the manga, not as much.
 * A male example is Satoshi Horio, Ryoma's classmate and friend who claims to have two years of prior tennis experience, but fails when he's gotta show it off.
 * Amelia Will Tesla Sailunne from Slayers frequently has her attempts at dramatic entrances foiled because of this.
 * Suzuka's personal maid Farin from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. The only scene that centered on her involved her spinning herself to dizziness from a cat and Yuuno running around her, with Nanoha and Suzuka barely saving the tray she's carrying. Cue loud "Gomen nasaaai!" and Shinobu and Noel commenting on how she's done it again.
 * In the 4komas, Ginga. A big one. To the point that when, the heroes recognize her because of the thing on her path...
 * Yeon from Tower of God. Being a black haired beauty and having bare shoulders makes her more of a hot clumsy girl. Literally, since she often enough accidentally burns her teammates so hard that they fall out of the current test. But that's just part of her character. Which got, despite appearing only in three chapters so far got her to be one of the most popular characters of the series.
 * Athena from Aria, to the point where one starts to wonder how she keeps herself and her customers from serious injury while steering a gondola. Except that she's revealed to be actually capable of not being clumsy, but normally doesn't do it because it's tiring.
 * Saya "Sae" Sawanoguchi from Magic User's Club, as the quote on the Dojikko page states, once resolves to stop tripping when there's nothing to trip over, to stop running into walls, and to not collide with other people. Naturally, she does all three in short order.
 * If Mikuru Asahina from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya doesn't do this herself, Haruhi actually goes out of her way to make her drop the tea...
 * She's actually a subversion in that while she has all the stereotypical personality traits fitting the trope, and isn't exactly athletic, she isn't least bit clumsy in normal, everyday activities. Haruhi, who wants to follow tropes at all costs, berates her for forgetting to drop the tea tray every now and then.
 * Mayu of Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun has this to such an extent that she's described as a natural weapon, devastating an entire island of armed men. "Waugh! Gomenasai!"
 * Momiji from Blue Seed often shows her panties by tripping over everything.
 * Pokémon: Dawn's Piplup is a Mons version of this. When he tries to stretch himself up in ego, he falls over.
 * And from Best Wishes, we have Bianca. She (Without fail) crashes into Ash every time they meet up. She fumbles with her bag whenever she tries to take something out. She even spends an entire tournament arc chasing after a Pokemon that can transform into people. Failing, of course.
 * Masaki from Ice Revolution; especially sad in that she's a fairly skilled martial artist who wants to be a figure skater.
 * Tomoko in Great Teacher Onizuka is another example.
 * Chise in Saikano both falls into and inverts this trope. Normally she's rather klutzy, but in her Ultimate Weapon mode she is incredibly, horrifically graceful and efficient.
 * In the OVA she's seen stumbling cutely in the battlefield to the confusion of the American soldiers who try to determine if she's a threat or not. Then she vaporizes everything in a mile radius.
 * Hinata Hyuuga fits the bill when around her crush; otherwise, she seems to be fairly competent, although typically pretty Shrinking Violet.
 * That is the first opinion Ritsu gave to Yui in K-On!.
 * Miyako from Sasameki Koto. Though her appearance hides a somewhat manipulative personality.
 * Saki from Hayate the Combat Butler.
 * Izumi seems to have this as part of her personality as well.
 * Satsuki Miyanoshita from Ghost Stories shows of her panties to the same boy once each in the first two episodes. One with a thoughtless fall in a new room of her new house, once when tripping on a can purposefully put in her place.
 * Male example in Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Dino, when he isn't around his subordinates, is a complete klutz, taking this trope to the extreme.
 * In Cardcaptor Sakura, Sakura's mother Nadeshiko is revealed to be this. In the flashback to her and Sonomi's teen years, she: tripped on her own feet while going to school, crashed into a tree while skiing, bumped on the high jump implements and fell to the ground in front of her whole class, and fell off a tree while trying to return a birdie to its nest. Bonus on the last one for falling on top of a Hot Teacher named Fujitaka Kinomoto, whom she'd marry after graduation.
 * Kamyu in Utawarerumono.
 * Lettuce from Tokyo Mew Mew has never met a plate she hasn't dropped.
 * Kisaragi of GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class, like, being "it" in a game of tag for 157 minutes.
 * Asu no Yoichi:
 * Tsubame Tsubasa. Whose clumsiness is actually caused by the conflict between the lifestyle she is supposed to practice (being a top-class ninja) and the lifestyle which she wants to practice (being a normal schoolgirl). But she becomes a top-class fighter when she's stripped.
 * Kagome. It's hinted at in the anime, but better stated in the manga, that this is (also) why she sits out of PE classes and why she doesn't practice martial arts like her eldest sister.
 * Sanae Shikikigami of Ladies versus Butlers! 'nuff said.
 * P-ko of Arakawa Under the Bridge first appearance was stepping on her banana peel trap causing a chain reaction of banana peels then, smashing her face-first into a wall.
 * Hotaru of Girls Saurus takes this up to 11.
 * Natsu in Baby Steps.
 * Taiga Aisaka of Toradora!. as a matter of fact in the beginning of the series she attempts to give her Love Interest a letter...and forgets to put it into the envelope! Throughout the series several comments are made about how she also seems "clumsy in love". However unlike most examples she seems to be much more serious and her clumsiness isn't played up for Fan Service.
 * This is the defining trait of Akira Miyata from Pani Poni Dash!.
 * Mey-rin, Ceil's maid from Black Butler is a classic example of this.
 * Miranda Lotto from D Gray Man, despite being older than most examples, fits the bill nicely once Beautiful All Along kicks in.
 * Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo has Ureshiko. Even if she's quite a lot older than your standard Magical Girl heroine, she never grew out of her clumsiness.
 * Tear from the recent chapters of To Love-ru Darkness definitely qualifies, despite being older than the average girl here.
 * Misaki from Hana no Mizo Shiru is a male example. He knocks things over, drops things and runs into people at the train station frequently. Naturally Arikawa, his love interest, finds it cute.

Film

 * The main character of Pure Luck personifies this trope.
 * Francis Veber's comedy Le Chevre uses both male and female versions of this. The female version who fits the description very well has been kidnapped, and a male character who combines clumsiness with And You Thought It Was a Game behavior is used to help find her, on the assumption that he will exhibit the same behaviors/take the same route as she did.
 * Jessica Alba's character in Good Luck Chuck.
 * In The Three Musketeers 1973, Raquel Welch's character Constance Bonacieux, d'Artagnan's sweetheart. If it could be tripped over, knocked over, or dropped, Constance would do it. At one point, d'Artagnan hears the crash of a large potted plant falling off a balcony, looks and sees a lady standing on the balcony, and says with satisfaction, "That has to be Constance." It is.
 * Julianne Moore in Evolution perpetually trips over things, walks into walls, etc., to the point that one wonders how she's survived as long as she has.
 * Female leads in romantic comedies are guaranteed to either trip in their high heels or some similarly "cute" pratfall at least once.
 * A (young, timid) male example: Danny in Local Hero is endearingly clumsy.
 * Rachel Weisz as Evy in The Mummy 1999. In her first scene, she accidently destroys an entire library.
 * Amy Adams in Leap Year. Amongst many other disasters she manages to demolish an (admittedly slightly shabby) hotel room while simply trying to plug in her Blackberry.
 * Rapunzel from Tangled.
 * Prudence Perkins in the Western spoof Support Your Local Sheriff, although she mitigates it somewhat by being an expert shot with a rifle.

Literature

 * The Star Trek: The Next Generation book Q-In-Law had a subplot which concerned Wesley (in a very animé-reminiscent plot) receiving an alien servant girl who wasted no time in proclaiming her eternal love and devotion to him. Unfortunately, she turned out to be so clumsy she caused Wesley serious physical harm on a number of occasions.
 * Bella Swan of Twilight seems to have an uncanny ability to lose her balance to the point that she's able to without anyone getting suspicious. It got to a point where her father didn't even mind when she comes home with bandages after getting attacked by Jasper on New Moon.
 * Geraden from Stephen Donaldson's Mordant's Need is a male example; one incident among many is falling into a pigswallow in his eagerness to meet the king, and so appearing before his monarch dripping dirty water and rotten vegetables.
 * Tonks from Harry Potter. The first thing she does in the series is smash a plate. Amazingly, this woman is somehow a world class dark wizard hunter.
 * Although she herself said that her clumsiness almost made her fail some Auror class, and that she only passed by acing others.

Live Action TV

 * Kelly in Hawtho R Ne has at least some of these traits, being a very nervous young nurse who lacks confidence and Apologizes a Lot.
 * On Scrubs, JD's girlfriend Julie was this in spades. In attempting a slow motion romantic run across the field to hug each other, she managed to miss him and clothesline him with her arm as she tripped and did a full flip before coming down on top of him. Whenever she pulls something like this, the other characters usually shake their heads and comment that "she is not graceful."
 * Elliot had her moments as well.
 * Chrissy on Three's Company.
 * After Suzanne Somers, who played Chrissy, left the show over a salary dispute, they brought in Chrissy's cousin Cindy who was even more clumsy, with Jack being the one injured whenever she was around.
 * Ensign Sonia Gomez on Star Trek: The Next Generation may have ended up this way had she become the recurring character she was intended to, based on her introduction, wherein she spilled hot chocolate on Captain Picard.
 * In Sign, a Korean Drama, Dr Go Da Kyung knocks over an entire bookshelf in Dr Yoon Ji Hoon's office and ends up pinned underneath it.
 * Grace during the first season of Student Bodies.
 * Former Price Is Right model Holly Halstrom, back in the Bob Barker days. To be fair, all of the Barker's Beauties occasionally had trouble with the various props and set pieces, but Holly seemed to have the most trouble, as seen here.
 * Current model Rachel Reynolds is getting a bit of that reputation: She crashed a prize car into a stage door, for starters.
 * Susan in Desperate Housewives is the embodiment of this trope. She can't walk five feet without tripping and setting something on fire.
 * Nova the fairy and her real-world incarnation as Sister Astrid in Once Upon a Time

Music

 * Rare Male Example: The mustachioed boyfriend in Juice Newton's video for "Love's Been A Little Bit Hard On Me" takes this past cute and into painful territory, as every time he tries to be gallant, he ends up hurting Juice due to his clumsiness. She's in traction by the end of the song.
 * The main character of the music video to Happily Ever After by He Is We. She manages to injure three potential boyfriends and gives up and orders a self help book before she finds true love in a man who is just as klutzy as she.

Video Games

 * Haruka Amami from The Idolm@ster.
 * The DS Castlevania games feature the "Student Witch", whose main attack is to take to the air on her broomstick, then fall on you when you walk under her. They're almost too cute to kill, and indeed the game doesn't let you: Defeating them causes them to turn into cats and run away (though some of them are kind enough to leave their souls).
 * Special Mention must go to Charlotte. While her skirt obviously flies up at the slightest provocation (jumping down, ducking and standing up, etc.) an especially funny joke is with the Persephone armed with her vacuum. She'll blow air under her skirt causing her to hold it down for a second. Especially funnier in the Japanese dub, since "Nani?!" is inherently funnier than "What?!". To be fair, it's much more played for laughs than to titillate (In the Sorrow series, you can pull the same trick on Persephones and Student Witches with your own vacuum).
 * Also, whenever Charlotte falls from a high place, gets knocked down, or gets hit in mid-air, she lands on her little bottom instead of on her feet. She does land a little bit more gracefully than the student witch though.
 * Meru from The Legend of Dragoon has a victory pose where she proudly thrusts her hammer skyward, then falls over. She then sits up and rubs the back of her head in embarrassment.
 * Viki from the Suikoden series. Her clumsiness manifests in her tendency to sneeze herself through time and space. At the end of each game, she accidently teleports herself from the victory banquet into the next game, despite each game being set many years apart, and not in chronological order. As a result, Viki has served in at least five wars non-stop. Six if you count the time there was two of her in Suikoden III.
 * Carol from Wild ARMs 5. Her regular attack consists of her shooting a rocket launcher bigger than she is, then falling on her butt. She also tends to trip and fall when confronted with boys and is in general adorable.
 * Colette from Tales of Symphonia. She always trips when needed (breaking things, stealing, ect.), despite having wings. To a lesser extent with Sheena (she even known as "Clumsy Assassin." before joining the party).
 * Colette eventually even turns her clumsiness into an attack, which involves falling on the enemy. And stealing from them.
 * Linu in Neverwinter Nights, played up for extreme comedy.
 * Merrill in Dragon Age 2. While her awkwardness is certainly adorable, it contrasts sharply with her status as Black Magician Girl.
 * Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII.
 * Yuffie from Final Fantasy VII.
 * Rikku from Final Fantasy X. Its a plot point in a sidequest in X-2.
 * Lolo from Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil. Resolves to be more careful in holding on to the Elements and wastes no time in proving her point by dropping one. And she falls on her face in just about every other cutscene, including her variant of the title screen intro.
 * Mignon from King Of Fighters: Maximum Impact; her introduction in both games is to run into the arena... and trip on the door. When she uses her super moves, they typically throw her back several feet.
 * Even Katamari Damacy invokes this with Royal Cousin Honey; the King describes her with "She's very clumsy, but We think that's what makes her so cute!"
 * Shurelia from Ar tonelico starts off as a somewhat cold Lady of War, but after you actually get her into your party and put her into a costume other than the Linker suit, it becomes apparent that she's incredibly clumsy. She will actually fall over after casting spells, and gets lost repeatedly in the course of the game. In spite of all of this, she's probably the smartest character in the game.
 * Mega Man Powered Up for PSP makes Roll look like this—whenever she teleports into a stage, she's a couple of feet off the ground and lands on her rump. (It's cute the first few times.) The question here is who's actually operating the teleporter.
 * Sakura Shinjouji from Sakura Taisen, but she's not nearly as bad as Erica Fontaine from the third and fourth games. In the latest installment of the series for the DS, Erica can actually trip while your party's walking around and lose HP (which doesn't stay cute for long).
 * Yoriko in Da Capo is rather ditzy and bad at the housework she insists on doing. Though in a subversion, once she learns how she's actually not very clumsy at all and rather good at cooking.
 * Dragon Quest VII gives us Aimy from Litorud, who tends to start each morning by falling down the stairs at the inn where she works. This actually ties into the plot, as it turns out
 * Yuuko from Katawa Shoujo, with bonus points for being a Meganekko librarian. When you meet her, she'd dropped a book under the table, then dropped her pencil while looking for it, and then hit her head on the table when she heard you coming in. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to much affect her side job as a waitress.
 * One stage in SD Splatterhouse: Naughty Graffiti for the Famicom featured robot maids who attack by tripping and spilling hot tea on you.
 * Pamela Ibis of the Atelier Iris and Mana Khemia was apparently one of these until she died and became a Cute Ghost Girl. According to Atelier Iris 3, she died because she fell off a stool while trying to get some cooking implements out of a cupboard and landed on her head.
 * Adrian Andrews from Ace Attorney, though it's shown primarily in the third game (her second appearance).

Webcomics

 * Kimiko from Megatokyo, usually limited to her coffee pots at the Anna Miller's.
 * Deconstructed by Steve's new love interest Cosette in Questionable Content, who at one point had a black eye and crutches.

Web Original

 * Survival of the Fittest's Lucy Ashmore has her moments, such as spilling school supplies all over the place when opening her pencil case, or accidentally pouring water on someone's leg. However, this is more out of nervousness, due to being picked on.
 * The former half of Alice and Kev was simulated with the "clumsy" and "unlucky" traits. The first time she was invited into someone else's house, she broke everything he owned.
 * The ever Genre Savvy Mac of Tales of MU at one point even acknowledges that she hasn't had her "daily pratfall" and worries when it will happen. This is, presumably, one way to cause her to appear less threatening, considering her status as a half-demon with super-strength and the ability to conjure fire essentially at will.

Western Animation

 * Amy Wong from Futurama
 * June and Loopy of KaBlam!!, as an entire episode was about Loopy's clumsyness and June can be shown a bit clumsy herself.
 * Jeanette from Alvin and The Chipmunks.
 * Bridgette from Total Drama Island is the cute surfer Granola Girl of the team, who seems to only be coordinated in the water. She's messed up several challenges by being a spaz.
 * Daphne in the early days of Scooby Doo.
 * Melody on Josie and the Pussy Cats.
 * The Jabberjaw Bubbles. The Bubbles on The Powerpuff Girls has some random moments of ditziness but she balances it out with some common sense that her sisters are unaware of and don't possess.
 * Girl of the Week Annie from Generator Rex serves as a rather terrifying parody of this. Within the time span of one date, she has managed to put Rex's life in danger no less than ten times.... and it's implied that he only survived that long because he happens to be a superhuman Swiss Army Hero. Previous dates were... less lucky.
 * Irma in the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when she gets the big role in an episode.
 * Sweetie Belle from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, who can invoke Disaster Dominoes in a dress shop just by fetching a spool of ribbon.
 * Derpy Hooves, who manages to continue to break things by sitting down and doing nothing as ordered.
 * Dr. Roxanne "Rocky" Ballentine from the Mysteryofthe Batwoman Dini-verse animated Batman movie.

Real Life

 * There's actually a real-life psychological phenomenon similar to this known as the pratfall effect, where a person is likely to find an attractive person even more attractive if he/she makes a visible but harmless screw up.