Cute Japanese Girls and the Third Person

One of the cuter — or possibly creepier — things that Japanese girls do is refer to themselves in the third person. A good example of this in anime is the character Fuko from Clannad After Story, who says “Fuko” in reference to herself despite disliking it when people treat her like a child, which is of course part of her moe charm. Usually, Japanese girls will use their own names in place of a first-person pronoun at a young age, then when they start school and begin interacting with other girls will switch to atashi, a feminine version of watashi, the most common word for “I” in Japanese, or possibly the slightly masculine-sounding boku if she’s the tomboy type. Since my own daughter still calls herself by her own name despite being in junior high school, I thought I’d ask her about it. “Well, I can’t go around calling myself atashi [I],” she told me. “It would sound too grown-up, and it wouldn’t go with my personality at all. It sounds much cuter this way.” It’s really amazing how the Japanese have been able to make a simple concept like “I” so incredibly complex.

The character Fuko from Clannad refers to herself in the third person. Is that cute?