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Moe Anthropomorphism - TV Tropes

  • ️Mon Oct 06 2008

Moe Anthropomorphism (trope)

Don't worry, she doesn't sting.... You'll want Waspinator for that.

"You took the hottest card in the game, and turned it into a five-year-old girl. You have issues."

Moefication of either characters who are not normally moe, or objects and concepts which are not even alive. Very popular with Fan Art and merchandise. Often referred to as "gijinka", the Japanese word for "anthropomorphism".

The mecha musume — basically, battle vehicles or Humongous Mecha rendered as cute girls — are a common form of moe anthropomorphism. Can also overlap with Cute Monster Girl if the moefied character is a monster. If the original character is male, Gender Flip may be a component, although boy implementations do occasionally happen, known as mecha danshi.

Could easily be Nightmare Fuel for some, depending on what is changed, what it looks like, and its gender.

Compare Anthropomorphic Personification, Power Harness, Sexy Whatever Outfit, and Ponification (Rule 85). Supertrope to Cast of Personifications.

See also Humanity Ensues (technically unrelated, but can be compared as an in-universe variant thanks largely to the utilization of Morphic Resonance).

Examples: (Note: As all of the below are by definition in an Anime & Manga Style, and almost all of it is fan-art created for the web, they have been sorted by the source material they are based upon.)

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Based on Abstract Concepts 

Based on Advertising 

  • The notorious OS-tans are moe versions of operating systems and programs; their boob size is often proportional to memory requirements. Windows ME-tan is the Ensemble Dark Horse, who became a popular character for her good intentions but decidedly unstable nature (and her cute Idiot Hair). Windows 2000-tan is a professional, reserved woman, Windows XP-tan has excellent graphical capabilities, and Windows Vista-tan has transparencies and even more memory requirements (except for Basic-tan who's a tsundere little girl). Windows 95-tan is a Yamato Nadeshiko carrying a katana, destroying Microsoft's PC competition once and for all, and eats very little memory. Norton Anti-Virus is portrayed as a lecherous, ghostly doctor who makes the girls strip naked even for the most minor ailments; McAfee as a faith healer; and AVG as a handsome student doctor. Also with theme song.
    • There are Linux-tans as well. Linux-tan herself is a bit of a Shrinking Violet, and Slack-tan is a Wrench Wench. There are also Unix-tans, with UNIX-tan herself being somewhat a tsundere. (Here is a pretty good lineup of the major ones.)
    • In Japan, a campaign run by Bing (MSN's search engine) from December 18, 2009-to January 18, 2010, which has closed on February 18, had five mascots: Nanae, Nana, Nanako, another Nanami, and Nanao.
    • Windows 8 now has two official mascots, Madobe Yuu and Madobe Ai (You and I).
    • Microsoft's cloud based Windows Azure platform has Claudia Madobe.
    • Microsoft Singapore turned Internet Explorer into a Magical Girl.
    • This seems like a new trend for Microsoft. Hikaru Aizawa for Microsoft Silverlight and Inori Aizawa for Internet Explorer.
    • Microsoft announced the new OS tan for Windows 10, named Touko Madobe after a naming contest.
    • A similar concept can be found in My Senior IE-kun, a web series about web browsers in a Work Com setting with "IE-kun" as a ditzy Bunny-Ears Lawyer. The series typically uses the browser logos as the characters' heads, but the author did make human faces to make the moe more palatable.
    • Indonesian filtering service Internet Positif got one in the form of Ipo-chan, an authoritative girl with a hair-trigger blocking sense.
    • Unofficially, there is Microsoft Office Danshi.
    • Merryweather's Internet Explorer webtoon personifies its star character as well as other browsers. Notably, it takes more of a Neptunia-esque action/comedy approach than Slice of Life.
  • Akikan! does this for soda cans. These soda girls need carbon dioxide infusions (through kissing) to live. Japan really can make anything moe.
  • Several Japanese railways have their trains Moe-fied.
  • Ryohoji Buddhist Temple in Tokyo-suburb Hachio-ji City successfully raised attendance by anthropomorphizing its patron deities into moe mascots.
  • A magazine ad for the Asus ROG Crosshair IV Extreme motherboard has it in the form of a short-haired brunette in a techno-fetish costume, holding a BFG three times her size and based on the device's design. Not very "moe" but still.
  • Habanero-tan is an incredibly cute pepper thing based on a habanero-flavored snack chip. There's also Jalapeño-tan, Habanero-neesan, and Milk-san. Jolokia-tan, the hottest pepper in the world (at the time) is the Alpha Bitch.
  • Hana no Android Gakuen is a manga featuring moe personifications of Android phone brands (some images might be somewhat Not Safe for Work), along with other phone creators like Apple and Blackberry.
  • In 2019, Arby's had an official version made for a fanart drawing challenge on Twitter, outright calling her "Arby's Waifu".

Based on Animals 

  • Ark Angels features personified versions of various endangered animals as well as of the planets of our solar system (plus Earth's moon).
  • The mobile RPG-turned-anime Kemono Friends originally had magic turn all the female animals in the world into cute girls.
  • Uma Musume features a cast of cute girls based on famous Japanese racehorses. The designs, personalities, and relationships are drawn from their Real Life counterparts, and the series loosely follows the events of the 1998 and 1999 racing seasons. The Shout-out page for its anime documents how much the production team has Shown Their Work. The franchise's manga offerings don't slouch either, especially in the case of Haru Urara Ganbaru!
  • Parasitologist Tommy Leung creates parasite monster girls to get more people to care about parasites and their role in the ecosystem.

Based on Anime & Manga 

Based on Appliances 

Based on Asian Animation 

  • Someone took the Anthropomorphic Food characters from Simple Samosa and turned them into Animesque humans with traits tying them to their original appearances. Samosa has a brown jacket with a texture similar to how he looks in the show; Jalebi has an orange swirl in her hair similar to the large one she originally had; Vada wears an orange headband since he initially had an orange donut shape; and Dhokla has freckles and spots in his hair similar to his original texture, and he wears a Propeller Hat of Whimsy with leaf blades because in the original show he has Plant Hair.

Based on Food 

  • Okayama Prefecture in Japan has anthropomorphized their prized homegrown-jellies into moe girls.
  • [[Gum Kare! https://web.archive.org/web/20150329061401/http://crazygum.tv/gumkare/ Gum Kare!]] personifies chewing gum brands into hot, dateable young men. Played with in terms of the protagonist — she's supposed to represent the mouth eating the gum, so she's portrayed as a moe photorealistic tooth.
  • The majority cast of Fruits Fulcute! are of fruits depicted as cute girls, including apples, oranges, lemons, etc. Not only that, there are other loosely related personifications, like vegetables such as carrots, other edible plants like vanilla, and even foodstuff like tofu and honey.
  • Sanrio gives us Kirimi-chan, a moe anthropomorphism of salmon fillet. She's also joined by friends based on chicken cutlets, mackerel, sharks, and many more. Taken even further with the official personification project, essentially moefying moe anthropomorphisms.
  • Tsukipro has Swiiiiiits!, a collaboration with Glico, the snack brand that makes Pocky. They are an idol unit based on Glico's snacks. It started with Half-Identical Twins Lico (representing Pocky) and Gli (representing Pretz), but in April 2018, they introduced four new members, all bishounen, bring the unit more in line with Tsukipro's other Cast Full of Pretty Boys moe-anthro idol units (based on the months of the year, the four elements, birthstones, etc.)
  • Food Fantasy turns dishes from around the world into cute girls and boys.
    • Following in its footsteps come (defunct) Cuisine Dimension where all the food personifications are girls, and Tale of Food where they're all men, and the scope of the cuisine is restricted to Chinese food only.
  • Cocktail Prince is a drink example – cocktails as good-looking men and boys.
  • The short film Baby I Love You da ze features cute personifications of all kinds for Lotte's sweets, from cute kids to attractive adults, to even beady-eyed talking fruit. About the only anthropomorphization that wasn't cute was a man in a squirrel suit, representing Pai no Mi.

Based on Films 

Based on Health & Anatomy 

  • Chintsubu makes penises cute. Sentient talking penises possessed by other male spirits. Yeah. They're actually pretty cute.
  • Problem Children are Coming from Another World, aren't they? has Black Percher being the Moe Anthropomorphism of The Black Death, with her real name being Pestilence/Pest.
  • Parodied in Hitomo no Naka no Ai — the heroine is an anthropomorphic eye floater (as in the annoying semi-translucent protein gunk that can obscure your vision).
  • Cells at Work! veers more towards Anthropomorphic Personification, but the cells that fit this the most are the Platelets, who are depicted as cute, helpful kids.
  • Even diseases are given moe personifications. Ebola-chan and Corona-chan were conceptualized and popularized in their respective outbreaks.
  • The Taiwanese CDC released humanized art of several diseases as well, including COVID-19, measles, pertussis, lyme, an many more. They've certainly Shown Their Work in this regard — the dengue and zika humanizations subtly evoke the mosquitoes known for carrying them!

Based on History 

  • Hetalia: Axis Powers is a notable example of male moe anthropomorphism, featuring countries in human form. Notably, the Holy Roman Empire, who was one of the greatest powers in Europe for almost a millennium, is shown in the form of a cute dorky child.
  • This book (site has some Not Safe for Work ads) about Moe countries, 74 Countries Turned Into Bishoujo, continues the Hetalia tradition, only all-female. And yes, North Korea is included.
    • It's hilarious how England looks almost exactly like Louise.
  • Moe Moe Niji Taisen does this for World War II planes and tanks. They battle by causing Clothing Damage.
  • Strike Witches: Probably the most well-known example for military Moe Anthropomorphism. Not only are the girls a match for WWII pilots of the day, but they also are this for the tech when donning their strike units based on real-life WWII tanks and fighters.
  • There's a bunch of models for AP'd WW2 planes as little girls with the appropriate national costumes and plane parts as clothes/prosthetic limbs. Surprisingly not very moe, or at least their eyes aren't.
  • Afganisu-tan, a Japanese online Yon Koma about the history of Afghanistan. Infamous for presenting the September 11th attacks as a rogue cat (Al-Nyada) biting Meriken.
  • Green Dam, the Chinese censorship/nanny tool once said to be a mandatory installation on all the country's new computers (until the government apparently backed down), was Moefied as a protest. Mildly Not Safe for Work link here.
  • Mari-tan◊, the personification of the U.S. Marine.
  • There was some fanart floating around that moe'd several World War II◊ figures, including Adolf Hitler◊.
  • Just to prove that yes, nothing can avoid moe anthropomorphism, we present you with Japanese-made gijinka of a Chinese slur for the Japanese (ads and much of the other parts of this site are Not Safe for Work).
  • Japanisches Kaiserriech Mitternacht Marine is a webcomic revolving around the various personifications of World War II weaponry, like planes and tanks.
  • Hitler had already gotten the moe-treatment, but other dictators aren't safe either.
  • As an extension of the above, some World War II generals like Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Rommel and Zhukov are also given the treatment, from the same company that brought the "Moe Dictators" series.
  • Koihime†Musou for Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
  • Touken Ranbu has the player bring historically famous Japanese swords to life as a Cast Full of Pretty Boys — Spear Counterpart to KanColle (and it does have actual spears).
    • Color nobody surprised when Touken Ranbu got cute sword girls to rival them: enter Shinken!! and Tenka Hyakken, which pull from the same pools of historical swords.
  • Oshiro Project follows in the footsteps of Kantai Collection and Touken Ranbu by personifying castles from around the world as cute girls.

Based on Literature 

Based on Live-Action TV 

Based on Military Vehicles 

  • Arpeggio of Blue Steel, which actually predates the better-known KanColle, bases its shipgirls on World War II vessels, but unlike in Kancolle, the shipgirls are technically "mental models" which operate high-tech versions of their original warships (complete with Tron Lines). Not surprisingly, Arpeggio of Blue Steel and KanColle have officially crossed over a number of times.
  • Azur Lane is promoted as this trope, with the base skins of every World War II shipgirl sharing features of an actual warship's rigging — for example, destroyers carry torpedoes, carriers have various flight decks and planes, and battleships carry giant guns that are often bigger than the actual girl. The story is a bit more complex since these shipgirls actually are the original ship (more or less) manifested as human girls via Imported Alien Phlebotinum. Additional skins of each ship tend to downplay her warship origin in favor of emphasizing her new fictional human personality, quirks, and appearance (derived from her base skin).
  • Flight Highschool features a high school populated entirely by anthropomorphized military aircraft of various nations from the Cold War to the modern day. Attributes of each character's appearance such as their hair style and height are references to the aircraft they represent. They also have their plane on their back, which is sometimes used for visual gags.
  • Sentou Yousei Shoujo Tasukete! Mave-chan is an entire show based upon Moe Anthropomorphisms of the aircraft from Sentou Yousei Yukikaze.
  • Victory Belles is a relatively rare Western-developed example, with the eponymous Belles being the literal spirits of WWII-era ships. However, unlike most examples, a Belle still needs to rely on a full crew to operate her ship; instead, her presence dramatically improves the ship's firepower, performance, and durability, as well as providing her crew full immunity from the Morgana's toxic mist. Also unusually for the genre, even a handful of sailing ships still active at the time like the USS Constitution and the Amerigo Vespucci have manifested Belles.
  • Similar to Kan Colle and Azur Lane, another mobile game "Metal Waltz" (also known as "Panzer Waltz" in some countries) is full of Moe military vehicles, in this case tanks that are referred to as "Metal Maidens".

Based on Military Weaponry 

  • What about rifles and machine guns made into elementary/middle/high schoolers? That is the premise of Upotte!!.
  • Played with in Girls' Frontline. The game is noted to have used some Insistent Terminology in Chinese adverts to not imply it as a game about anthropomorphized weapons, but somewhere along the lines of "just" Girls with Guns. Despite this, design elements are still mixed with moe anthropomorphism aspects, and most of the T-Dolls under your command are personification of various firearms. This is also justified, as historical and combat data of a weapon are used to determine the ideal physical shape, personality, and even mannerisms to best wield their specified weapon. This is increasingly downplayed (to the point of Early-Installment Weirdness) as the franchise goes on — newer characters often place more emphasis on the Ridiculously Human Robot aspect, and later installments like Girls' Frontline: Neural Cloud and Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium only minimally reference the idea of T-Dolls being personification of their weapons (even then it's more often for continuity reasons).

Based on Music 

  • While all Vocaloid characters are meant to represent the vocal synth they're attached to, some have characteristics of other concepts incorporated into their design.
    • Ryuto, also known as Gachapoid, is a male anthropomorphism of beloved Japanese children's TV character Gachapin. Appropriately, he's personified as a young boy.
    • Hatsune Miku's design is heavily based on the Yamaha DX7 and DX100 synthesizers.
    • Kagamine Rin and Len have elements from the Yamaha EOS keyboard in their design.
    • Kamui Gakupo has many elements of digital music, such as spectrograms and equalizers, portrayed as samurai gear.
    • Megurine Luka has elements of brass instruments in her design.
  • FL Studio (a music synthesizer program) has FL-chan◊, popular among the Vocaloid fandom. Some of the official plugins have these, too, like Harmless-chan◊ (a Cute Monster Girl, ironically) and her counterpart Harmor-chan.

Based on Mythology & Folklore 

  • All of the Spirits in Date A Live are based on the Kaballah Tree of Life's sephirots.
  • Entaku Seitokai (Round Table Student Council) does this for Arthurian Legend. Heroic knights of old turned into the cute girls of today. A liberal amount of Gender Flip is also applied in this instance.
    • The visual novels Knight Carnival! and 12+ also provide moe versions of Arthurian legends.
  • Namu Amida Butsu! and Namu Amida Butsu! -UTENA- – Buddhas as good-looking men and boys.
  • Many shikigami in Onmyoji, especially those at higher rarities, are fetching men and women based on yōkai that aren't humanoid or don't have a form in actual mythology – case in point Shiranui, En'enra, Ungaikyō, etc.
  • The Seven Sisters of Purgatory from Umineko: When They Cry are demonic stakes given the form of teenage girls. Plus, they are each an Anthropomorphic Personification of the Seven Deadly Sins. Nightmare Fuel for most, Fetish Fuel for some, including Battler, who refers to them as "the ass nee-chans".
  • A good portion of Touhou Project characters feature this to some degree or another; for example, Nitori, a Kappa, having the turtle shell and head plate of the actual mythological beast turning into a backpack and a cap, or Yamame, a giant spider monster, being a girl with no monstrous features except for design elements of the dress she wears. Some of the girls, like Kogasa, the Tsukumo sisters and Hata no Kokoro, are tsukumogami, which are basically personifications of inanimate objects, so they are kind of this in-universe as well as out.
  • Played with in an Everyday Comics strip (seen here) about the Seven Deadly Sins. Nearly all of the Sins are represented as voluptuous, beautiful women, to the point where Satan can't tell which is which. The only one who ends up looking different is Lust, who takes the form of a fairly plain looking, eternally horny Otaku.
  • Although subdued due to key characterization, a significant portion of Eversoul's roster are girls whose origins are rooted in mythological artifacts that have been with humanity since time immemorial, significantly outnumbering those originating from literary articles and historical items, with the only outlier so far being Mephistopheles originating from one of The Arks used in an attempt to save humanity from a catastrophic apocalypse. A few examples would be Linzy, Renee, Jacqueline, and Rebecca who all came from Celtic mythological weaponry: the Fragarach, High King Nuada's Airgetlam, Gáe Bulg, and Gáe Buide, respectively.
  • The apply named Seven Deadly Sins line of mecha musume model kits by MS General is a line of figures based on, as the name indicates, the Seven Deadly Sins with each following a theme matching the sin they represent. The first released was Gluttony, going by the hedonism interpretation of the sin and styled after an Ancient Egyptian queen whereas the second is Greed who follows a pirate theme and so on.

Based on Nature 

  • Binchou-tan is an anime about anthropomorphic charcoal in the form of chibi girls.
  • Silver Spoon:
    • The series takes place in an agricultural high school. Nishikawa, who is from a crop farming family but also an anime and gaming otaku, tends to use this trope:
    • When he's given the task to decorate a sled, he decorates it with anthropomorphized moe artificial fertilizers, and names them "NPK48", a pun on AKB48 ("NPK" standing for Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium).
    • Much later in the story he presents breeds of potatoes anthropomorphizing them as various types of girls.
  • In addition to all of the examples in Touhou canon (see "Based on Mythology and Folklore"), Touhou Nekokayou adds Original Character Masha Kinoko, a fly agaric mushroom youkai and absolute moeblob.
  • Mandrake Boys is an idle Mobile Phone Game where the player grows all kinds of plants, from bell peppers to azaleas to dragon trees... which are personified as a Cast Full of Pretty Boys with the leaf/fruit/distinguishing feature of the plant growing from their heads.
  • National Park Girls is a visual novel where a park ranger meets cute girls who are anthropomorphic personifications of American national parks.
  • A majority of the characters in Flower Knight Girl are based on various flowers/plants, each of them naturally tying into the Flower Motifs; their characterization/background being influenced by their respective namesakes Floriography.

Based on Planets/Space 

  • Moe Hayabusa space probe! Yes.
  • Humanity Has Declined has moe deep space probes. Well, Pion is moe, Oyage is more bishounen.
  • Although the Earth has had plenty of personifications in its lifetime, 2017 gave us the meme Earth-chan, a Moe version of the Earth based on Schoolgirl Series tropes. Since the whole thing started as a joke against Flat-Earthers, she's usually portrayed as a small-chested girl suffering serious A-Cup Angst, but she's occasionally a buxom beauty instead (a joke on "Mother Earth"). Other planets and the Sun have been anthropomorphized as well, but Earth-chan is still the most common, with other common targets including the Moon, Pluto, and NASA. Occasionally, all of Humanity is portrayed as an unseen person Earth-chan talks to, who either gives her trouble or is a generally friendly companion. Black holes initially got personifications representing black holes in general — best known in the form of Black Hole-sensei, a counterpoint to Sun-sensei — but when the M87 black hole became the first to be photographed in 2019, it triggered a wave of M87-specific personifications, which quickly picked up the collective name Black Hole-chan.
  • Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls is similar to Earth-Chan.
  • Planetary Moe is a send-up of Hetalia: Axis Powers, though it uses the cardinal planets and other celestial bodies.
  • Fate/Requiem: Voyager is the Servant version of Voyager-1, made extra adorable by using The Little Prince as the basis of a form his Master Erice would be comfortable with.

Based on Roleplay 

  • Mahou MUSH unintentionally gained its own game-wide mascot when players observed that the game's hourly randomized save message had a way of being a little too on-point. Jokes about "Save-tan" developing sentience abounded, and several more messages were added acknowledging Save-tan as a character in her own right — including the ever-popular "Dammit, Save-tan!"

Based on Sports 

Based on Tabletop Games 

  • This is popular with Warhammer 40,000 races and characters, doubtless deriving humour from taking the franchise's dark, gritty aesthetic and making it cute and cheery.
  • Epic Anime Chess, a series of silly animations depicting Chess pieces as cute girls (except for the kings, who are instead portrayed as Double Kings).

Based on Toys 

Based on Video Games 

Video Game Consoles

  • The various Video Game consoles have moe anthropomorphisms as well — 360-tan, Wii-tan (including Wiimote-Tan), PS3-tan, N64-tan, DS-tan, etc.
  • The Yonkoma P.S. Three-san (or P.S. Triple in the US) centers on the adventures of the eponymous protagonist, a moe anthropomorphism of the PlayStation 3, as she tries to make her mark as a struggling idol singer against her rivals X-Locks (Xbox 360) and Whee (Wii). Other consoles also make appearances as idol singers including Dee S (Nintendo DS), her bitter rival Pea (PSP) and Three-san's older sister Double (PlayStation 2) as well as the crazy producer Saygah (Sega).
  • The Sega Hard Girls franchise, which features moe versions of Sega video game hardware. In most works featuring them, including Hi-sCoool! SeHa Girls, Mega Drive, Saturn, and Dreamcast are protagonists.
  • Neptunia is built around this concept. The four main characters are personifications of the seventh generation game consoles (the PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii, note  with the main protagonist being the hypothetical Sega Neptune), with their "little sisters" representing handhelds like the PSP and DS, with the protagonist's sister representing a fictional seventh generation Sega handheld. Later CPUs include personifications of the Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, Atari 2600, Sega Dreamcast, Apple Pippin, Atari Jaguar, and 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. The series also features anthropomorphized versions of companies like Gust and Nippon Ichi, and later games add in girls representing specific game franchises like Pac-Man, Dynasty Warriors, and Street Fighter and even CPUs based on non-console devices like the PC and mobile phones. The Animated Adaptation, Hyperdimension Neptunia the Animation adds in a Canon Foreigner character, Setag, who's a Moe Anthropomorphized version of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
  • For a time, the Switch Dog was the most popular moefication of the Nintendo Switch, which naturally led to more a more furry-oriented version of this trope. After the hype died down, more standard moefications were used in its place; with one popular variant early on being a single person (representing the screen) sandwiched between two cute girls (representing the Joy-Con controllers).
  • Console Girl is a French webcomic where the titular characters are Robot Girls that can use their respective system's games as power-ups, with the main one, Emulie, being based off of the Dreamcast. By the time the comic started an arc about the Console Wars, other girls have shown up, including NES and SNES-based generals with an army of literal Nintendrones, a short brawler representing the Neo Geo Pocket, and an gem-hungry little girl representing the Game Gear.
  • Console Waifu is primarily about the late-stage 8th generation console wars, plus Android, iOS, PC, and Google Stadia as platforms.
  • As part of the leadup to the Dreamcast's release, the official Sega Saturn magazine had the manga series Sega Games Are The Best In The World!, which featured Dreamcasko, a rowdy delinquent who hangs out with other anthromorphized Sega consoles (like the Mega Drive, Game Gear, Saturn, and NAOMI) in their low-rent apartment, touching on contemporary gaming news in a self-deprecating tone reflective of the current state of the company at the time. Despite Sega of Japan's disapproval of her violent nature, she proved to be popular enough to develop a fanbase, and has made a few cameos in games like Shenmue and Phantasy Star Portable 2, as well as a chapter of the Sega Hard Girls manga.
  • Similarly, to promote the Free-DC ISP for Dreamcast, there was Reem-chan, who appeared on said service's website as well as the cover of the J-Code Passport disc used to access it. Unfortunately, there's not much else to her than that compared to her fellow Dreamcast girls.
  • Mine Yoshizaki's Bit Fighter series personifies consoles from the third, fourth, and fifth generations as ladies in console-claded armor. In particular, his take on the Sega Saturn is that of a Cat Girl entitled 32 Idol Saturn-channote . There's also a doujinshi based on the drawings, titled 8BIT FIGHTER SHIEN, which was later repackaged as Bit Fighter Reconstruct.

Video Games

Other

Based on Web Animation 

  • Someone has managed to personify Adobe Flash. As in the animation program.
  • Starting with Episode 19 of Dave Madson's Looney Tunes Intro Bloopers, the characters, whose voices are provided by Speakonia and to a lesser extent, Robosoft, are giving rather cute human-like designs.

Based on Web Comics 

  • Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures: Mab, queen of cute things, is a fan of the webcomic Jack. Those familiar with both comics will know this could not possibly end well. Thus, we get Mab's Chibi Hell, which is, according to various sources, adorable, awesome, an offense against all that is good and right, or all of the above. Or, to quote the author:

    "She has chibified the unchibifiable. Drip is undeserving of ever looking this innocent".

  • Homestuck: Fandom loves doing this to the non-human/Troll races, especially the Carapaces, the Consorts, and the Cherubs.

Based on Web Original 

  • The Other Wiki has Wikipe-tan (along with Commons-tan and Quote-tan) and Uncyclopedia has Uncyclo-tan. TV Tropes itself has Trope-tan, who's joined by Darth-tan, Sugar-tan, and WMG-tan.
  • OC Re Mix uses OCR-tan, with a new one for every forum version. The youngest, Ocr1-tan, is the first incarnation of the forum.
  • Most of the boards of 4chan have a moe anthropomorph. For example, /a/ is a Meganekko underage trans with an Ahoge. New board /aco/ (the western-equivalent of both /h/ and /d/) got into an argument on who would be the board-tan and all were forced to accept a generic /aco/lyte for the board. The only board that takes "anthropomorphic" to a completely different degree is Trish, an obese opossum that serves as /trash/'s board-tan.
  • The CWCki Wiki of Sonichu has CWCki-tan, and the majority of that "art" will likely make you cry inside, especially the one for Valentine's Day.
  • On the Final Fantasy Wiki, there's FFWiki-tan, a Viera librarian that takes care of the Chocobo in the Wiki's logo.
  • Firefox-ko for Mozilla Firefox.
    • There's also Opera-tan, for the Opera browser.
    • Microsoft has Aizawa Inori for Internet Explorer 11.
  • Fantendo has their own Fan-Tan, who has since received a redesign. She is joined by her fellow -Tan-Does, who are Enemy-Tan-Doe, an aloof opposite who was created to be her friend, Fan-Tan-Doe's monstrous Evil Counterpart Treat-Tan-Doe, and Other-Tan-Doe, who was created to dispute any arguments between Fan-Tan-Doe and Enemy-Tan-Doe. Fan-Tan-Doe, Enemy-Tan-Doe, and Other-Tan-Doe are all implied to be in a polyamorous relationship.
  • The Lost Media Wiki has LMW-tan. She also has a friend named FM-kun◊, representing the people who help the wiki find missing content.
  • Know Your Meme has KYM-tan.
  • Anime and J-Drama streaming site Crunchyroll has the popular, sporty, animal-loving otaku Crunchy-hime.
  • One PvP arc features the lolbat (Batman + Fountain of Memes) getting a new sidekick, ReTweet, who is clearly based on Twitter.
  • Twitter-san is a web manga about a user and cute girl versions of popular social media sites and apps.
  • Chinese video sharing site Bilibili has the Bili-tans 22 and 33. They are even represented in the routine "Rainbow Rhythm" in the Chinese localization of Just Dance 2020.
  • Someone made a moe version of SCP-173. And someone else made one of SCP-682.
  • Something Awful once held a contest for users to create the site's equivalent of an OS-tan. Mostly notable for her Punny Name: Something Awful-tan, or SA-tan for short.

Based on Western Animation 

Based on Other 

Locations

  • Local tourism brackets for Japanese towns and prefectures usually have a personification or two representing the place for advertising. They usually come in one of two flavors: yuruchara, which are more in line with cute mascot characters, and moechara, which have cute girls (and occasionally boys) represent the area through key costume features and character traits.

Months

  • Tsukiuta is about 12 idols who are based on the months of the year. There are actually 24 — a male and female version of each month. The anime only features the boys, though.

Politics

Schools

  • In The Simpsons episode "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can", Lisa Simpson dreams of the Seven Sisters colleges each personified by an attractive woman.

Transportation

Typefaces

  • "German Bold Italic": A song by Towa Tei, with Kylie Minogue playing a... font?

Waste

Based on Multiple 

  • There's an eroge called MonoGokoro MonoMusume that has moe-anthropomorphized objects as most of its principal cast. Objects turned into cute girls include a computer, a pillow, a Humongous Mecha toy, a washing machine, and a pair of panties.
  • Skewered in this Anime News Nina comic, which featured a preview of a romcom Love Triangle between a boy, Pisa-Pisa (a personified pistachio) and Eishii (his air conditioner).
  • No matter if it's an Eldritch Abomination from the Cthulhu Mythos, a mythological, academic (the game's claim to fame) or literary figure or even Satan, there’s almost nothing that Crash Fever won’t use this trope on. There is even a group of units that are personified computer viruses.
  • The fanfic Fleet of the Homeward Bound features the NCC-1701-D USS Enterprise, BBY-01 Yamato, BSG-75 Galactica, Normandy SR-2, Imperial Star Destroyer Chimera, and the space station Babylon 5 lost in an unknown universe and in the shape of Kantai Collection-style shipgirls. Unlike that series however, the girls are all still the sizes of their true forms. So Normandy(170m) comes up to Enterprise(641m)'s knees, Galactica(1142m) and Chimera(1600m) are roughly twice her size, and Babylon 5 is an eight-kilometer giantess.
  • Kotobukiya's Bishoujo series of figures typically goes for plain Hotter and Sexier for the girls and Gender Flip for the guys, but there are a couple that are personifications:
    • Two characters in their Horror line-up are Chucky and Tiffany, both of which are cute, sassy girls rather than Creepy Dolls.
    • Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Bumblebee have cute girl variations (with accessories alluding to their altmodes) made for the line. A Starscream one was released in 2024, accompanied by limited edition releases for Skywarp and Thundercracker.
    • The series even went in another direction of moe for Hatsune Miku: in addition to getting a regular figure, she had an additional figure made depicting her as a little pony.
    • Several characters from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic got human forms, though they took some design cues from the pre-existing Equestria Girls subseries.
  • This is the modus operandi of POCHI SCIENCE, seeking to capture hostile entities and reconstituting them into cute, harmless girls. Examples of franchises given the treatment are DOORS (Roblox), Amanda the Adventurer, Rainbow Friends, The Amazing Digital Circus, and Poppy Playtime.

In-Universe Anthropomorphisms 

  • Madoka Kaname in Puella Magi Madoka Magica basically Invokes this by "becoming hope", transforming herself into an adorable law of the universe.
  • Nanako, the partially-anthropomorphised form of the Seventh Scripture in Tsukihime, is a canonical version of this. Ditzy little half-unicorn girl that is only visible to those with intense magical potential, have spilled their blood on it, and weird people like Shiki.
  • Kämpfer does a canonical example of this in its eyecatches for the Creepy Dolls that grant the heroines their powers. While in doll form they look like cute animals that just committed suicide in a variety of ways, in human form they look like Funny Animals, focusing more on the cute than the creepy.
  • Umineko: When They Cry: The Chiester Sisters, humanoid personifications of Maria's ceramic bunnies. There's also Sakutarou, the anthropomorphic form of Maria's lion plush doll who's also a male version of this trope.
  • DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou: Ladies and gentlemen—meet "Lolibachi".
  • In Xenoblade Chronicles X, such a depiction of the Verus Skell model is one of the numerous wall decals unlocked upon maxing out your BLADE level.
  • There's also the free-to-play MMO TPS Cosmic Break, where a part of robots are your usual mechs while others are mecha musume.
  • The Triggerhearts from Triggerheart Exelica are designed to resemble mecha musume.
  • Silver Spoon: As part of the preparations for Yezo Agricultural School's School Festival, Tokiwa creates Moe characterizations of various potato cultivars.
  • BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm: Arianna is one of ARPANET, the predecessor to the Internet. After awakening, it turned itself into a little anime girl in a purple robe with Mystical White Hair. Also a rare (anti) villainous example given that she intends to destroy the Internet that replaced her and end the chaos that has overtaken it.
  • Molester Man has a Cargo Ship with his onaholenote , portrayed as a moe girl called Sachiko. She even ranks higher than him on the character popularity poll.
  • Sgt. Frog: Thanks to Kululu's "We All Live Together" beam gun that turns animals into humans.
  • There are humanised versions of the romanceable birds in Hatoful Boyfriend, visible in a brief portrait when you first meet them. The game claims this is the work of the ICPSS system showing the "birdiest bird" as human, though it fails with Okosan. It's clear from the text that the characters are still birds, and the manga even states that the human appearances are just there to help beginners feel the bird-moe, but this doesn't stop some fans.
  • The video game KanColle and its anime adaptation, featuring World War II ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the German Kriegsmarine, the Italian Regia Marina, the United States Navy, the French Marine nationale, and the Soviet Navy, among others, with the lore being that they were not only granted sentience by alien cosmic forces, but reincarnated into (female) human bodies and recruited to fight against an alien threat which has taken over Earth's oceans. A defining feature of said game is that the riggings of most kanmusu are designed much like those found on their real-life counterparts, and that the "shipgirls" remember their past lives as combat vessels (along with their "deaths", if they were sunk during the war), which tends to be a source of much of the game's drama. Indeed, KanColle is regarded as the main codifier of shipgirl media, inspiring loads of imitators like Warship Girls in China.
  • Homestuck: The Squiddles opening animation shows some of them as anime girls.