Token Human

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Fry: So, who's that weird-looking guy?
Bender: That's a human.
Fry: What's he do?
Bender: Eh, the usual human stuff. He laughs, he learns, he loves.

Fry: Boring!
—Futurama - "I, Roommate"

Carlie: But you're not an alien robot.

Spike: I'll fake it!
—The Transformers - "Hoist Goes Hollywood"

Much like the Token Non-Human, with a slight twist; in this case, almost the entire cast consists of non-humans, leaving only a single Token Human to round things out. He (or less commonly she) will be among a cast of Rubber Forehead Aliens, Robot Buddies, Starfish Aliens or other, similar beings. Sometimes, the cast will have to make allowances for their Token Human friend's human failings; at other times, some human ability (such as the ability to reach the top shelf, or to immerse oneself in water safely, or simply an immunity to a deadly alien poison) will come in very handy at some point in the plot. These characters often tend to be The Hero (fantastic variant of All-American Face) or The Scrappy. (or in particularly bad cases, both) Sometimes they're only Ambiguously Human.

Generally results from the fact that Most Writers Are Human.

If they're in a Five-Man Band, it's probably a Five-Token Band.

See also Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes and Not Quite Human. Compare and contrast Token Non-Human and Token Minority, as the situation in these universes is more or less the same as those tropes would be in ours. May or may not be an Unfazed Everyman, depending on how they react to their circumstances. If the nonhumans are animal-like, may be a case of Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!. Tends to be either The Load or a Badass Normal

Examples of Token Human include:


Anime and Manga

  • Shirokuma Cafe has Sasako, the cafe's sole waitress and Mr. Handa, the zookeeper. The cafe is run by a polar bear and the zoo employs the majority of the cafe's animal patrons.
  • This is half the premise of Rosario + Vampire:[1] A human gets enrolled in a school for monsters (Although they are Cute Monster Girls).
  • Sensei/Modern Lit is the only significant human in Upotte!!. All the other characters are anthropomorphized guns.

Comic Books

  • The Big Bad of Usagi Yojimbo, Lord Hikiji, is the only human in the setting. He's only been shown unmasked once, right at the start of the series, and creator Stan Sakai has since said he regrets making him human. (Since that time, barring a couple of brief flashbacks where he turns up so heavily armored that his species cannot be discerned, the character has only been alluded to.)

Fan Works

  • Phoenix Wright becomes this in Turnabout Storm after getting summoned to Equestria (allegedly by mistake), becoming the first human to have ever laid feet on Ponyville, much to his chagrin. He doesn't get to stay alone for long though.

Phoenix: Ugh... I've never felt like such a minority in my life!

Film

Literature

Live-Action TV

  • Xander of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. His friends include a Slayer, a Watcher, a pair of witches, an ex-demon, a werewolf, a super-soldier, an Artificial Human, and a couple of vampires.
  • John Crichton in Farscape. Though it eventually turns out that the Peacekeepers evolved from Transplanted Humans
  • Stephanie from LazyTown. She's the only human child, and the only female human, even though her uncle and every other townsperson is a puppet. The other two humans are the hero and the villian. Extra points for being the new kid, totally unfamiliar with the puppets' weird ways.
  • Every now and then, Doctor Who has a situation like this. At one point, the Team TARDIS was three Human Aliens and Tegan, a human from Australia.
  • Mike/Joel on Mystery Science Theater 3000, not counting the various crazy people sending him movies. They both spend most of their time surrounded by highly neurotic robot "friends", occasionally leading to jokes (typically in the host segments) about the 'bots not understanding a human custom or vice-versa.
  • The Muppet Show usually had one human guest and all muppets otherwise, though some muppets are human-like muppets.
  • Every so often, the cast of Being Human picks up one. They tend to not last, though. The most prominent would be Nina (until she is turned into a werewolf) and Lucy (until she was murdered)
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has in its main and recurring cast of characters Bajorans, Ferengi, Cardassians, a Trill, a Klingon, a shapeshifter ... and a couple of humans.

Music

Tabletop Games

  • Can happen in about any fantasy/sci-fi roleplaying game where humans are only one of the playable races.

Video Games

  • Mike in Drawn to Life.
  • The player in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. While not exactly a human at the moment, you were in the future, before you transformed, and are the only human even mentioned.
  • Kirby has Ado and Adeleine.
  • BB Hood in Darkstalkers. Strangely enough, despite being the only human in a game full of bona fide monsters, she's arguably the most monstrous one of them all.
  • In Final Fantasy IX, Steiner is the only full human (if not counting blue-skinned Amarant who might be human) on your team.
  • YOU, the player, in Animal Crossing. (In The Terrible Secret of Animal Crossing, however...)
  • Neo Cortex and his lab assistant in Crash Bandicoot.
  • Sabreman and Humba-Wumba in Banjo Tooie.
  • Karn in the first Breath of Fire game. The protagonist comes closest in Breath of Fire II but is at least half-dragon.
    • The third game in the series has this also, given that the protagonist is a dragon in human form; other characters include Nina the wyndian (winged human), Rei the Woren (anthro tiger), Garr the Guardian (rather demonic-looking fella), and Peco the mutant (sentient onion?) -- this leaves us just Momo. Teepo could count, but he is only in the player's party for the first few parts of the game and is actually a dragon like the main character.
      • Momo has kitsune ears, so definitely is not the token human.
    • The fourth game in the series averts this, as there are no humans in the players party! Protagonist looks like a human but is actually second half of an ancient dragon god and the others being a wyndian, woren, sentient armor, anthropomorphic dog and a humanoid with kitsune-like features.
  • Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik in the Sonic the Hedgehog series until Sonic Adventure (except for Wendy Witchcart). Even now, Eggman continues to be the only human main character.

Web Comics

  • In Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name, Lamont and Worth are basically the only normal humans.
  • Furthia High: Not only the sole human in the cast but possibly the sole human in the world.
  • Tip, token human of Skin Horse, is just as eccentric as his friends, being a Wholesome Crossdresser. Though the rest of the team consists of a transgenic superdog, a crazy zombie, a clockwork killer robot, a swarm of bees, and a helicopter with a human brain in a jar.
  • Billy the Bell Suit Diver from Squiddles.
  • Crack Stuntman from Homestar Runner.

Western Animation

  1. ↑ the other half being Unwanted Harem
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