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Today's Resolution! I will not trip where there is nothing to trip on! ...Waugh!
—Sae Sawanoguchi, Magic User's Club
The cute, clumsy girl. This character type often incorporates many of the features of The Woobie, but is differentiated from it by her extreme klutziness — she's always falling, or tripping, or banging her head against something (often the male lead's head). She's never seriously injured, though, and she always pops back up with a good-natured, but rueful, smile. She's a favorite Moe Moe archetype, and frequently found as one of the members of The Unwanted Harem.
Like many other klutz characters, a dojikko's clumsiness rarely does her serious harm, but can often set off Rube Goldberg-like chain reactions of disasters. If these disasters tend to take care of her enemies without her even realizing it, she is also The Fool.
While the Dojikko can be a separate character, it is not uncommon for other female character types (especially The Ditz) to incorporate dojikko tendencies.
Eastern Examples
- Mihoshi in Tenchi Muyo.
- Kaho in Sister Princess.
- Minako Aino/Sailor Venus in Sailor Moon, Usagi too but Minako is more well known for her klutziness whereas Usagi is more The Ditz.
- Yomiko Readman of Read Or Die has dojikko traits.
- 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 her transformation into The Dragon.)
- Similarly, Mutsumi Otohime of Love Hina.
- Taeko from Ai Yori Aoshi.
- Nodame of Nodame Cantabile.
- Tashigi from One Piece.
- Sae Sawanoguchi from Magic User's Club.
- Tessa from Full Metal Panic.
- 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.
- Video game example: Colette from Tales Of Symphonia. Her tendency to stumble and fall on the exact thing the party was looking for (a rare book, the off switch for a trap) leads her companions to call it a "divine clumsiness." Which doesn't preclude her being just plain clumsy at times — the room in which the game begins has a Colette-shaped hole in the wall.
- Not only that, but Colette manages to trip and fall over despite being able to fly. That's an achievement in itself. Two of her attacks in battle even involve her falling onto an enemy in an attempt to steal an item.
- Webcomic example: Kimiko from Megatokyo is a bit of a Dojikko, usually limited to her coffee pots at the Anna Miller's.
- 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 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 all her limbs were sliced off by Lucy, and she has to use artificial limbs controlled by her vectors. In fact, they constantly become detached due to her clumsiness.
- One of Doremi's (Ojamajo Doremi) classmates gives her the nickname Dojimi.
- Kimura's wife from Azumanga Daioh.
- Osaka also does this. Sometimes, it's because she's mentally off in space, but as shown with her attempts to play volleyball, she's just naturally uncoordinated.
- 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.
- 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, 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.
- Rikku in Final Fantasy X falls on her rear end so many times it becomes a plot point in an X-2 sidequest.
- 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.
- As a male example, Mario's brother Luigi tends to display this feature, especially in the RPGs and to some degree in the Super Smash Bros series (which actually has this present in gameplay, one of Luigi's special moves has a chance of misfiring).
- Also, Luigi's up B attack ends with him turning upside down and landing on his head, while Mario's up B move is the same thing (but he lands on his feet).
- One of Lucas's taunts has him tripping backwards.
- In fact, everyone in Brawl seems to have an abnormally high rate of tripping.
- Mai's mother in Futari Wa Pretty Cure Splash Star, explained as being due to a lack of sleep—she works as an archaeologist of the non-adventuring kind, and frequently pulls all-nighters.
- This troper feels it necessary to clarify that, yes, you read that correctly. Mrs. Mishou is an archaeologist who, seemingly unique on television, actually spends her time on research and on carefully excavating dig sites with small, precise tools.
- 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.
- 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.
- Taiga Aisaka from Toradora
- Dr. Tearju Lunatique from Black Cat to a very small extent. She trips several times, and each time she has some sort of strange food or something that stains/burns that always lands on Sven. She ruins two of his Fedoras in the course of one chapter (once with a substance that's supposed to be eggs, and again with scalding hot tea). Sven even questions how the hell she managed to trip over her own feet when attempting to carry the tea.
- 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.
- Dino from Katekyo Hitman Reborn! takes this to extremes: when his fellow mafia family members are present, he's especially skilled and all-around awesome. Without them, though, he gets so clumsy that he can't even eat a simple meal without getting it on himself, or walk up or down stairs without tripping and falling (mostly onto Tsuna for added effect.) When the series shifts into action territory, however, this trait seems to be all but written out of the plot.
- Sakura from Sakura Taisen is a little bit of a dojikko, but she's not nearly as bad as Erica 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).
- Chiri from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei tries to be a dojikko 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.
- Haruka Amami from The Idolm@ster.
- Azmaria Hendrich in Chrono Crusade.
- Rio Takeuchi in Spiral is a subversion. She acts like a Dojikko to appear 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.
- Rare 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.
- Sayo in Mahou Sensei Negima, who somehow manages to trip over her own feet despite being a ghost that doesn't have feet.
- Sakuno Ryuzaki in the Prince Of Tennis anime. In the manga she's still dojikko-ish, but 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.
- A very rare example of a dojikko who's not a source of comic relief is Princess Oboro from Basilisk. Her absolute lack of martial arts skills, united with her being a Technical Pacifist and a Shrinking Violet, has made her the "black sheep" of the Iga Tsubagakure.
- In the third Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney game, Adrian Andrews is one of these. Phoenix refers to an item she dropped as being broken "due to human error, or perhaps I should say an error-prone human." Yes, it only adds to her Moe Moe quotient.
- 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 is a dojikko.
- 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 above quote 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.
- Carol from Wild Arms 5. Her regular attack consists of her shooting a rocket launcher bigger than she is, then falling on her butt.
- Mega Man Powered Up for PSP makes Roll look like a bit of a Dojikko — 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.
- If Mikuru Asahina from The Melancholyof Haruhi Suzumiya doesn't do this herself, Haruhi actually goes out of her way to make her drop the tea...
Western Examples
- The title character of Lizzie Mc Guire.
- Tonks from the Harry Potter books, though she's less cutesy than the typical Japanese example. Nearly failed her Auror's exams because of her poor stealth skills, and only passed because of her handy Voluntary Shapeshifting abilities.
- Scrubs had Julie, one of JD's girlfriends of the week (played by Zach Braff's girlfriend-at-the-time Mandy Moore). It comes as a bit of a surprise when Elliot predicts JD to be the one who eventually screws up their relationship. (Surely enough, he does.)
- JD and Elliot do have this as well though, Julie just takes it to the extremes.
- The title character of Ugly Betty.
- Male example: Andy Washburn from the movie Taxi (the American one, not the French one), to some degree: he looks like a normal person while on foot, but behind the wheel, he can't even maneuver a car parked in line between two cars.
- 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.
- Amy in Futurama is described even by the other characters as a "klutz from Mars" and gives precisely the same scream every time she falls over. IN the early seasons, Amy doing a pratfall was pretty much a Once An Episode occurrence.
- In one of the DVD audio commentaries, the writers mention this trait was given to Amy to see if such slapstick humor could be funny if inflicted on a cute female character. (As opposed to The Simpsons, where Bart and Homer were the primary focurs of physical gags.)
- The female lead in Evolution is perpetually tripping over things, walking into walls, etc., to the point that one wonders how she's survived as long as she has.
- Borat sometimes is shown constantly stumbling upon stuff.
- The George Lopez Show had a Recurring Character named Accidental Amy (played by executive producer Sandra Bullock).
- Jessica Alba's character in the movie Good Luck Chuck.
- In the Alexandre Salkind production of The Three Musketeers, Raquel Welch's character Constance Bonacieux, d'Artagnan's sweetheart. 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."
- Exactly What It Says On The Tin: Clumsy Carp from the comic B.C. In one strip, Peter and Thor are watching Clumsy approach from far away, across a flat plain that's totally featureless... except for one small rock, which he duly trips over. Peter turns to Thor and says "Pay up."
- Bella Swan of Twilight seems to have an uncanny ability to lose her balance to the point that she's able to pass off the wounds from a vampire attack by claiming to have fallen down two flights of stairs and through a window without anyone getting suspicious.
- Wall-E has a tendency for falling down things. Having treads doesn't help.
- Claire in My Wife And Kids.
- Police psychiatrist Anne Fortier from the Montreal-made television series Fortier comically klutzes out early in the series to help the police she's working with see her as harmless and cute. She can't maintain the facade when on a case though, becoming brutally inconsiderate of the feelings of others.
- Penlan from the Ciaphas Cain novels.
Penlan? Kasteen looked thoughtful for a moment. Isn't she the one they call Jinxie?
Yes. I nodded. But she's not nearly as accident prone as she's supposed to be.I'll grant you she fell down an ambull tunnel once, and there was that incident with the frag grenade and the latrine trench, but things tend to work out for her. The orks on Kastafore was as surprised as she was when the floor in the factory collapsed, and we'd have walked into right into that hrud ambush on Skweki if she hadn't triggered the mine by chucking an empty food bin away... I trailed off, finally listening to what I was saying. You know how troopers tend to exaggerate these things, I finished lamely.
- Another male example: Bertie Wooster's friend Rev. Harold ("Stinker") Pinker, who - according to Bertie - wouldn't be able to cross the Gobi Desert without knocking something over.
- Francis Veber's comedy Le Chevre uses both male and female versions of this. The female version who fits the above description very well has been kidnapped, and a male character who combines clumsiness with The Man Who Knew Too Little behavior is used to help find her, on the assumption that he will exhibit the same behaviors/take the same route as she did.
- Real-Life Example - If you've got a thing for bald fat men, Adam Savage of MythBusters, as ALL of the crew will tell you, is the guy who WILL hurt himself during production.
- And if Adam isn't hurting himself, chances are colleague Tory Belleci is.
- Young Hercules in Disney's Hercules, due to his Super Strength.
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