The Female of the Species exists in The Boys comics in the exact way her name suggests. She’s more of a category than a fully realized character. She’s violent, feral, barely speaks and will rip people apart if they touch her. And the story doesn’t bother to ask why she’s the way she is. She doesn’t even have a name.
Then the TV adaptation from Amazon took that same concept and gave us Kimiko Miyashiro. This version of The Female is a woman whose silent nature carries more weight than most characters. It’s one of the most jarring differences between the comics and the series. But it’s also one of the best decisions the creators made.
Who is The Female in The Boys Comics?
The Female in Garth Ennis’s comics was born in Japan to a mother who worked for the Japanese equivalent of Vought-American. Her mother would bring her to work and keep her under her desk because she was too cheap to hire a babysitter. One day, the baby crawled into a laboratory and fell into a vat of Compound V waste. The incident gave her enhanced strength, durability, speed and the uncontrollable urge to kill.
She’s captured and kept as an experiment where her blood was extracted to study the effects Compound V had on humans. At some point before the comics start, she was rescued by Billy Butcher and the Boys and became a member.
The comics portray her as a living weapon. When she isn’t satisfied with her kill count from missions, she works as an enforcer for the Mafia.
Despite her violent nature, she does have a soft spot for animals. The only member of the Boys the Female is close to is the Frenchman who acts as a caretaker for her. Near the end of the comics’ run, the Female was killed along with the Frenchman when Butcher blows up the Boys’ headquarters during his mission to destroy all superheroes.
The Female’s story arc isn’t necessarily bad writing for what the comics are trying to do. Ennis wrote The Boys to be excessive, pushing every button imaginable. The Female is a parody of ultra-violent characters in comics who are defined by their carnage and nothing else.
But it would have been nice if we’d seen other sides to the Female’s personality. To watch her question and try to fight that urge to kill or see her bond with other characters besides the Frenchman.
How the Female Became Kimiko
While adapting The Boys for Amazon Prime, the creators decided to completely reimagine the Female.
They gave her the name Kimiko Miyashiro, who was born and raised in Japan. She was kidnapped as a child alongside her brother Kenji by the Shining Light Liberation Army. She was injected with Compound V against her will and forced to become a weapon for terrorists. When we meet her, she’s been traumatized, dehumanized, and turned into the feral, bloodthirsty supe the comics version starts off as.
The difference is the show recognizes this characterization as a starting point, not a dominant part of her personality.
Just like in the comics, Kimiko is selectively mute due to the trauma of part of the Shining Light. The show’s ASL couch Amanda Richer created Kimiko Sign Language, a unique sign language Kimiko used with her brother. When she teaches it to Frenchie, it becomes an act of trust and intimacy. She’s choosing to let someone into her world.
This is the kind of character work the comics never attempted. The Female doesn’t have a private language because she doesn’t need one. She doesn’t have preferences, hobbies, or much of a personality. Kimiko is implied to be very intelligent, loves music and dancing. She even has a dream sequence in Season 3 where she imagines herself singing “I Got Rhythm” with Frenchie in a hospital.
These aren’t random details. They’re evidence of a person who exists beyond her role as the muscle for the team.
Violence as a Character Study
Both versions of the character are extremely violent. The Female disembowels her victims in the comics, while Kimiko has no problem ripping someone’s face off with her bare hands. The difference is how that violence affects them.
The comics present The Female’s brutality as a part of the entertainment. Her sadistic tendencies are a natural extension of the comics’ brutal, exaggerated tone.
For Kimiko, the TV series turns her violent ways into a source of internal conflict. She’s a walking contradiction. A woman capable of extreme brutality yet is horrified at herself whenever she indulges in her killer instincts.
This comes to a head in Season 3. In episode 4, “Glorious Five Year Plan,” Soldier Boy’s blast strips Kimiko of her powers. She’s initially relieved, thinking that without her abilities, she might finally be normal. When she’s kidnapped by one of Frenchie’s old enemies, she kills one of her captors while still powerless.
That moment leads to a breakthrough for Kimiko. The violence isn’t because of the Compound V. It’s her. It’s always been her. Deep down she realizes she’s using her powers to justify any violence she might want to commit anyway.
In episode 7, “Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed,” she makes a choice to inject herself with Compound V, willing to regain the powers she thought she wanted to lose. She tells Frenchie she’s doing it so she’ll be able to protect the people she loves.
The comics never really dived into the whys that fuel her behavior. The Female kills because that’s what she does. Kimiko kills and then has to decide what that makes her.
Kimiko’s Relationship with Frenchie
The Female’s connection to the Frenchman in the comics is barely a relationship. It’s clear that he cares about her and can sometimes calm her down. That’s about it.
Kimiko and Frenchie’s relationship in the show is one of the most interesting dynamics in the entire series. Frenchie sees her as a person when everyone else sees a monster. Eventually, Kimiko trusts him enough to teach him her private language.
Their bond evolves slowly, the mutual understanding between two people who’ve been used as weapons. They’re best friends and life partners with their relationship turning romantic at the end of season 4. The show uses their relationship to reveal who Kimiko is: someone capable of love despite everything that’s been done to her.
What Kimiko’s Transformation Says About the TV Adaptation
The Boys TV series has a complicated relationship with its source material. It keeps the satirical edge, but it also adds emotional depth that the comics often treated as weakness.
Kimiko represents that philosophy at its best. The show took Ennis’s excessive, shallow approach and asked, “What if we made people care about this girl?”
The result is a character who’s more compelling than her comics counterpart. She’s more complex and interesting to watch. Her violence is still gruesome, but it also challenges Kimiko to confront some ugly truths about herself. The comics gave us a monster in the shape of a woman. The show gave us a woman grappling with the monster she’s been forced to become.
