Speech Patterns - Sunpoo (Chibi Robot)

Sunpoo (“Chibi Robot!”, 2005)

The ursine stuffed imitation from Nintendo’s eccentric adventure-platformer “Chibi-Robo!” (GameCube, 2005),featured a diminutive automaton, the titular Chibi Robo (ちびロボ, lit. “tiny robot”) whose quest to bring happiness to the household that he lives with leads him to meet a cast of weird and sometimes disturbing individuals, none more so that the living toys of which Sunpoo (サンプー, Sanpû), “Sunny” in the English localisation, is arguably the worst.

Despite his chirpy exterior, beady eyed expression and saccharine manner of talking, this Edward Bear hides a dual side to him, chronic honey addiction. This means that whenever he finds himself lacking said avicultural stuff, he flips from sweet to sour, sporting devilish eyes and fangs. His manner of speaking too switches, as seen here.

When first meeting:

な　なんでもないぷー！　ごめんなさいだぷー！
ハジメマシテ　僕はサンプーだぷー
ちゃんとあいさつするのは今回がハジメテだぷー！
あなた方は？

Na nandemonaipû! Gomennasai dapû! Hajimemashite boku wa Sanpû dapû.
Chanto aisatsu suru nowa konkai ga hajimete dapû. Anata-gata wa?

“Everything’s all-pooh-right! I’m so-pooh-sorry! Pleased to-pooh-meet you, I’m Sunpooh.  This seems to-pooh-be my first time greeting! Who might you gentlemen be?”

And when transforming into his raging self due to a lack of the honey:

ミツを持って来い！　花のミツを！！
さっさと持ってこねぇとただじゃおかねぇぞ！！
ありったけの花のミツをオレの全身にぶっかけろ！！
いてもたってもいられねぇ！！　うぉおおおおおおおおー！

Mitsu o mottekoi! Hana no mitsu o!! Sassato to motte konee to tada ja okanee zo! Arittake no hana no mitsu o ore no zenshin ni bukkakero!! Itemotattemoiranee!! Uoooooooo!

“Bring me some honey! Flower honey! Just shut the hell up and bringme now!
All flower honey ya’ve got,! Pour it over my body!! Even, if yer ain’t able to bloody do so!”

As evident his calmer self uses 僕 (boku), or more often ぼく, its hiragana variant that conveys a softer impression of the pronominal noun that is used by younger speakers and conveys a sense of childishness, fitting for teddy bear. He also uses あなた方 (anata-gata), the most formal way of essentially expressing “you guys.” He ends all of his sentences with ぷー (pû, “pooh”), as an eccentric copula that may very well be a reference to another fictional teddy bear of the same name. Compare this to オレ (ore), an assertive and highly male way of speaking of his raging self, coupled with his ねぇ (nee), the rougher negation compared to the usual ない that also appears in his calmer self’s lines. Here he otherwise uses regular Japanese copula such as だ (da), rather than だぷー (dapû).