Coco Bandicoot

**Coco Bandicoot** is the main tritagonist from the *Crash Bandicoot* games.

The highly intelligent and spirited younger sister of Crash. Like Crash, Coco was also an ordinary bandicoot until she was taken from the jungle and genetically enhanced by Doctor Neo Cortex.

In the AWA fics, Coco is set to appear in a future AWA storyline.

## **Appearance**

In contrast to Crash's cartoony physical appearance, Coco's figure is more svelte and realistic. Like most characters in the series, her stature is inconsistent, frequently switching between being shorter or taller than her "big brother". In all of her appearances, she is shown to have green eyes, a full head of blonde hair, usually tied up in a ponytail, and with a blue/pink/purple/green flower stuck on the side. From her first appearance up to Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, Coco wears a white shirt, light-blue overalls (with one strap undone), pink shoes and hair tied up at the back. Starting with Crash Nitro Kart, Coco changed from a young girl to a grown-up teenager. Although she still wears a flower in her hair, Coco's clothes and physique became visually more mature and feminine. She also wears sky blue jeans with pink stripes and a white midriff-baring T-shirt with sky blue trims a pink petaled smiling flower on it while her shoes' soles were slightly heightened, making her a little taller. She wears the same outfit in Crash Twinsanity, though her jeans now have dark blue; she also wears her jeans tucked into the back of her shirt and reveals her stomach. In Crash Tag Team Racing, her outfit was altered: her flower symbol was replaced by a red star, her shoes gained orange lines and her jeans appeared to be denim and have a white belt to hold them up, she also no longer wears her jeans tucked into the back of her shirt, revealing Coco's back side along with her stomach. An unlockable costume in the same game has Coco dressing up in a blue and pink princess attire.

In Crash of the Titans, Coco's attire is very similar to what she wore in Crash Tag Team Racing, though the sleeves on her T-shirt have become a light-blue color. Coco does not wear her hair in a ponytail or wear a flower in it in this installment, instead having her hair straight down and wearing a blue headscarf and is seen as much more grown up. The shape of her head is also altered. Coco's design is altered once more for Crash: Mind Over Mutant, in which her head is back to the original shape. She once again wears her hair in a ponytail with two strands up front, wears goggles on her forehead and has larger, more expressive eyes. Coco now wears a pendant bearing a symbol of a cog with a heart-shaped hole over a lightning bolt (which is imprinted on the soles of her shoes). Her jeans also became yellow with a holster for a flashlight, kneepads and her shoes went from pink to brown. She can also wear her Titans clothes as a skin, with her sleeves and jeans now a faded purple.

Coco's design in Skylanders Academy seems to be a combination of her appearance in Crash of the Titans and Mind Over Mutant, with her pants being brown, a holster for her boomerang and gloves with metal knuckles just like Crash.

The N. Sane Trilogy has Coco return to her original appearance, with her T-shirt now having pink trimmed sleeves, she wears pink eyeshadow and her overalls now have denim detailing and belt loops.

## **Personality**

From the moment she is introduced, Coco is established as an "annoying younger sibling" sort of character and uses Crash to perform certain errands whenever she sees fit. Her work ethic can be best described as domineering; most of the time, she only works on what she wants to do and largely ignores what really needs to be done, such as cleaning the house (as displayed in Crash: Mind Over Mutant). Despite this, Coco is generally depicted as responsible, smart, kind-hearted, good-natured and high spirited, her educated wit often contrasted by an innocent demeanor. Despite their contrasting personalities, Coco is far from prissy and is generally tolerant, if not outright amused by Crash's behavior. She also shares his altruistic code, even to some enemies (as Crash had taken sympathy on Krunk in Nitro Kart, Coco felt pity for Nash, using her hack smarts to make the "poor shark thingy" take a long needed nap).

She is great with technology as she carries a pink/turquoise laptop occasionally and is skilled at hacking, as seen in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, when she intercepts Cortex's messages to convince her brother not to listen to him. Below the Bandicoot House lies Coco's VR Hub System, which resides in a secret lab seen in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. It works similar to the Time Twister in that it can warp to different places around the world, the only difference being in the present time. She is a fan of martial arts films and masculine sports such as wrestling and NASCAR, stating that she could be. In Crash Tag Team Racing, Coco's personality is different: she is more preppy, loud, ditzy, sassy, often take eccentric poses, and has liking of beauty and shopping. Coco has an unexplained grudge against Nina Cortex starting from Crash Tag Team Racing, something that ends up requited after she openly competes for superiority above her in Crash of the Titans.

Coco is generally depicted a lucid foil for Crash, often taking the role of straight man or spokesman whenever Aku Aku isn't around. She is not without her own dizzy moments however, and is certainly not immune to the same slapstick buffoonery that so often befalls her brother.

## **Abilities**

Coco possesses most abilities that are shared with her brother, Crash, with the exception of immunity from mind control. However, she's not as physically active as Crash.

* **Scientific Genius**-**Level Intellect**-Coco's most notable trait is her high intelligence; her intelligence quotient is said to be as much as 164. With such high intelligence, Coco is able to create a number of complex machines and hack into virtually any computer. She also was able to construct an entire warp room in the house for traveling across the globe (Wrath of Cortex).
* **Expert Combatant**- Aside from her high intelligence, Coco is able to physically fend for herself, knowing an array of martial arts leg moves, one powerful enough to create a large shock wave and she can also spin like her brother can.
* **Aptitude**- Coco is also shown to be a skilled scooter, snowboard, tiger, airplane, spaceship, kart, and tank rider. She's also a fast learner, picking up information and creating new machines or gadgets faster than Dr. Cortex with greater reliability.

## **Trivia**

* Coco's voice actress is one of the only three listed in the credits (and using real words) in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back.
* Vicki Winters did not do any further voice acting roles because she was not "well known" enough, despite wanting to continue working with Naughty Dog. More info can be found in this video.
* Debi Derryberry, the voice actress for Coco, is also the voice behind many TV characters, such as Jimmy Neutron. Coco and Jimmy actually have a lot in common, for they both have several "nerd" qualities.
* In one of her artworks, she is seen holding a TNT Crate, however, the TNT crate would normally begin a countdown and then explode.
* Coco has her own theme in Crash Bandicoot 2 which plays during her holograms, although it's not easy to make out as it is masked by her dialogue.  Josh Mancell has uploaded a pre-console (uncompressed) version of the theme onto his SoundCloud.
* In Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, if Crash approaches one of Coco's levels, he falls on his face before he can reach the warp orb, allowing Coco to enter the level.
* She was the only other playable character in the main continuity until Crash Twinsanity was released.
* She is the second character to gain a power or ability; the first and only other being Crash.
	+ However, the only powers she receives from Crash are the improved Stomp (Belly Flop, called Stomp when used by Coco) and Dash powers. She cannot use the other powers Crash receives.
* She is also the only character in the Crash series known to speak in "Leet" (internet slang). This is demonstrated in Crash Nitro Kart. Two of her quotes are "Roxxor!" and "Suxxor!" These, when translated out of "Leet": mean "rocks!" and "sucks!" respectively.
* Along with Crash, Doctor Neo Cortex and Doctor N. Gin, Coco is one of the only characters who is playable in all the racing games.
* Despite officially being set before Crash Nitro Kart, Coco's design in Crash Twinsanity is largely based off her Crash Nitro Kart one. Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure/XS and Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced are officially set between Crash Twinsanity and Crash Nitro Kart, but Coco is depicted in her Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped design in those games.
* In Crash Team Racing, Coco has her own race track known as Coco Park. The track is built as a fairy tale-esque land with lush greenery, flowers everywhere and a medival village. In the Nitro-Fueled remaster of the game, giant statues of Coco can also be seen throughout the track.
* According to the qualifications here, she breaks the fourth wall numerous times in the latest Crash installments by referring to things such as NASCAR, Hungry Hungry Hippos, and TiVo. She also uses leet speak in CNK and hums the theme song, which can also qualify.
* Coco apparently misses her mother, as stated in one of her quotes in Crash Tag Team Racing when she's hit by Crash: ("I'm telling mom... if we had one").
	+ In Crash Mind over Mutant, sometimes when Crash attacks her, she will say "I'm telling Mom...Who is she anyway?.
* She was originally meant to be playable in Crash Twinsanity, where she would assist Crash and Cortex. Like in Wrath of Cortex, she would have her own levels which include one where she rides an ostrich, fighting a virus/or lab assistants and an underwater level (both reminiscent to Naughty Dog's Crash).
	+ She was also planned to have a 10th Dimension counterpart known as Evil Coco, similar to Crash's counterpart Evil Crash. Evil Coco was cut from the final product.
* In Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, the sunlight spots on Coco's hair are permanent, no matter which way she is facing, due to being directly painted into her texture.
* Except for Crash of the Titans and Crash Nitro Kart 3D, Coco has always had her hair in a ponytail.
* Coco is 1 of 9 playable female characters within the Crash series: the other 8 being Tawna, Yaya Panda, Pasadena O'Possum, Nina Cortex, Isabella, Megumi, Ami and Liz.
* Coco's laptop was always pink in the Naughty Dog games and The Wrath Of Cortex. However, in Crash Nitro Kart, it became the same shade of blue as her jeans.
* In Crash Team Racing, when Coco loses, there is the Naughty Dog Logo on her laptop that can be seen when she comes in second place. When she comes in third place, you can see the Naughty Dog signature paw print on the screen.
* Coco has 2 outfits she was meant to wear but weren't seen: in Warped, she wore a biker outfit consisting of a white top, black skirt and heels (suggesting she might have been planned to be playable in the motorcycle levels before they became restricted to Crash) while in Tag Team Racing, she was supposed to wear a costume resembling Pura.
* Coco's four English voice actors are Vicki Winters in 1997, who first appeared in **Crash 2**, Hynden Walch in 1999 for Crash Team Racing, Anna Garduno in 2000 from Crash Bash despite being uncredited, and Debi Derryberry in 2001 to present beginning with The Wrath of Cortex.
* She's the only character in Crash Nitro Kart to have five fingers (counting the thumb) on each hand while the rest have only four. In every other title she only has four fingers.
* If Coco is left idle in the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, one of her idle animations will have her pull out a phone and answering it, similar to Crash pulling out his yo-yo and playing with it. On some occasions, the phone will spark, causing Coco to throw it in the air shortly before it explodes.
	+ While the exploding phone does not hurt Coco directly, it is capable of breaking open any crates directly beside her and above her, including TNT and Nitro crates.
	+ On the back of the phone is the Naughty Dog paw-print. This is one of the many Naughty Dog references in the game, and the second that she makes directly herself, the first being the usage of Uncharted 4 imagery on her laptop in the intro to **Crash 2**.
	+ Coco's phone also appears in her idle animations in Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled.
	+ Curiously, when Coco answers her phone, the speaker is lined up to the side of her head as if she had human ears, as opposed to her actual ears which are placed on the top of her head.
* On multiple occasions in the N. Sane Trilogy, Coco breaks the fourth wall by showing her irritation to the player. These include during one of her idle animations, if you miss enough crates in Crash 1 and when running into an explosive in the jet-ski levels of **Crash 3**.
* In the Japanese epilogue of Crash Bash, it is stated that Coco dreams of becoming an idol singer. When her computer generates a holographic image of her future self as a matured music star, Crash briefly mistakes it for Tawna. If this hologram is accurate, an older Coco might bear a strong resemblance to Crash's former girlfriend.
	+ In addition, the outfit Coco's adult form wears is Isabella's.
* In Crash Nitro Kart during races, Coco wears her jeans fully tucked into her shirt rather than only wearing them tucked into the back of her shirt.
* In the original version of Crash Team Racing, in the credits, she is said to have opened her own dating site, while in the remake, she is said to have opened her own video game streaming service.
* According to Charles Zembillas, Coco was probably already a teenager in the Naughty Dog titles. Later games in the series would make this clearer through her appearance and general behaviour. However, whether this was intended or coincidental is not known.