Bokukko/Playing With

Basic Trope: A usually tomboyish female character who uses masculine pronouns.

Straight: Mariko uses the Japanese pronoun boku to refer to herself.
Exaggerated: Mariko is a Butch Lesbian, is indistinguishable from the male cast and uses ore.
Downplayed: Mariko uses boku, but only with her friends.
Justified:
- Mariko was always surrounded by men and boys, so she picked up their speech patterns.
- Mariko is a female-to-male transsexual, but wishes to keep this fact hidden.
Inverted: Haru uses atashi.
Subverted:
- Mariko uses boku during her first appearance, but eventually she switches to watashi to embrace her femininity.
- A character who appears to be a girl uses boku. This character is then revealed to be male.
Double Subverted: But then she goes back to using boku when she decides to play her favorite competitive sports again.
Parodied: Mariko changed her name to "Boku".
Deconstructed: Mariko uses boku because she's a tomboyish Otaku, and she gets teased by other students for it.
Reconstructed: But then they just get used to it and stop bothering her. Some of the girls even start using it themselves because they think it's cool.
Zig Zagged: Mariko uses boku. Then watashi. Then ore. Then atashi. Then she sticks to wagahai.
Averted: Mariko is standardly feminine and uses watashi.
Enforced: We've got enough of these Yamato Nadeshiko, let's add a cute tomboyish girl in next! We'll get a broader demographic.
Lampshaded: Mariko rants at Iwao saying "I" many times, and he mocks her speech. "Boku wa! Boku wa!"
Invoked: Mariko is very tomboyish, so it would make sense for her to speak masculinely in an anime series.
Defied: Mariko is a Yamato Nadeshiko.
Discussed: "Why don't you use watashi like a normal schoolgirl?"
Conversed: "What's with these tomboyish anime girls using male pronouns? I've never heard a Japanese girl in real life say boku."

Back to Bokukko.