‘The Boys’ Star Karen Fukuhara Has Dealt With Violence Like Kimiko
Karen Fukuhara is best known for her role on Prime Video‘s superhero satire The Boys, which just premiered its season 3 finale. And similarly to her on-screen character Kimiko Miyashiro, Fukuhara has unfortunately dealt with violence in real life. Earlier this year, the actor opened up about being the victim of a hate crime, an experience that left her in “shock.”
[Warning: Spoilers for The Boys Season 3 ahead.]
Who does Karen Fukuhara play on ‘The Boys’?
On The Boys, Fukuhara plays Kimiko Miyashiro, better known as “The Female” in the comics. Kimiko arrives in season 1 episode 4, “The Female of the Species.” Throughout the first season, viewers watch as the team slowly puts together the puzzle of Kimiko’s origin after discovering she’s actually a “supe.”
Kimiko grew up in Japan. But as a child, a group of terrorists from the Shining Light Liberation Army took her and her brother. She managed to escape but was taken prisoner and brought to the United States. There, she was experimented on with Compound V as part of Vought’s plan to create “supervillains.”
She was then imprisoned in the basement of a New York grocery store until The Boys freed her. They recruited her to help put an end to Vought. In the series, Kimiko has an especially close relationship with Frenchie (Tomer Kapon), whom she communicates with in sign language.
Karen Fukuhara has dealt with violence in real life
In March, Fukuhara took to social media to share that she’d been assaulted outside of a cafe. She chose not to share a specific location.
“Today I was struck in the head by a man,” she wrote on Instagram after the attack. “This s*** needs to stop. Us women, Asians and the elderly need your help.”
Though Fukuhara noted she was “physically fine,” she went on to detail the experience. She wrote: “I was walking to a cafe for some coffee and a man struck me in the back of my head. It came out of nowhere. We made no eye contact before, I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. It came to my surprise and my hat flew off. By the time I looked back, he was a few feet away from me (he must have kept walking after hitting me).”
Fukuhara, who used the hashtag “Stop Asian Hate” to accompany her post, said she’d thought about confronting the man. But she decided it “wasn’t worth the risk.” She then revealed that she considered taking self-defense classes after the “shock” of the attack. And she called on perpetrators who target “women, Asians, and the elderly” to be held accountable.
Her The Boys co-stars were quick to show their support in the comments. Chace Crawford, who plays The Deep, wrote “F this person!! Hope you’re ok this is awful.”
Jack Quaid, who plays Hughie Campbell, also added: “Karen thank you for sharing your experience. I’m sorry that happened to you. Love you. Here if you need anything.”
Kimiko Miyashiro’s character arc in ‘The Boys’ Season 3
Season 3 of The Boys sees major personal growth for Kimiko, who finds herself continuing to work with the team to take down supes. Kimiko starts to question whether the work she’s doing is actually helping — or whether she’s causing more harm than good.
In one of the season’s more emotional moments, Kimiko tells Frenchie she wants to run off to Marseille with him. He agrees after they finish one final job: to find the superweapon that helped kill Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). After a very NSFW fight scene in episode 4, Kimiko unveils the hiding place of the weapon. But things go wrong when they travel to a Russian lab to find Soldier Boy alive.
Kimiko jumps in front of Soldier Boy’s energy blast to save Frenchie, which ends up stripping away her superpowers. Though she’s happy about this at first, she later confronts Starlight (Erin Moriarty) to get her Compound V from Vought, as she feels she can’t protect Frenchie and the others without it. The season finale sees Kimiko helping to take down Soldier Boy with her superpowers back in place.
