Miss Kimiko-"Kimi" WatanabeFinster as The Regular-Human Infant

**Mrises Kimiko Finster** is .

## Summary

### *Rugrats* (1991)

Kimi was the last addition to the cast of *Rugrats*, making her first appearance in the second *Rugrats* movie, *Rugrats in Paris: The Movie*. She is very joyful and brave. She was introduced as Chuckie's new sister, after her mother, Kira Finster, married Chuckie's father Charles, also known as Chas. This marriage and the changes it brought to the Finster family were used in the series to teach the young viewers, by demonstration, about adapting to such drastic changes caused by remarriage. **In *Rugrats*, the one-and-a-half year old Kimi was portrayed as very brave and often stumbled into dangerous situations she was too naïve to recognize, often bringing her new brother, Chuckie Finster, along, which he didn't like very much. He described her as "another Tommy" not too long upon her arrival. She is just as adventurous as Tommy and cares for her friends. Unlike Tommy, she often takes action first and thinks later. She laughs in the eye of danger and is always looking for an adventure.**

## Character history

### Description

Kimi Finster met the Rugrats when they were on vacation in Paris at Euro-Reptarland, where her mother Kira used to work. Now living with her big brother Chuckie in America, Kimi is always ready to use her imagination to lead the Rugrats on a fun-filled adventure. Armed with her favorite toy "Super-Thing" and a big smile, Kimi will be the first one ready to boldly go where no baby has ever gone before. This sometimes puts pressure on Chuckie, who feels he has to look out for his little sister, which can be kind of hard when she's scared of nothing and he's scared of everything! - *Rugrats* Description from Klasky Csupo

## Looks

Kimi has purplish-black hair tied up in three pigtails on top of her head and wears a yellow overall dress with a blue cat on it, a pink t-shirt, purple cowgirl boots, frilly pink ankle-high socks and wears a diaper underneath.

When she debuted in *Rugrats in Paris*, She wore a yellow short-sleeved dress with her cat on it, but kept her diaper and boots.
In *Rugrats Go Wild*, she wore a green overall dress with an orange fish on it, a yellow t-shirt, and her diaper and boots.
### Infant Kimi's Diaper

In *Rugrats*, Kimi tends to look in his diaper for things that help her and her friends out of tough situations. Her diaper straps will come undone and her diaper will slip down, this can lead to her embarrassment as she is seen pulling it back up while holding it and blushing. Even in the movies her diaper falls down by herself nor his diaper-being•stretched•far-out frequently and shows his backside.

* In the third movie, .

His .

## Relationships

* **Kira Finster** - Kira is Kimi's mother.
* **Hiro Watanabe** - Hiro Watanabe is Kimi's biological father. Kimi knows about his whereabouts in Japan and Hiro comes to visit her in "Trading Places".
* **Wanda Yoshida-Watanabe** - Wanda is Kimi's step-mother who is married to Hiro. Wanda and Kimi didn't meet until the episode "Trading Places".
* **Chas Finster** - Chas is Kira's second husband, making him Kimi's step-father. However, he eventually adopted Kimi as his daughter, which makes him Kimi's father.
* **Chuckie Finster** - Chuckie was Kimi's step-brother until he was adopted by Kira, making him and her just siblings. Kimi loves Chuckie very much and that he's her new big brother. Chuckie tries to protect her, when he can, from getting hurt or in danger. In All Grown Up! Chuckie is still somewhat protective of Kimi as he tries to protect her from Z in the episode called "Bad Kimi". Chuckie also got upset when the gang found Tommy and Kimi's initials carved in the wall in "TP+KF" as he tells Tommy that it wasn't cool to Mack on his best friend's sister. The initials carved into the wall caused Tommy and Chuckie to not only break off their friendship but for Chuckie to be suspicious of Kimi.
* **Kiki Watanabe** - Kiki is Kimi's half-sister who she didn't meet until the *All Grown Up!* episode "Trading Places".
* **Tommy Pickles** - Tommy and Kimi met in *Rugrats in Paris: The Movie* when Kira brought her along. Kimi and Tommy both have adventurous personalities and are always ready for an adventure. In the *All Grown Up!* episode "TP+KF", Kimi mentioned that she had a crush on Tommy after they all found Tommy and Kimi's initials carved in the wall. Tommy and Kimi claimed that they weren't into each other but at the end it is hinted that they both have a crush on each other.

## Conception

Tommy Pickles was one of several characters inspired by the real-life children of the writers and creators of *Rugrats* at the time the show was conceived. Accounts have differed as to who originally created Tommy Pickles. *Rugrats* co-creators Paul Germain and Arlene Klasky have both claimed to have created the character, with both saying he was based upon their real-life sons. Both, however, say the character was named after Germain's son, Tommy Germain, who was one year old when *Rugrats* was created. Tommy Pickles was temporarily named "Ollie" during the show's creation phase before being renamed Tommy. The last name "Pickles" was a name that Germain said "just occurred to me". According to Klasky, Tommy Pickles was first illustrated by Gábor Csupó, *Rugrats* co-creator and Klasky's husband at the time. The character and was drawn to look Brandon Csupó, the young son of Klasky and Csupó, who Klasky described as "pigeon-toed, skinny legs, big head, no hair". Csupó has described Tommy as "a spoof on all little balding babies". After Tommy was first conceived and illustrated, Klasky said the Tommy Pickles character was further developed by Germain in his capacity as the story editor, along with his writing staff. Writer Steve Viksten portrayed Tommy as more adventurous than the other characters, and partially modeled the character after the actor John Wayne. Viksten wrote the line: "A baby’s gotta do what a baby's gotta do", which became synonymous with the character. As the series progressed, Klasky inserted more elements of her personal life into Tommy's character, such as being part of an interfaith family and being of Russian Jewish descent.[*citation needed*] Tommy Pickles has been used in various *Rugrats* episodes to highlight and explore irrational childhood fears, such an episode in which he avoids using the bathtub for fear that he will be sucked down the drain.

## Portrayal

Tommy Pickles was voiced by actress E. G. Daily (1991-2008). The voice Daily conceived for Tommy was one of a child character she had been developing since she her youth, and regularly performed to amuse her friends throughout her life. She described as "just a little boy character that kind of lives in me [that] wasn't derived from anything in particular." Immediately upon first seeing claymation of Tommy Pickles, she felt that voice was the correct fit for the character, describing it as "the first voice that came out of me" and "the right kind of voice for that look". Daily said of the character:

> The spirit of Tommy Pickles is definitely my own. I think that was my contribution — my version of my little boy Tommy. I just understood him. He’s genuinely concerned about people. He’s genuinely empathic and definitely has a little fighter’s spirit — a little leader’s spirit. He was just sweet, and I love that I was able to bring that part to him. The part I related to was just wanting people to feel safe. He has noble friend characteristics that I think are beautiful.
>
>

Cheryl Chase had also auditioned for the part of Tommy Pickles and did not get it, but later became the voice actress for the character Angelica Pickles. *Rugrats* was one of the first voice-over auditions in which Daily participated. She almost did not attend because she was having carpet fitted in her apartment and didn't want to leave the workers alone, but her agent encouraged her to go. She replaced a different actress used in the pilot episode, and re-dubbed the first few episodes with her own performance. Daily was pregnant and went into labor during the recording of one of her *Rugrats* episodes. She was having contractions between takes of dialogue, and delivered the baby not long afterward. Daily voiced Tommy for the entire 13-year run of the *Rugrats* television show, and returned to portray the character in the *Rugrats* films and the *All Grown Up!* series. Daily said it was initially a challenge adjusting to an older voice for Tommy in the first episodes of *All Grown Up!*, particularly when the voice cast was "just coming in and trying to define everybody and how they’ve grown".

## Trivia

* Chas legally adopts Kimi as his daughter in "Finsterella" while Kira legally adopts Chuckie as her son. In a legal sense, that technically makes Chuckie and Kimi siblings.
* Kimi is the only Rugrat to never have the camera viewed from inside her mouth, not even in *All Grown Up!*. Though she is seen looking at the camera in someone's mouth, such as Fluffy in "Cat Got Your Tongue?", Harold in "Angelica's Assistant", and an imaginary snow leopard in "The Bravliest Baby".
* Kimi only cries in "Cuddle Bunny", "The Big Sneeze", "Cynthia Comes Alive", "Who's Taffy?", and "Three Jacks and a Beanstalk"; she cries on her own in "The Big Sneeze" and "Cynthia Comes Alive".
* Kimi has only gotten her diaper changed in two episodes: "Finsterella" and "Daddy's Little Helpers".
* Kimi is the only Rugrat toddler not to be seen as a "baby baby" (meaning a baby between the ages of birth up to age one to the Rugrats, who refer themselves as "big babies") and is the only baby not to tell how she walked for the first time.
* Her biological father is Hiro Watanabe.
* Watanabe means "ferryside" in Japanese.
* Kimi is the only main character to have a half-sibling.
* The episode "Kimi Takes The Cake" was aired production wise on October 5, 2002, therefore Kimi's birthday is presumed to be that day. It also possible this is Kimi's birthday as the episode focused on a Haunted looking castle that Taffy was performing at, which could give hint that Kimi's birthday takes place around Halloween. However, the episode didn't premiere in the US until June 8th, 2004, which could also be Kimi's presumed birthday.
* Kimi is the last Rugrat to be added to the cast.
* She was raised in Paris, France.
* In "TP+KF", it is revealed that Kimi has a crush on Tommy.
* Despite being such a prominent character in the later years of *Rugrats*, Kimi did not appear in the Boom! Studios comic.
* in "Mutt's in a Name", she mentions that she was named after her grandmother.
* In the reboot series, she is voiced by Charlet Chung as her original voice actor Dionne Quan retired from voice acting.