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Moe Anthropomorphism
aka: Moe Personification
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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 "cute moe boy" implementations do occasionally happen.
Could easily be Nightmare Fuel or Fetish Fuel for some, depending on what is changed, what it looks like, and its gender.
Compare Anthropomorphic Personification, Sexy Whatever Outfit.
Humanity Ensues, while technically unrelated, 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 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 Advertising
- The notorious OS-tans are moe versions of operating systems and programs; their boob size is often proportional to memory requirements. Windows ME 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 is the Tall, Dark and Bishoujo type (strongly associated with yuri seme role), Windows XP has excellent graphical capabilities, and Windows Vista has transparencies and even more memory requirements (except for Basic-tan who's a tsundere loli). Windows 95 is a Yamato Nadeshiko usually portrayed 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.
- Akikan!! does this for soda cans. These soda girls need carbon dioxide infusions (through kissing) to live. Japan really can make anything moe.
- Okayama Prefecture in Japan has anthromorpized their prized homegrown-jellies into moe girls.
- And of course who can forget Hatsune Miku, a Vocaloid (singing computer program) that got this treatment right on the box. Like ME-Tan, she wields a negi for self defense, and appears to have a personality of her own. There is even manga about her now.
- And she is not the only one in her software line to have gained an anthropomorphism...
- Fruity Loops (a music synthesizer program) has FL-chan◊, popular among the Vocaloid fandom.
- Several Japanese railways have their trains Moe-fied. See here (site has NSFW content and ads) for an overview.
- Ryohoji Buddhist Temple in Tokyo-suburb Hachio-ji City, successfully raised attendance by anthromophizing it's 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 a cute loli pepper thing based on a habanero-flavored snack chip. There is also Jalapeño-tan, Habanero-neesan, and Milk-san. Jolokia-tan, the hottest pepper in the world, is the Alpha Bitch.
Anime and Manga
- Kampfer does 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 Petting Zoo People, focusing more on the cute than the creepy.
- Binchou-tan is an anime about Anthropomorphic charcoal in the form of chibi girls.
- The anime series Yatterman did Obama-kun and Hilary-chan.
- Nanako, the partially-anthropomorphised form of the Seventh Scripture in Tsukihime. 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.
- Parodied in Nyoron Churuya-san with "Dust-chan", who is shortly disposed of via vacuum cleaner.
- She always comes back. *shudder*
- The Pollinic Girls Attack does this with various types of pollen.
- Toei Robot Girls, which is exactly what it sounds like. Toei Animation Super Robots turned into cute girls.
- The "Angel Chromosome XX" line of Neon Genesis Evangelion merchandise portrayed the Angels as cute girls, including portraying Lilith as Rei Ayanami.
- Tabris is a female Kaworu Nagisa.
- Koihime†Musou for Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
- Gundam has MS Girl or MS Shojo, published in the Gundam Ace monthly magazine since 1982 by Mika Akitaka, making them the origin of mecha musume. The first collection artbook was released in 1994.
- In 1985, Bandai released the Armored Lady Original Characters for Z-Gundam and Macross, Mecha Musume that predates the 1994 artbook. [1]◊
- Ark Angels features personified versions of various endangered animals as well as of the planets of our solar system (plus Earth's moon).
- Genderswap a few character from Saint Seiya... and voila! Moe versions of the western zodiac signs!
- The Seven Sisters of Purgatory from Umineko no Naku Koro ni 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."
- Money and Soul Has Msyu, the moe personification of the protagonist's future. Yes, that's right: This show makes an abstract concept moe.
- Nase Yamato's Chinko No Tsubuyaki makes penises cute. Sentient talking penises possessed by other male spirits. Yeah. They're actually pretty cute.
- Sentou Yousei Shoujo Tasukete! Mave-chan is an entire show based upon Moe Anthropomorphisms of the aircraft from the anime Sentou Yousei Yukikaze.
Based on Film
Based on Folk Lore
- Entaku Seitokai (Round Table Student Council) does this for the King Arthur legends. 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 Arhurian legends.
Based on History
- Axis Powers Hetalia features countries in moe form, educating us about history (sort of) with all the attendant tropes related to moe, and then some.
- this book (site has some NSFW 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.
- Along the lines of Axis Powers Hetalia the webmanga and web novel series Miracle Train ~Chūō-sen e Yōkoso~ about the Japan Railways Chuo Train Line has five of its major stations (Zero Tokyo, Shintaro Shinjuku, Riku Nakano, Takuto Kichijōji, and Luna Tachikawa) personified as bishonen. We're not kidding, official site here and Anime News Network report here. The characters have even been given voice actors.
- There's also an anime called Miracle Train, though it focuses on the Oedo line instead of the Chuo line.
- Strike Witches: Probably the most well-known example for military Moe Anthropomorphism.
- There's a bunch of models for AP'd WW 2 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.
- On a related note, there's a moe version of the Battleship Bismark around the internet somewhere. A link cold not be found, but it's somewhere around deviantART.
- The Bismarck was probably from Mitternacht Marine.
- 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 NSFW link here.
- The Japan Self-Defense Force even had their own moe mascots◊. So much for fighting lolis.
- Connected with that is Mari-tan◊, the personification of the U.S. Marine.
- There was some fanart floating around that moe'd several WorldWarII◊ figures.
- Moe Hayabusa space probe! Yes.
- 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 NSFW).
- Japanisches Kaiserriech Mitternacht Marine is a webcomic revoving around the various personifications of World War II weaponary, like planes and tanks.
Based on Literature
Based on Live-Action TV
Based on Military Aircraft
Music
Mythology
- Various deities from religions around the world are personification of certain concepts or locations. Not all of them are cute, though.
- Egyptian gods are occasionally depicted as trees or normally inanimate objects with human arms or heads attached.
Based on Sports
Based on Tabletop Games
Toys
Based on Video Games
- The various Video Game consoles have moe anthropomorphisms as well — 360-tan, Wii-tan, PS3-tan, N64-tan, DS-tan, etc.
- Roll in the Covenant Hunter Suit from Mushroom Kingdom Fusion.
- Nerf Now! has an arc about the adventures of Drone-tan, a Zerg drone from Starcraft. Also starring Cute Hydralisk Girls and an Overlord Meganekko.
- There's quite a lot of Command and Conquer gijinka on deviantART. One of its users is chock full of it.
- Lots of people have done this for GLaDOS, the Companion Cube, and the turrets from Portal — like this. There is even a "GLaDOS-tan" directly based on Miku, an extreme contrast to her personality, here. Want more Anthro , less Moe? Axel787 and Ma kani have just the remedy you need! Hint: It involves deadly neurotoxin...
- The Metal Gear Solid 4 Figumate "Sweet Snake" line of merchandise transforms four male characters (two of whom are old and have moustaches) into adorable,
mildly Lolicon moeblobs. It works surprisingly well, particularly the Tsundere Ocelot and Meganekko Otacon (who was always a bit of a moe character anyway).
- Moemon, a notorious Game Mod for Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, converts the 'mons into Cute Monster Girls, which only breaks down a little for Nidoran M. The mod also converts the Trainer to a Meido, and she flies instead of runs when she gets the Running Shoes.
- Male Pokemon do exist, and are very common, but the starters are usually female. There's a general 75%-25% ratio in the games, which has been flipped in the hack.
- On the subject of Pokemon, behold this picture of 493 anthropomorphised 'mons...
- Otomedius (link may be NSFW), a Spin-Off of the Gradius series, does this to the ships. With art by the guy who does Keroro Gunso.
- Spore-Tan. See here. Now in Anime!
- Colossal◊ Girls◊, based on Shadow of the Colossus.
- Neptunia personifies the seventh generation console war between the PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii (among other consoles). It also personifies a few game companies such as Gust and Nippon Ichi.
- For a brief while, there was a trend among the Sam & Max fandom of drawing the titular characters as humans. Although Sam typically looked ordinary, Max was usually drawn as an absolutely adorable little boy, despite the two of them being the same age.
- The Monster Girl Encyclopedia uses this trope on many common monsters in RPGs.
- Team Fortress 2: To give Sasha a little more personality, we have this.
- Not even Lavos can avoid this. Here's the first form and the second form.
In Video Games
- 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.
- A good portion of Touhou characters feature this to some degree or another, with characters like Letty being the personification of Winter, 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 Medicine and Kogasa are tsukumogami, which are basically personifications of inanimate objects, so they are kind of this in-universe as well as out.
- There's also the free-to-play MMO TPS CosmicBreak, where a part of robots are your usual mechs while others are mecha musume.
- The Triggerhearts from Triggerheart Exelica are design to resemble mecha musume.
- All of the Real Robot series in Super Cosplay Wars Ultra is done by a girl with only the Gundam Wing cosplay being the only exception.
- The whole point of Hyperdimension Neptunia. Moe versions of the big three consoles, among others.
- There's humanised versions of the romanceable birds in Hatoful Boyfriend, visible in a brief portrait when you first meet them.
- Dododonpachi Saidai Oujou: Ladies and gentlemen—meet Lolibachi.
Webcomics
- 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."
- Lyrical Nanoha Fan Web Comic Nanoha R'r took a stab at creating Moe versions of Raising Heart and Bardiche◊, though the artist cheated a bit by turning Bardiche into a loli version of◊ Linith.
- One PvP arc features the lolbat (Batman + Fountain of Memes) getting a new sidekick, ReTweet, who is clearly based on Twitter.
- In addition to all of the examples in Touhou canon (see above), Touhou Nekokayou adds Original Character Masha Kinoko, a fly agaric mushroom youkai and absolute moeblob.
- The Squiddles opening animation related to Homestuck shows some of them as anime girls.
Western Animation
Web Animation
- Someone has managed to personify Adobe Flash. As in the animation program.
Web Original
- The Other Wiki has Wikipe-tan (along with Commons-tan and Quote-tan). TV Tropes itself has Trope-tan, while Encyclopedia Dramatica has AE-tan and Uncyclopedia has Uncyclo-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 Lolicon Trap with an Ahoge.
- 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.
- The Final Fantasy Wiki, there's FFWiki-tan, a Viera librarian that takes care of the Chocobo in the Wiki's logo.
- Firefox-ko, appearing in this wiki as the page image for Little Bit Beastly.
- There's also Opera-tan, for the Opera browser.
- Captcha-tan◊. The spambot that 4chan had to implement the captcha for (leading to Captcha-tan's creation) was also anthropomorphized as "Cornelia".
- Skewered in this Anime News Nina comic.
- Fantendo now has their own Fan-Tan.
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