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The One Guy
aka: Token Boy
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That's short for "The one guy associated with a team otherwise consisting entirely of females." No need to get rabid jealous, though, guys — this isn't the Harem Genre. At the most, The One Guy will be in a committed relationship with one of the members — or he wants to be. His membership can range from loose ally to close friend to part of the actual fighting team. Either that, or just some guy who rarely ever actually does anything other than serve as a little guy candy. He will usually be involved in plots that require guys, as well as be a non-threatening and harmless crush object for the assorted cast as needed. Could become The Face of the group, should the rest of them lack social skills.
The Spear Counterpart to The Smurfette Principle. Occasionally The Ditz, or serves the same purpose of rounding out the cast as The Face, and for equally uncertain reasons is less likely to occur on evil teams.
Remember, not all characters who serve as the only male in the group automatically count for this trope. If he is the main protagonist, he does not count as this trope.
Not to be confused with That One Guy or Those Two Guys, and unrelated to My Hero Zero.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Orangina mostly always have females, with the exception of four species, and in true fashion, they enjoy a Shirtless Scene in the ads.
Anime and Manga
- Kyohei of Bakuretsu Tenshi: official Dude In Distress and Non-Action Guy, took a part-time job as the team's chef.
- Mamoru aka Tuxedo Kamen of Sailor Moon: Sailor Moon's Mysterious Protector and official love interest.
- The Black Moon Clan in Sailor Moon R is a villainous example. Predictably, Rubeus uses his charms to deliberately twist his minions.
- Dr. Tomoe of Sailor Moon S essentially commands the Witches 5, as well as Kaolinite. In the anime, he turns out to also be possessed, and winds up the only survivor from the Death Busters.
- Tokyo Mew Mew has Masaya Aoyama aka Ai no Kishi/Blue Knight
- Kaito Doumoto of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch almost does the same thing... almost.
- Erio in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS is also the only nominal lead male in the entire main group.
- Mackie in Bubblegum Crisis. Sorta joined by Nigel in 2040.
- Coco and Nuts of Yes! Precure 5, when they're not the Talking Animal mascots. Season two adds Syrup, another shapeshifting mascot.
- Asuta from Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl...er, ultimately.
- Yuuji in Bamboo Blade. Considering the only other males around him are Coach Koujiro and Dan, who has a girlfriend, he's mostly ignored, and he does lampshade this fact.
- There are several men on Martian Successor Nadesico, but only one, Jun Aoi, who is a regular member of the bridge crew (as opposed to a civilian who hangs out on the bridge giving Expo Speak or looking ominous). Akito's also the only male member of the kitchen staff and, for about a third of the series, the only male pilot - however, being the male lead, he doesn't really fit this trope.
- Kyoutaro from Saki. He's the only guy in the Mahjong Club and, from what it seems, the only teenage male in the entire series. He's treated more like Yuki's errand boy, if anything.
- Azumanga Daioh's own Kimura-sensei.
- Akemiya from Sasameki Koto who also blurs this trope by being a Wholesome Crossdresser.
- Makoto from Amanchu!, being Ai's hapless twin brother.
- Komachi from Chu-Bra!!. Thanks to his big mouth, he's the only guy in the Underwear Appreciation Society, and Nayu and her friends are clearly more interested in debating which type of panties fit them best than paying much attention to Komachi.
- Although he's the main character, Shinkuro of Kure-nai is also the only heroic recurring male character. All of the other major characters are female, of varying ages.
- Kada is The One Guy from the Koihime†Musou anime. He shows up in a handful episodes during the second and third season and is the only character that is both heroic and male in the series. All other males are villains, mooks, or just not very good at fighting.
- Akira in Ai Ore Love Me is the only boy in an otherwise all-girls band. Ironically, he's the one with the most feminine looks.
- Mikiya is the only recurring male character among the protagonists of Kara no Kyoukai. He's also a Non-Action Guy.
- Detective Edward from Tetragrammaton Labyrinth. Unsurprising as it is Yuri Genre.
- Keiichi Maebara from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is the only guy in the main cast.
- Homura and Mutsu, from Sekirei, are this to their respective Battle Harems by virtue of males being exceptionally rare. Homura's case becomes a little more.....complicated later on, due to Gender Bender issues. Having been The One Guy and Only Sane Man for the first generation, Mutsu expresses his sympathy to Homura for having inherited that role.
- In Infinite Stratos, Ichika is pretty much the one guy who can pilot an IS Suit.
Comic Books
- Chase Stein of Runaways was the only boy in the group for a short time. Non-powered (after he lost the fistigons); drove the Leapfrog; dated Gert, the girl with the dinosaur.
- Hawk is the only guy in the 2010 relaunch of the historically all-female Birds Of Prey. Obviously, it's because Hawk and Dove are a package deal and his bird motif certainly fits in otherwise.
- In the New 52 Birds of Prey series, Condor joins the originally all-female team in issue 16.
- Scott Lang, the second Ant Man, is the only male chosen by the Fantastic Four to replace them in what's supposed to be a four minute absence from Earth. He joins She-Hulk, Medusa and Johnny Storm's current girlfriend Darla Deering a.k.a. Ms Thing.
Literature
- Theodore "Laurie" Lawrence of Little Women: next-door neighbor, in love with Jo, got over it (despite the screams of the fandom), fell in love with and married her sister Amy.
- Logan of The Baby Sitters Club: Mary-Anne's boyfriend.
- Damian in The House Of Night, who also counts as a Token Minority, since he's gay.
- The first series of Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic quartet has Briar Moss as the only dude. They even live with two foster mothers, with Niko visiting only occasionally.
- It's worth noting that Briar is the only male main character in not just this series but any of Tamora Pierce's books.
- The Gunnery Officer on the ScreeWee ship in Only You Can Save Mankind. Since ScreeWee gender politics are exactly opposite to human ones, he's inclined to over-compensate.
- In the Discworld book Monstrous Regiment, the lieutenant turns out to be the only male in the entire squad.
- Mark is the only boy in the family in Half Magic.
- In many Nancy Drew stories, Nancy's boyfriend Ned Nickerson counts compared to Nancy, Bess and George.
Live Action TV
- In Smallville, interestingly, for some time in the middle seasons - after Lex and Clark's friendship turned sour - Clark becomes this between Chloe, Lois, and Lana. Makes the Beach Episode awkward.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer played this to the hilt, with the Scooby Gang's makeup became increasingly female starting with Season 5. After Spike left near the end of Season 6, Xander was temporarily the only male Scooby in Sunnydale (until Giles returned in the last episode). The male demographic increased in Season 7 with the return of Spike, but the arrival of the Potentials permanently shifted things towards the female side.
- Xander lampshades this in one episode when he says that the Magic Box is like "NORAD, and we're at DEFCON 1" and the room full of women just stare back at him, prompting him to sigh "I so need male friends."
- Continued in Buffy Season 8, at which point Xander is pretty much the only guy in the gang — which now includes a whole bunch more women. (Plus Andrew and, albeit temporarily, Dracula of all people.)
- Anthony Bouvier of Designing Women.
- V.I.P. has Quick. Being black also makes him a Twofer Token Minority in that series.
- Leo from Charmed, sometimes (male police officers were sometimes prominent, and there was Cole whenever he was on the good side of the Heel Face Revolving Door.)
- Bosley in Charlie's Angels
- Army Wives has four army wives and one army husband. But to be fair, the military husbands and military wife are prominent characters as well, so it feels more like an even gender balance.
- In Pushing Daisies, out of the main six characters, only two are male (although two of the women are missing from a fair few episodes).
- Henry Rush in the 1980s sitcom Too Close for Comfort. Subverted in the second season when Jim J. Bullock (Monroe Ficus) was promoted to series regular status.
- Allen Anderson of the regular kids on Punky Brewster. He left at the start of season 3 (and boy, did it break Punky's heart).
- In New Girl Schmidt is this at his job. Rather than a dream job for him, though, his work is dismissed, he's sexually harassed by his superiors, and treated as being inferior to all the women at his job. Not played for laughs all the time.
- As a first in Super Sentai History, Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger plays this trope straight with 1 male Ranger and 2 female Rangers.
Professional Wrestling
- WWE's "Santina Marella" during the "Miss Wrestlemania 25" match.
- Cute Kip, the only male member of TNA's The Beautiful People
- When Vickie Guerrero formed an alliance with Lay Cool, her boyfriend Dolph Ziggler became the one guy of the pseudo stable.
- During WWE's "Attitude Era", the stable Pretty Mean Sisters (Jacqueline, Terri Runnels, and Ryan Shamrock) had "Meat" (aka Sean Stasiak), who was passive and obedient to all three, and heavily implied to be their sex slave.
Video Games
- Touhou has such a powerful Improbably Female Cast that even these guys are marginalised. The only known males in Gensoukyou aside from briefly-mentioned background characters are Genji (Reimu's former assistant, is a flying turtle, hasn't been seen since the PC-98 games), Unzan (Ichirin's assistant, doesn't have a single line, is an angry pink cloud, and is so manly despite all this he's an Ensemble Darkhorse), and Rinnosuke (only appears in one Expanded Universe manga). Word Of God is that there are plenty of males, it's just that most of them don't fight so the player doesn't see them.
- "Miss X" in SNK Gals Fighters, who's really just Iori Yagami in Incredibly Conspicuous Drag.
- Emon Five, one of the selectable heroes in Otomedius, is literally the only male shown in the entire game. The other characters on the team don't seem to know why he's even there.
- In Final Fantasy V, Bartz becomes The One Guy of the party when Galuf is replaced by Krile. Humorously enough, it was originally a case of The Smurfette Principle, as the party is made up of four members, with Lenna being the only one openly female, as the fourth member, Faris, tried to masquerade as a man due to being raised by pirates and becoming the captain.
Web Comics
Web Original
- Whateley Universe has Lancer, the only guy in Team Kimba, however there are plenty of reoccuring male characters outside Team Kimba. Also somewhat subverted in that Lancer used to be female.
- Phase is another guy on Team Kimba, but most people wouldn't know that looking at him, due to his mutation turning him into an intersexed hot chick physically. He gets almost as much pronoun confusion as the J-Team out of it.
Western Animation
- Caleb of WITCH: The Sixth Ranger, Badass Normal love interest for Cornelia and in the comics, for Queen Elyon.
- She Ra Princess Of Power featured Archer Archetype and Master of Illusion Bow. Bow is one of the only recurring non-villain male character, besides He-Man's frequent cameos. The vast majority of enslaved townspeople the Rebellion rescues are male. The Sea Hawk and his crew. And there's Kowl and Light Hope; none of them human and none of them even remotely likely to be Love Interest to anyone, but both of them male and both of them major enough characters to be explicitly mentioned in the opening.
- My Little Pony And Friends has Spike, at least until Danny comes along.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has Spike again, although in Season 2 Big Macintosh was promoted to share this slot with Spike, usually trading off. If one is missing chances are the other one is hanging around.
- Huckleberry Pie from Strawberry Shortcake.
- Rick in Polly Pocket. He's the only boy among Polly's closest friends.
- Tuck is the only male member of the Wonder Pets.
- In the 2010 reboot of Pound Puppies2010, Patches is the only boy in the Super Secret Pup Squad, (which he is The Leader of).
- Steven Universe has the titular character, the youngest of the Guardians of the Universe, the other three of who are female: Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl. Also making him the Odd Name Out.
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