Boss

Boss ("Owner" in the Japanese version) is the nickname for the tenants of New Zack Island in Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 and the Venus Islands in Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation. Although never directly seen due to the characters being avatars for the player in both instances, it is heavily implied by various dialogue that the characters are male.

Personality

The owner is shown to be fairly good at catching his female guests by surprise, as can be inferred by the various comments from the girls. He's also somewhat deceitful, as implied by him telling a "history" about how the Venus Islands started involving a mermaid, which he accidentally admitted to Kasumi that he made up. He also made up a Moon Goddess festival, as well as faked a letter from Ryu Hayabusa to lure Momiji over to New Zack Island. The owner is also shown to have a slightly more perverted side to him, although he was shown to be somewhat chivalrous, as he did not take advantage of a drunk Tamaki at one point, and he chose to fold in a game of strip poker against Monica rather than use his winning hand. He is also shown to be fairly charismatic, as several of the girls on the island hold a large amount of respect for him, with one even traveling from her home country specifically to meet with the Owner due to having immense admiration of him. While at times clever, there are instances where he is shown to be lacking in common sense, as evidenced by his ordering 100 cabbages, far beyond what was necessary for their Rival Festival, much to Hitomi and Leifang's chagrin due to their having to prepare all of them. He also may have had a shady background, as implied by Ayane and to a lesser extent Helena, who went to the Venus Islands to investigate the island and its owner.

Appearances

Dead or Alive series

• Dead or Alive Xtreme 3
• Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation

Trivia

• Even though the Owner is heavily implied to be male by various lines of dialogue in the Japanese version (and made a bit more explicit in the English versions due to the girls using masculine third-person pronouns in reference to him in various episodes, and in Tamaki's case, one of her win point animations by calling him a "naughty boy" in a flirtatious tone.), the hands used to represent him in certain episodes have a distinctly feminine appearance. This is also subtly referenced when Luna is selected as a partner, where she says "Owner-san is maybe a woman?"
  • This ended up changed by the time Lobelia debuted, where the Owner's hands were depicted with a more masculine appearance overall.
• In the Japanese versions, the girls address the Owner differently depending on their relationship to or opinion of him. This is toned down in the English releases, where they very rarely directly refer to him in face to face conversations, and generally refer to him as boss (or in the case of Luna in her character episodes, "sir"). In particular:
  • Misaki, Nanami, Elise, Tina, Amy, Yukino, and Shizuku refer to him as merely "Owner" without any honorifics, the first due to her being particularly close to the Owner, the second mostly due to her friend Misaki doing so, the third due to technically being his superior as a result of her being his life coach, the fourth mostly due to her American nationality and partly due to their technically having an equal relationship due to his acting as her social media manager, and the fifth due to her more tsundere-esque interactions with the owner and to a lesser extent acting as a business partner and thus technically having equal standing. There are three exceptions in Misaki's case (when first meeting the Owner, when having to play the role of a rich young lady during a summer festival, and when having to hand over a valentine's day letter). Likewise, Yukino referred to him as Owner-Jan in the first daily login bonus of her debut, and in her second character episode.
  • Nyotengu, owing to her significant age and species, refers to him as "Owner-Domo". On a related note, she also uses the Hiragana spelling for "Owner", while the other girls frequently use the Katakana spelling.
  • Tamaki refers to him as "Owner-Kun", an informal term of address suggesting they are close.
    • Nagisa once referred to him as "Owner-Kun", although in this case it was out of reluctance, as both the boss and Hitomi suggested she act more kind to him to get him to study for an exam relating to retaining his job as owner of the Venus Islands.
  • Fiona, Koharu, and to a lesser extent Lobelia, refers to him as "Owner-Sama", indicating immense respect for him, and owing to their use of the Keigo manner of speaking. It is to be noted that Fiona generally uses the Kanji form of Sama, while Koharu and Lobelia generally uses the Hiragana form.
    • Amy once referred to the Owner as "Owner-Sama" in a Valentine's Day letter (localized as "Dear Owner" in the English version). It is implied she addressed him that way due to inexperience with writing more emotional documents such as love letters.
  • Nagisa frequently refers to him as either "Hentai Owner" or "Erotic Dog" ("perverted owner", "Dirty Dog", "stupid dog", "silly dog" and "idiot dog" in the English localization) due to her distrust of the Owner. Aside from these, she generally addresses him to a lesser extent as Owner-San, and once referred to him as "Owner-Kun" while reluctantly acting as a kind teacher at both the Owner and Hitomi's request. Similarly, she also referenced the Owner as "Anata" ("Honey" in the English localization) while rehearsing an upcoming role of hers as a new housewife. Similarly, she also referred to the Boss as "Owner" without honorifics in the Japanese version of the first Heart-pounding Cadence episode.
  • Kanna frequently refers to the Owner as "Omae", a very rude and informal masculine second person term that's the equivalent of "hey you". In the English localization, this is transcribed as "hey, you", "heeey", and "heeey, yoohoo" among others (and in one case, referring to the Boss as a "little devil" in a flirtatious manner).
  • Kokoro refers to him as "Owner-Han", owing to her Kansai dialect.
  • Sayuri frequently refers to him as "Owner-Chan", due to a holdover from her previous nursing job. This is transcribed as "Little boss" in the English version, or in the case of the initial gacha received animation/no-peek scenario of various live change episodes during her teaser gacha, "Bossy".
  • Leifang once referred to him as "Owner-Ha", which roughly translates to "evil Owner", shortly before "driving [him] out" by beating him up during a Setsubun festival.
  • Lobelia, other than sometimes referring to him as "Owner-Sama", generally refers to him as "Honey", which is a term of endearment.
    • Helena once referred to the Owner as Honey after receiving a bouquet of cymbidium flowers from him in the English version of the game. In the Japanese version, she instead calls him "anata", which, while directly translating to "You", is generally used in a context that implies a romantic feeling for the person.
      • On a similar note, Nagisa once used "Anata" in reference to the Owner (localized as "Honey" in English), due to trying to rehearse an upcoming acting role as a new housewife. She later retained this trait while acting as a mean housewife as revenge for the Owner's ad-libs, although in a significantly more sarcastic manner.
      • Elise, while not adding any honorifics to his name, does use "anata" in reference to him, with it being delivered in the Kanji form (貴方).
    • Fiona after her true color episodes proceeded to refer to him as "Darling" in addition to Owner-Sama, which is implied to be her response to Lobelia's reference to him as Honey.
  • The other girls refer to him simply as "Owner-San".
    • Although Shandy frequently refers to him as Owner-San, she sometimes refers to him as "Fushidarana-Hito" (ふしだらな人) in the Japanese version, which essentially means "slut," usually when he is distracted by her ample chest in various scenes. The English localization tones it down to her simply calling him a naughty boy.
    • Marie Rose in her true color episodes referred to the Boss as "Master" during direct interactions with him, owing to her acting as a temporary servant to him during that time.
• The Owner is friends with the Sensei from Shinobi Masters Senran Kagura: New Link, and is implied to be acquaintances with Gekko and Senko from the same game.
  • He is also friends with the Captain from Alice Gear Aegis, or at least the person who portrays him in a TV series based on the franchise in question.
• Owing to his being an avatar of the player, the boss is never directly seen, with only his arms being visible. In some cases (such as his dancing with Fiona in the latter's level 70 episode as well as talking with Fiona while Lobelia is spying on them in the latter's debut episode), an object obscures him from view when otherwise interacting with one of the girls.
  • The closest to a full view of the owner was during Ayane's level 50 character episode, where his chest is briefly seen while giving Ayane a personal massage (largely due to the animation being reused to a certain extent from Ayane's ending in Dead or Alive Xtreme 3).
  • The owner is briefly seen in Soft ☆ V-Buoy Book Nagisa True Color Edition where Nagisa catches him sulking at the beach over their earlier fight. However, he's largely in silhouette due to the distance, and it only shows the side of his head in a closeup in the next panel. The panel suggests that he has hair reaching to the back of his neck, and that he had a light hair color.
• According to Sayuri in her eighth character episode, Sundays act as the Owner's days off from work.
• According to Patty in her sixth character episode, the Owner loves the romance genre of music.
• The Owner's nationality is unconfirmed, although Tsukushi's third episode implies that he was at least familiar with written Japanese due to his personally creating Tsukushi's Rabbit Scoop Neck and by extension writing Tsukushi's name on there in Hiragana. Similarly, Fiona's third birthday episode implies that he was familiar with Japanese customs, as he explained to Fiona that a Shiromuku (the template for her Freesia-themed birthday dress) was what Japanese women wore as the bride of a wedding.
• According to the event episode arc "After Rain Vacation ♪", the Owner suffers from Astraphobia (fear of thunder), which Kasumi and Fiona (the latter of whom admitted beforehand to having the same fear) discovered while sheltering from a brief thunderstorm. As such, the three kept this a secret afterward.
  • The Owner is also mentioned in a few episodes, including Kanna's character episodes, to be unable to swim, though he apparently got over this by the Rival Festival episode arc Time of Guidance due to suggesting rock-paper-scissors-splash to Elise, Sayuri, and Tsukushi.
• It's implied the Owner has some degree of skills at fashion coordination, although not to the degree of Tamaki, as when Patty and Monica inquired the latter about her cheongsam, she admitted it was actually the Boss who picked it out for her.