Botan

Botan (ぼたん?) is a guide to the Spirit World and a close friend to Yusuke Urameshi.

She is a spirit charged with ferrying souls of the deceased to the Spirit World to face their final judgment. As opposed to the idea of there only being a single one, she is one of many grim reapers. Botan is called Charlene in the Filipino dub of the anime.

Personality

Genuinely helpful and well-meaning, she can be somewhat clumsy and short-sighted. She's also bubbly and cautiously-optimistic, but she can be a bit of a scaredy-cat. She sometimes tends to be a motormouth. She used to view Yusuke as an interesting subject to study until she develops a bond with him, and becomes a valuable ally and close friend. Later, as Yusuke teamed up with Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama, Botan helps the whole team as well.

Appearance

Although she is a Grim Reaper she looks nothing like what people thought of her as to be, and she is quite attractive. Botan has long blue hair pulled up into a ponytail and purple eyes. Her physical appearance generally doesn't change, but at the end of the series her ponytail and bangs have grown a bit longer. She is usually clad in a light-pink kimono with a white obi sash when on duty, but she has been known to wear human clothes. When she's masquerading as the Urameshi team's trainer during the Dark tournament, she dresses formally with a long-sleeve yellow shirt with an orange-yellow camisole underneith, brown slacks, and matching shoes. Early in the series, she disguises herself in the uniform for Sarayashiki Jr. High girls, a blue blouse with a yellow scarf with a blue skirt, usually with white socks or knee socks and dark-colored dress shoes.

Trivia

• Her name means "peony".
• Her birthday is ???, and her bloodtype is ???.
• In the manga, it is said that Botan's favorite holiday is Christmas.
• Botan’s birthdate is unknown according to the manga.
• Botan's ability to stay in the physical realm is changed ever so slightly in the anime, when compared to the manga. In the anime, she mentions she has a "human body", implying it's a container which allows her soul to interact, yet when called back to the Spirit Realm, she simply changes her clothes and flies back. In the manga, however, the container body is left behind, immobile while her spirit flies back, only reanimating once she comes back. It's possible that in the anime, Botan has the ability to make herself tangible to interact with the human world; when she needs to go back to the Spirit World, she becomes ghostly again.
• Because those of the Reikai age slowly, and as evidenced by her comment during the meeting between the group -minus Hiei- and Koenma, about Sensui, Botan is a new and young grim reaper. She was just starting out a few years before the show began, during Yusuke's early childhood.
• Botan is the first person from Spirit World to accompany a spirit detective: Kuroko Sanada went on cases solo. Shinobu Sensui was accompanied by Itsuki, sometime after he was given the title by Koenma. Koenma was also aware of the partnership.
• Botan was ranked as the seventh most popular female anime character in 1993 Animage Anime Grand Prix, the eighth in 1994, and the eleventh in 1995.
• Bingo seems to be Botan's catchphrase in the English Dub.
• Botan is also based on Charon the Ferryman of the River Styx from Greek Mythology.
• According to the English preview for Episode 82, she has the high score on "Ms. Pac Man".
• Her name is Charlene in the filipino dub version of the anime series.

Voice Actresses

• Japanese : Sanae Miyuki
• English : Cynthia Cranz. Courtney Lin (Live Action Series)

Played by in (Live Action) : Kotone Furukawa