The Future Is The Female
Why The Female continues to be the most compelling member of The Boys.
When a show is called The Boys, the expectation is that it’ll feature a team full of boys. While Butcher, Frenchie, and Mother’s Milk may have previously operated as just a bunch of guys in the past, early on in the series we’re introduced to a new member and she’s a game-changer.
Kimiko Miyashiro, or The Female, is the only girl on a team full of boys, but as the muscle of the group, she frequently proves that she’s no damsel in distress. There is, however, much more to her than just the occasional flurry of violence, and this maker her possibly the most interesting character on Amazon Prime’s The Boys.
Kimiko, better known as The Female, has one of the most tragic backstories on The Boys as years of abuse and mistreatment by the Shining Light Liberation Army has left unwilling to talk. The Army is a group of terrorists that killed her parents and took her brother and sent Kimiko to America where she was injected with Compound V, which would eventually lead her to cross paths with The Boys.
After the team finds out that A-Train has been using the drug, they follow someone to a grocery store where they come across a hideout full of Compound V. However, they find more than they bargained for when Frenchie discovers an Asian female locked in a cell. He decides to free her and after the group gets attacked, The Female springs into action and tears the criminals to shreds. Her savagery would continue throughout the season and her encounter with Black Noir is a brutal knockdown fight that leaves her dead. This leaves Frenchie distraught until he sees her wounds heal themselves leading him to declare her “a miracle.” Compound V has imbued her with superhuman strength, speed, durability, agility, as well as gave her a healing factor that, as proof with her fight with Black Noir, is pretty handy.
With the second season, things got a whole lot more personal for Kimiko. In “Reunion” she finds her brother Kenji in a costume shop where a terrorist is hiding. Kenji, like Kimiko, was injected with Compound V but his powers are more akin to that of a telekinetic. Eventually, Kenji’s path crosses with Stormfront who breaks both his wrists and then his neck in front of Kimiko. This sets The Female’s path for the rest of the season as her thirst for vengeance for her brother’s brutal murder consumes her. During the finale, she’s joined by Starlight and Queen Maeve as the females have their moment in beating down Stormfront before she flies away.
In the comic, the Female of the Species has no name and not much is known about her, including her real name. A lot of what has made her into the violent force of nature she during the series is mostly implied, except for her involuntary exposure to Compound V as she was kidnapped and crawled into a vat of it. She would slaughter guards, escape, and get restrained over and over until enough was enough and Mallory and The Boys came to take her away. While also mute (although there is a hint that’s he cut her own tongue out to prevent speech), the Female still has that insatiable thirst for killing and even used a Supe’s decapitated head as a weapon against another Supe in The Boys encounter with the G-Men.
As the primary physical threat of The Boys, Kimiko is incredibly effective at beating the shit out of anyone that gets in their way. However, she’s also her own person and will go out of her way to do what she feels she needs to do. One thing that keeps her grounded is her wonderful relationship with jack-of-all-trades, Frenchie. Referred to as “mon coeur”, or “my heart” by the Frenchman, she would do anything for him and he would do the same for her. As the only member of The Boys who can talk to her and to calm her down from her moments of bloodthirsty anger (think Black Widow with The Hulk in the MCU but not stupid), their relationship gets rocky from time to time and Frenchie even tells her to “go be a monster” when his attempts at reining her in don’t work. However, the two remain inseparable throughout both the show and the comic and this bond is one of the most entertaining, and heartfelt, one not only on The Boys but on all of television.
But Kimiko isn’t defined as a character by her relationship with a man, she’s defined by how she’s been able to pull through all the shit she’s been subjected to. Sure, it fucked her up pretty bad and she’s got an almost unquenchable thirst for killing, but she’s also proof that not all Supes are dicks like The Deep who hasn’t had near any of the hardships she has. Kimiko is a caring person and The Boys have given her targets to aim all her rage at which, hopefully, will free her of some of the weight that her trauma has burdened her with. She’s capable of human emotion, something that several members of The Seven are void of, and cares when those she cares about are put in the line of fire. This compassion and her ability to kill effectively, make her one of the most loved, and compelling, characters on the show and none of it would be possible if not for the great writing and the performance of one very talented actor.
Most known for her role as Katana in the truly awful Suicide Squad, Karen Fukuhara doesn’t have a whole lot of roles under her belt but it would be hard to tell from her performance on The Boys. Playing a mute character is arguably a tougher job as everything that she wants to say has to be conveyed through her actions and facial expression, but she does it with grace and intensity that match the character from Ennis and Robertson’s comic. Throughout the first season, Fukuhara unleashed Kimiko’s pent-up rage in scary spurts of violence, and in the second season, that ferocity was matched by a sympathetic side with The Female’s bittersweet reunion with her brother and the quiet moments with Frenchie. Should Hollywood ever get their heads out of their asses and cast more Asian roles, Karen Fukuhara’s future on TV and on the big screen will no doubt be bright and enduring.
While some would say the reason that The Female stands out is because of her gender or because she’s the only member of The Boys that has powers, there’s obviously more to her. Combine her tragic backstory and friendship with Frenchie with Karen Fukuhara’s often intense and sometimes disarming performance, and The Female continues to be one of the most interesting aspects of The Boys.
There is no doubt that a showdown between The Boys and The Seven is inevitable as the series continues. Whether like in the source material the rest of The Boys take Compound V to stand a chance against Homelander and his crew or not, what we’ve seen from The Female so far gives them more than a fighting chance.
