Although played straight with some Pokémon in the games (see below), this trope is subverted in the anime, perhaps in response to the complaints that Dawn has mostly cute Pokémon — adorable Big Eater piggy Swinub evolved into a rampaging disobedient Mamoswine within the course of three episodes.
Then brought right back in with two of the main group's Pokémon in Best Wishes. Ash's Oshawott (who Ash even says is adorable), Iris's Axew, and Trip's Vanillite (although Iris disagrees).
Even Team Rocket has had cute Pokemon, especially Chimecho, Mime Jr., Cacnea, Wurmple, and Woobat.
Seeing as about half the legendary Pokémon are cute buckets of fuzz (Mew, Celebi, and Jirachi, for example), that's something of a subversion.
The same can be said for Digimon, though Patamon is probably the Rookie that fits the most; of course, that's before he becomes the super-special-awesome Angemon.
Culumon from Digimon Tamers exemplifies this trope. It has to be among the most "awwwww" inducing critters ever seen.
Guilmon also gives out his fair share of cute when he isn't fighting. Okay, he's a big red dinosaur even in his base form, but his personality is utterly adorable.
Digimon Tamersin general exemplifies this trope, which is really odd, considering how dark it is. Culumon could carry the entire season's cuteness factor on his own because he's so dang adorable in every way. But then you have Guilmon (adorable personality), Terriermon (Do I need to say it? "Moumantai~"), Lopmon (Terriermon all over again, the frown doesn't diminish it)... And then MarineAngemon is introduced. Cuteness overload.
Thing about Marine Angemon: Most of the supercute Digimon are at Baby and In-Training levels (the levels of actual infant Digimon, and the heroes' Sleep Mode Size.) Marine Angemon? Mega. (That is, the levels of the heroes in Super Mode, and post-midseason BigBads.) The Powers That Be sadly didn't let him out of the bag much, but he saves the day in a big way once. D-Reaper is a program that is basically an Eldritch Abomination. Its base matter, called 'chaos,' is the red gel its creations are made of and revert to when defeated. It keeps spreading no matter how many you "kill." See Fighting a Shadow; nothing actually destroys D-Reaper matter. Nothing except Marine Angemon's attack, normally used for healing. Said attack takes the form of pretty colorful bubbles, naturally.
Not to mention Impmon, he even has a tummy smileyface.
All the baby forms in the Digimon Nursery. I'm certain even Myotismon's baby form will make you go awww... However, running though a digidex can be quite webbish...
Potato, the puppy from AIR that some people think was so named because it resembled a pile of mashed potatoes. It's disturbingly intelligent (Kano can apparently talk with it), says nothing except "Pico pico" and is mind-bendingly adorable!
Magic Knight Rayearth also features, in one episode, a stupidly-cute, injured, foxlike critter that Hikaru instantly adopts and names "Hikari" after her old dog. Turns out it's actually a demonic monster named Vigor, who deliberately played this trope in order to get the jump on them.
xxxHoLic partially subverts it, however, as Mokona turns out to be a total booze-hound just like Yuuko.
xxxHoLic also has Tanpopo, Himawari-chan's almost painfully adorable little bird. And Chibi Kitsune.
Am I the only one who found the tube fox, which agrees with the -mon stuff mentioned above, cute?
No, you're not the only one. That was my favorite character in the whole show.
Daa! Daa! Daa! has Pepo, Luu's adorable, stuffed animal-like alien space pet that's a Peponian...from the Planet Pepo. Guess what it says? That's right. Pepo!
Wizz from DNAngel; cutest floppy-eared rabbit-like thing ever.
Not so cute, but definitely plushie-like squishy: Saizo, Okita's pet pig in Peacemaker Kurogane.
The Puuchus from the Excel Saga anime are meant as a parody of this. They're actually evil alien invaders and when you hit them they bleed purple and take on the haggard features and guttural tones of Golgo13.
Domesticated Puuchus on the other hand turn into heroes from shows like Captain Harlock or Gundam. Not ugly, but definitely weird.
GX takes it to the next level with a winged version of the fluffball as Judai Yuki's duel spirit partner.
And in 5Ds, Ruka has yet another variation, Kuribon.
Chopper from One Piece's half-human form is definitely an example. Even though creatures of his type (animal zoans) look like adult humans crossed with animals, Chopper ends up looking like a three-year-old cosplaying as a plushie, for reasons of Cute, and possibly because he was actually an animal that became half-human.
Guvava, Mylene Flare Jenius' Empathy Pet from Macross 7. Basically a Tribble with eyes.
It's easy to forget how late in Azumanga Daioh it is before Maya shows up.
Botan, the baby boar in CLANNAD. When it first appears, Tomoya and Sunohara aren't quite sure what it is, though they both agree that it's ridiculously cute.
After the time-skip Botan is grown, but is still depicted as cute. Doesn't hurt to have kindergartners playing around it as if it's a living stuffed animal.
Ryo-Oh-Ki from Tenchi Muyo!!: a fluffy little cabbit — a cat/rabbit hybrid. She also turns into a spaceship.
She also acquires a humanoid form at the end of the original Tenchi Muyo! OVA series and does the most adorable dance for the visiting Juraian royalty.
In Tenchi in Tokyo, she can become Mini Mecha Ryo-Oh-Ki! And she is the cuuuuuutest Mini Mecha you ever saw!
The little green alien creature that steals Sheryl's panties and which Ranka befriends from Macross Frontier.
Later on, Ai-kun (the green critter) molts and becomes a stage-1 juvenile Vajra, and somehow still manages to act obnoxiously cute.
The critters from every incarnation of Pretty Cure. They're so damn puntablecute!
The main character of Princess Tutu is actually one of these! Ahiru's (which means 'Duck' and is named that in the dub) true form is that of a yellow duckling with big, big blue eyes. Even the resident Tall, Dark and Snarky can't resist her cuteness.
Pani Poni Dash! spoofs this with a cute but incredibly depressed bunny that's the pet of the main character.
And we can't forget P-chan, Mr. Panda, Shampoo-neko and MuMu-chan from Ranma ˝, even if they'd rather not suffer from Jusenkyo's Involuntary Shapeshifting curses.
Along the same lines, Pokota from Slayers Revolution is the a prince, bound into the bizarre but adorable shape of an alien bunny looking thing with gigantic wing-hand-ears, a cape, and a zipper up his stomach that opens on to L-space. He is, of course, Tougher Than He Looks.
Potemayo and Guchuko have all these beat. None can stand against their moe.
In Axis Powers Hetalia, most of the Non Human Sidekicks. Hanatamago and Pochi are some that are named, both being fluffy little dogs. China has a little panda, England has his little spirit friends and so on. There is also a recurring white bunny with gray ears seen with America, England and Japan (probably based on the author's pet rabbit). Tony the alien is also rather cute.
Let's not forget Kujimarou the bear cub (with drastic memory problems!) belonging to Canada.
Kumajirou's just joshing. He really does know who Canada is, eh?
Greece's cats, too. And Iceland's puffin. Not to mention America's whale friend, and the cat that "ferociously attacks" Italy in a training session.
Isako from Dennou Coil uses a group of virtual pets to do some of her chores. They are all extremely adorable fluffy round things, but underestimating their abilities would be a big mistake.
The Bearbees from Kyou Kara Maou. They're snuggley embodiments of love that sprinkle glitter, say 'Nogitsu!' and concider Yuuri and Wolfram to be their parents, making them Greta's siblings, I guess. They're highly endangered and their poop makes very high-quality, but very smelly, paint.
Pero Pero from Kare Kano, the dog that gets around by rolling around.
Moyashimon features one of the few successful attempts at making bacteria and mold spores cute. This especially goes for the series mascot, an anthropomorphic spore of Aspergillus oryzae.
The devolved dragon... slime... THING... Nyo-Nyo from Lilim Kiss.
Sodom from Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru looks like a winged black hamster/guinea pig... who can also transform into a powerful dragon when needed.
07-Ghost has an incredibly cute little pink dragon, that can only say brrrrupyah but also it's the reincarnation of Teito's best friend Mikage.
The Keronians in Keroro Gunso including Keroro, Tamama, Giroro, Kululu, Dororo and every other that shows up over the course of the series. There's also pop-star alien girl Sumumo who isn't Keronian but might as well be.
The Animal Soldiers from Tentai Senshi Sunred. Their attempts at fighting Sunred are commonly thwarted by squealing schoolgirls picking them up and hugging them.
Every creature in the Owly comic, including Wormy the earthworm.
The baby golden gargoyle adopted by Abel in The Sandman.
Cheche from the Stupiders is a perfect example of this. He's a furry boa constrictor, consisting almost entirely of fluffy fur and two huge googly eyes, tiny cute fangs and to top it off, he's always smiling. His brother, however, has issues.
Chaffies. They are fluffy little bunny-like critters who are always smiling, with only 1 1/2 ear after a simultaneous lawnmower accident. Also, they like to wander off absolutely everywhere, getting themselves hidden amongst other Ridiculously Cute Critters.
One page in the Find Chaffy book has them hidden in a whole group of pandas.
In the main Marvel Universe, Tigra has recently gotten pregnant by Hank Pym ( really his Skrull double) and given birth. Her baby, William, seems to combine the best cute features of babies and kittens.
And of course the race of Ewoks from the Star Wars universe.
The Star Wars Bestiary informs us of the Voorpak. It is a tiny, almost spherical Pomeranian-like animal that Naboo nobility use for companionship and warmth. It is basically a cross between a Pomeranian for its size and fluff, a fuzzy spider for its hidden legs, and a Vampire Bat for its face.
In the Expanded Universe are the catlike race Kushiban, who look like this◊. They're a sentient species. This particular Kushiban? Jedi Master Ikrit.
Fizzgig from The Dark Crystal. Basically a Tribble crossed with a pomeranian and a shark.
Mogwai from Gremlins. As long as you stick to the rules.
Subverted in Galaxy Quest, when the creatures resembling human children suddenly reveal their murderous and cannibalistic tendencies (despite Guy foreshadowing their transformation).
Kevin's babies in Up. Cuter chicks have never been seen.
Dug the dog. "I am Dug! I just met you and I love you!"
Lilly◊ from Alpha and Omega, without a doubt. Click on that outgoing link, and try telling me she isn't the cutest wolf you've ever seen.
Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon may very well be the most adorable fire-breathing lizard in any movie ever.
The Terrible Terrors, big-headed tiny dragons that act like house cats.
From Rio, we have Baby Blu◊. Not to mention Blu and Jewel's offspring at the end of the film. Just...the CUTE!!
F.T in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! qualifies since it is completely useless : its only role is to make Tara say "it's so cute" and try to protect it from the baddies.
The "pygmy puffs(keins)" from Harry Potter 6. Basically a miniature Tribble dyed girly colors.
Also nifflers, furry little black things with long pointy snuffly noses. D'awwwww....
Geoffrey Chaucer, in Book of the Duchess, has a puppy beckon the narrator because it wasn't yet trained for hunting (meter-preserving "Blind Idiot" Translation) then it ran away :(:
A whelp that found me as I stood, / That had a-followed, and could do no good. / It came and crept to me as low, / Right as it had-a me a-know, / Held down his head and joined his ears, / And laid all smoothly down his hairs.
Treecats from the Honor Harrington series. Yes, they are as deadly as thay are sapient, but they are as cute as they are deadly. How else could they endear themselves to those people they haven't bonded to in order to obtain celery?
Lazarus Long gave this observation in the Robert A. Heinlein novel Time Enough For Love:
On the planet Tranquille around KM849(G-0) lives a little animal known as a "knafn." It is herbivorous and has no natural enemies and is easily approached and may be petted—-sort of a six-legged puppy with scales. Stroking it is very pleasant; it wiggles its pleasure and broadcasts euphoria in some band that humans can detect. It's worth the trip. Someday some bright boy will figure out how to record this broadcast, then some smart boy will see commercial angles—-and not long after that it will be regulated and taxed. In the meantime, I have faked that name and catalog number; it is several thousand light-years off in another direction. Selfish of me—-
Mouse of The Dresden Files started out this way. Harry acquired him by accident when he was hired to rescue a bunch of puppies and one of them crawled out of the box and hid in his car. Harry proceeds to spend the rest of the book carrying around the little gray furball in the pocket of his coat, and several characters are reduced to cooing over it due to the sheer cuteness. However, he doesn't stay tiny for long.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 had a genetically engineered fuzzy cute thing called "Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter" that the Mads sent up to the Satellite. Mike fell under its/her spell, but he was forced to send it/her back because 1. she had a shedding problem that really rankled the Bots, and 2. Frank was missing her desperately.
Chicken puppet Chica on PBS Kids Sprout is this. One blogger compares her and the network to crack, and every other post on Sprout's Facebook page is requests for a plush Chica toy.
Many of The Muppets would count (With their big, bulgy eyes and fluffy bodies- specially if you live on Sesame Street), Bean Bunny stands out, as he's supposed to act cute so the rest of the Muppets wouldn't have to.
MythBusters: For the Breakstep Bridge myth, Jamie Hyneman created a set of little marching robots—pretty much army helmets and boots.
Jamie: They were kinda cute, weren't they? Adam: They were very cute. Cute For Science!!
The Dungeons & Dragons supplement Book of Exalted Deeds has some very cute celestials: the fairylike coure eladrins and the musteval guardinals, who resemble bipedal ferrets. Hollyphants in their small form would also count.
Now, now. Cute eladrins (including coure) are legacy of AD&D — Planescape Monstrous Compendium appendix II. *
Pseudodragons. They look like dragons, but they're the size of house cats. Small house cats. Faerie dragons are much the same, only with butterfly wings. (Awww.)
Wastems and Wastits from Human Occupied Landfill. Wastems are cute little creatures whose bodies are filled with a tapioca-like substance that can be used for anything from food to motor oil. Wastits are cruel, psychotic, and make most grown men wet themselves in terror if they know what they're dealing with. And the worst part? If you don't have the "spot wastit" skill, you can't tell the difference between the two, even if the wastit is walking away from a bloody corpse with a skull in one hand and a bloody butterfly knife in the other.
The RPG Rogue Trader introduces us to the Gyrinx, a mid-sized cat that hangs around psykers. Of course, this being 40k, they serve as conduits to increase their master's already considerable psychic power and tend to explode if a Daemon takes interest in the relevant psyker.
Toys
Apparently, Headcrab Plushies exist. These little monsters from Half-Life latch onto humans and zombify them. Yet, plushies have been made. One of the characters in the game actualy has a de-beaked one as a pet. Lamar is kind of cute, mind you.
For those who want to further the illusion, they also have hats.
Supposedly, plush turrets also exist, but no pictures are forthcoming.
The Facehugger of Alien fame comes in plush. [2] Who would hug it is another matter entirely.
There's a plush Predator as well. Personally, if I had a kid and they wanted a stuffed animal tough enough to protect them from monsters, that would be my go-to choice.
Cacodemons from Doom have been converted into a couple of plushies as well.
There are also cutesy toy versions, plush and otherwise, of various parasites, bacteria, and viruses; such as Parasite Pals and GIANTmicrobes. Of course, Your Mileage May Vary on how cute you think they are.
Squishables!! They manage to make everything adorable, up to and including Cthulu
Video Games
Pokémon: Pikachu! And Mew. Frankly, about half of all Pokémon start off like this, then get bigger and (slightly) less cute as they evolve. (Kind of like real baby animals.)
Some evolved forms still remain incredibly cute such as Dewgong and Floatzel.
JOLTIK. An absolutely adorable fluffy four-legged spider. What's not to love about this thing?
Woobat and Swoobat from the latest games. The former is a blue puffball with black wings, heart-shaped snout and a single cute little fang and Swoobat, its evolution takes it up to eleven with big sparkly eyes, big ears, the former's fluffyness, heart-shaped snout, cute little fangs and a heart shaped tail. Truth in Video Games as they are based on the Honduran white bat◊, which is this trope incarnate.
When you think of cute, you normally don't think of living ice cream cones. But just look at Vanillite's face!
Solosion and its evolutions, who are the most adorable unicellular creatures you'll ever see.
Minccino and Cinccino.
Just because it needs to be said: any Pokemon can qualify as this if the right person finds the right 'mon. The phenomena was even commented on in Pokemon Diamond And Pearl with a trainer complaining that Amity Park wouldn't admit him and his Steelix because they didn't think it was cute. He, obviously, begged to differ.
Bomberman is just OOZING with them, to the point of risking Cuteness Overload. Let's start listing them off:
The dinosaurs that also serve as mounts. In Super Bomberman 4, they start off as generic enemies early in the game until you blast them, at which point they turn into eggs. Walk over your first egg and you get to ride one, as well as gaining spike bombs. Any additional eggs you collect follow behind, Yoshi-style. Saturn Bomberman instead features different dinosaurs as general Louie replacements, also with unique abilities.
The Charaboms in general, but especially Pommy, debuting in Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! He even introduces himself to a few Mooks as "the cutest hero in the galaxy"!
If Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden IV qualifies, there's the B-Darons; mostly Funny Animals that don't talk, but clearly show intelligence nonetheless. And many of them are indeed adorable, to the point of young Bomberwomen getting Cuteness Proximity reactions around them right in the third episode!
See something at the start of the stage that looks innocent and adorable? It'll probably kill you on contact. They might be kid mice holding balloons at an amusement park or weird panda umbrella things, but they're still every bit as deadly as everything else.
Chocobos, yellow birds used as mounts, may or may not be ridiculously cute depending on the Art Shift of the game.
In Final Fantasy XI, not only do you have cute chocobos, you also have the even cuter BABY chocobos. Recently, baby chocobos have also made it as merchandise as a noisy but oh so cute toy◊.
On the topic of XI, you also have Shantotto◊ who would come across as completely adorable...were it not for the fact that she is totally batshit insane.
There's a number of Final Fantasy spinoffs known collectively as the Chocobo series, all featuring the same ridiculously adorable protagonist◊.
The Carbuncle, in the games where it is portrayed as a cat (or fox)-like mammal with huge ears, beady eyes, and rounded snout, like Final Fantasy VIII or Final Fantasy XI. Not so much in Final Fantasy V or Final Fantasy VI, where it's more reptilian (and is actually a large and menacing boss monster in the former.) Or Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, where it looks like something entirely different.
In Final Fantasy XII, they threw in some literal Killer Rabbits by introducing some bosses in the form of the game's terribly cute Dream Hare creatures. (Imagine a tiny bunny with a giant puffball tail and feathers for ears, and that's about the gist of it.)
The Ivalice version of moogles are pretty damn cute too, as are the Cu Sith. Just look at those rabbit ears!
Fury, one of the later mini-bosses in XII, resembled an extremely fluffy purple and white rabbit.
The Nu Mou race from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy Tactics A 2. They got big furry tails, long and droopy ears like a dog, and their face finishes the rest of their cuteness. Of course, these cute factors run away when you start to see them slaughter your team with powerful magic spells if you find them as enemies. Their Final Fantasy XII incarnations goes the complete opposite end of cute.
From Final Fantasy XIII, Sazh's baby chocobo. It should be self-explanatory.
A good slew of Dragon Quest monsters also apply, particularly the iconic Slime creatures.
Flickies and Wisps (other than Purple/Violet Wisps, but Eggman twisted those ones anyway,) from the Sonic games fill this niche. Cream◊ is pretty adorable too.
Yoshi from the Super Mario series easily falls under this. Being a small dinosaur with huge but adorable eyes, a big nose, shoes, and possibly sounding cute whenever he "speaks" (saying "Yoshi!", various exclamations such as "Wow!", "Whoa!", "Yay!", "Ha!" and "Wah!", and several unintelligible noises), who's to say he's not cute? Though he does get less cute when you find out how exactly he can whip some ass in the Mario and Super Smash Bros. series.
Taken to the next level if you consider that he's not a dinosaur. He's a dragon.
Aside the original one, some Toads also qualify as well, such as Toadsworth (both young and old), the Toad Brigade, and Toadette.
The Koopa Troopas and Koopa Paratroopas have qualified for this ever since Super Mario Kart.
As irritating as Lakitus are, they are still downright adorable.
Other enemies like the Goombas have been cutened up enough in recent years to qualify, as well.
World of Warcraft has many "Vanity Pets" (as opposed to Combat Pets used byhunters) that fall into this category, including a panda cub (which ups the ante by falling asleep), dragon whelps and baby murlocs. Okay, not many consider murlocs cute, but the baby version is so much cutie-fied (and does a funny dance) that most people don't care. Now getting your hands on one of those is a different story... the first two are Collectors Edition goodies, the last one is given as a gift to people attending one of Blizzards big events.
Until this year's Blizzcon (or the Direct TV Pay Per View feed of Blizzcon), which gives you a Murloc... Riding a sunglasses-wearing polar bear which the owner can use as a Mount. Which somehow only makes it even cuter.
In Wrath of the Lich King there is a quest where you have to rescue baby murlocs being kept locked up in cages...and when you open them, sometimes they say, "Mama?" or "Dada?" and then they follow you in a little scampering group. Awwwww.
The titular character of the Kirby series... along with nearly everything else in the franchise. Exceptions are the final bosses, and Meta Knight who is badass instead.
Unless he loses his mask, anyway. At which point the Badassery Uncanny Valley steps in and all the shoulder-pads, swirling cloaks, boots, gauntlets and BFS just accentuate the fact that underneath all of that badassery is a cute little guy just like Kirby. Only with deep identity issues.
Guild Wars has rollerbeetles, giant rolling beetles that make cute little chittering noises. During Canthan festivals, you even get to participate in Mario Kart-style rollerbeetle races.
Nobody's really sure just whatKlonoa is, beyond the adjectives "cute", "long-eared", and "fuzz-covered". This really applies to most everything in his games, as well.
Word of God claims that Klonoa's a cat with long ears. Not that you can really tell by looking at him.
You can shove the entire franchise into this trope, to be honest.
A lot of the smaller Heartless fall into this category. They are so huggable you can almost ignore the fact that if you get within an arms' reach they will plunge whatever limbs they have inside your chest and rip your heart out.
Hell, Ammy herself is adorable when she's not being ferocious, especially when she gets bored listening to some of the other gods (or Waka) drone on and on, and just decides to ignore them and take a nap.
If you want to see cute, just take a look at pretty much all the brush gods' offspring. Especially Gekigami's.
If you have the right items, you can turn yourself into a small cute frog, rabbit, dog, etc. in Gaia Online. Cue the delight if you enter the Zomg! game as a frog. Not to mention all the fluffs in the game itself.
Several monsters from Monster Rancher count, most notably Mocchi.
The main Monsters you run into in Wario Land Shake It! are little banndana-waring red balls with feet and mouths known as Banditoes. They don't actualy do any damage, they just walk about and bounce off your fat gut, and grabbing them causes them to panic in a way that can cause just a little bit of empathy for them. Also, they come in multiple types - yellow, (They jump all about the stage.) Blue (They inflate and float, making a face that looks suspiciously like that anime "Hey-I'm-cute" face we all know and love (:3, to be exact) all the while.) and a lighter blue. (They have forks on their head which can actualy harm you, but cause them to get stuck to the cealing or walls when thrown, with struggling included.) It seems even the game likes them, as some missions to unlock the music soundtrack require you to get through a stage without killing a single baddie.
Prinny Asagi◊. I believe the phrase you are looking for is "X3".
Though not technically critters, the turrets in Portal have ridiculously cute death speeches. He who does not well up at least a little has no heart.
Nelly Cootalot has spoonbeaks from the Barony of Meeth, which are not only cute for their eponymous spoon-shaped bills, but also serve to show how evil Baron Widebeard can be when he enslaves them to work in the Saul Mines.
Nall and Ruby from Lunar, being what appear to be adorable winged cats with high-pitched voices. Until they become full-fledged dragons.
The Yordles from League of Legends count, pretty much being Moogles in all but name. Teemo in particular was the game's first designated cute champion.
The Loco Roco, and some of the creatures in their world.
The Patapon. Even some of the creatures they fight are adorable.
The Zork universe has the minx, "an irresistibly cuddly animal which shares all the most ingratiating characteristics of kittens, koala bears, and piglets."
Om Nom, the candy-eating little green monster from Cut The Rope.
All of the mooks in Hello Kitty Online are even cuter than they are dangerously aggressive. As is pretty much everything else in this Sugar Bowl world.
The fluffy wamblers from Dwarf Fortress are described as, "known and beloved for their warm hearts, gentle natures, and stumble bumblings...They are widely held to be 'adorable,' and many dwarves consider them to be a delicacy." They're also respected as killers of bronze colossi.
The titular creatures of Elebits The Adventures Of Kai And Zero, but a lot of the Omegas, especially. Take one look at the Ice Omega and try to say it's not cute.
You can make the Remlits stay ridiculously adorable all the time if you complete a certain sidequest, however.
The Kikwis, who resemble a cross between a penguin and a beaver. Not to mention their Verbal Tic...
Furrikin in Lusternia. Bipedal, intelligent little fuzzballs, they resemble anthropomorphic archetypical animals. Furrikin can look like anything from a panda bear to a raccoon to a sheep, but don't let their appearance fool you - they're smarter than humans and very fast. And not all of them are peaceful, either.
And beware angering even the ones who are peaceful: they maintain close cultural ties to the Tae'dae.
Teddie from Persona 4, it's like this trope page is describing him on purpose.
Baby mobs in Minecraft. Just making the body smaller while leaving the head the same size should not produce such cuteness!
The Baliflids in Ascendancy — although judging from the art, this is a case of either Ugly Cute or Informed Ability. They are so cute they can force all other species to make peace with them at once.
The Nopon in Xenoblade Chronicles. They stand out in stark contrast from the other denizens of the world with their overly cute looks.
Web Animation
The Cheat from Homestar Runner, though his larcenous personality is at odds with this.
Also Sterrance, whom Strong Bad considered so cute that he succumbed to a squeeing fit.
To a lesser extent, even Pom Pom fits the bill.
The Cheat's animesque counterpart, The Cheatball is a tiny ball with big, blue eyes and a small mouth it never uses. This is a perfect fit for this trope.
All the facial expressions 1-Up (Homestar's counterpart) uses in that toon may make him this as well.
Lil' Strong Sad leans strongly in this direction.
The fact that almost every character fits in here is what makes Happy Tree Friends so disturbing funny.
The Mows from DMFA. You can see them crawling around on the main page, even.
Those look a lot like Meerkas, fat squirrel things from Neo Pets.
DMFA also has Deebs (Short for 'Deathbringer' - yes, the original one). Basically, a baby bunny made from pink bubblegum. When combined with Jyrras' Bishonen-ness, it was cute enough to give Lorenda acute diabetes.
Fluffy in Hazard's Wake, whose cast page entry even states, "Does Fluffy have a point other than being the cute mascot-ish character?"
In a long defunct webcomic, Acid Reflux, we saw critters similar to those that now grace the image at the top of the page: Melting Pandas. They are almost Exactly What It Says on the Tin, although it's uncertain whether they truly are melting, or just completely boneless. Plus, oxygen is a powerful narcotic to them. Apparently, they only existed to be adorable. The only ones that were still alive were ones that had been put in stasis at an old museum. Upon hearing about the two main qualities of these creatures, one character commented that maybe there's a reason that they were extinct.
RED Scout's pet chicken Peep-peep in Cuanta Vida certainly qualifies.
Tinkerbull, Tavros's lusus is a delicate, flying, fairy bull.
The Shadowchild from Digger. more so if you consider it's dialogue.
"Feel cold? Can I really? Would that be all right?" "Ummm, sure. Knock yourself out." "Yay!" and “I just ate a sock!” come to mind, as does the “ What’s A [amusing blank] Am I a [amusing blank]?” running joke.
Neo Pets. All of them. Even the grumpy-looking gargoyle-things, the snarly Godzilla-Expies, the giant mantids, and flame-spewing dragons. Even the mutant and evil versions of same.
And they get cuter each time they are redrawn.
And they have baby forms.
To say nothing of the Petpets, pets for your Neopets. Or, hell, anything on that site, really, except the villains (or most of the villains, anyway...)
Almost every petsite falls in this category, like Subeta, Wajas, and others. Except Marapets.
Along the same lines as Neo Pets are the Webkins. Thus far, Gantz has managed to make every species imaginable into a Squee-worthy plushie covered in their trademark stringy fur (even, oddly, animals that tend to lack fur such as frogs). The things aredesigned to make kids scream, "OMG!!! WANT!!!" after all.
Okay, everyone, line up to make jokes about how the company is named Gantz in five, four...
Protectors of the Plot Continuum has CAFs — Cute Animal Friends — are the results of an author attempting cute and instead getting diabetes-inducing twee. Particularly bad examples end up as little more than big eyes, fur, and cute cooing sounds, like oversized tribbles. Some can be trained or educated into becoming productive members of the multiverse, but a particularly Small Annoying Creature may be better off simply fed to the nearest mini.
I believe Dr. Insano's fluffy pink, freakish, orb-shaped son belongs here. Awwww.
The pet cow you can buy in Progress: The Game. It may not do anything other than sit there and look adorable, bur it does it so well that it's worth the price.
While not exactly a critter, Marshmallow from The Annoying Orange definitely qualifies. Midget Apple to a lesser extent.
The Puffer kittens (SCP-2558-J) from the SCP Foundation are this, because of their cuteness and effect it has on the staff the actually have Euclid classification.
Two words: Nyan Cat.
Western Animation
Guano from Kappa Mikey. Of course, it's obvious he's a parody of Pikachu
Extend this trope to mechanical 'animals' and you get WALL•E, whose huge adorable eyes seem custom-made to tug the heartstrings of all who gaze upon him.
Rhino the Hamster from Bolt, whose cuteness is potent enough to distract henchmen and save the day.
Halfway subverted with "Cujo", the lovable ghost pup in Danny Phantom. It's friendly and adorable in small mode, but can turn big and aggressive if it needs to. "Yikes" is a far more appropriate word for that one.
Parodied on The Fairly OddParents with the Gigglepies, big-eyed, Carebear-esque creatures who speak entirely in rhyme. It's eventually revealed that they are actually alien conquerors who enslave worlds with their hypnotic cuteness.
Nibbler, from Futurama, probably qualifies — he's pretty weird looking, but he's small and squeaky enough to make the tough, no-nonsense captain Leela go to pieces and adopt him as a beloved pet. He later gets a little red cape and diaper. It turns out that his entire species is sentient, and uses their cuteness as a ploy to infiltrate places where the local species is bigger and uglier as part of a giant conspiracy.
Not to mention, in the episode "The Problem with Popplers", the Popplers themselves, as they are actually the young of the sentient, not to mention angry Omicronians.
Cats have the power to mind control people by being just so cute. They even beat out the Nibblonians on the cuteness front.
Katie the little... uh... fuzzy yellow thingy (she doesn't match any of the other animals) from Horton Hears a Who!
The original Horton illustrations by Dr. Seuss also fits this trope. Admit it, your mind went "awwww!" when you first set eyes on him on the cover of the book.
Ding-A-Ling Wolf from the Hokey Wolf cartoons is arguably the most adorable Hanna-Barbera sidekick of all.
Once The Simpsons were at a petting zoo and saw a cute little lamb with big eyes. They all let out an "Aw!", then saw an even littler lamb with even bigger eyes. They let out a bigger "AWWW!!", then saw the littlest lamb with the biggest eyes, and let out the biggest "AWWWW!!!" of all. Then the second lamb walked in front of the third one, and Homer shoved it out of the way.
Chuck Jones had a penchant for ridiculously cute critters that brought out protective impulses in unlikely characters - like the kitten to bulldog Marc Anthony, or the penguin to Bugs Bunny.
Early in his career he did shorts which starred ridiculously cute critters, such as Sniffles the Mouse among others. It wasn't until hanging around with the likes of Tex Avery that he began to use more humor.
Ridiculously cute critters have gone in and out of style when it comes to Western Animation as a whole, having their original heyday in the 1930's with Disney's Silly Symphonies shorts and the copy-cat series of just about every other animation studio at the time. By the time World War II came around these were chucked out the window in favor of the Karmic Trickster and the Screwy Squirrel, but they resurface periodically.
Snap, Rudy's little chalk drawing in ChalkZone. Those huge eyes? Sweet nature? A bit of a daredevil? Fingerless hands? SO CUTE!
Despite being quite the trouble maker and all around annoying, Peri from Spliced (who seems to be the cross between a cuttlefish and a squirrel... or maybe a cat?... or a fox perhaps?... or maybeOH NEVER MIND), with his big eyes, huge grin, and buck teeth, seems to be a favorite among female fans.
The Penguins of Madagascar has Mort the mouse lemur and Eggy the duckling. Private probably qualifies as well - he's made even King Julien go "Awwwww".
Private manages to attain a level weaponizable cuteness in one episode. Naturally, Skipper takes advantage.
Reginald the koala from American Dad. In his first appearance, he even had a theme song and a montage dedicated to his cuteness. The fact that he's a secret agent who works for the CIA probably makes him even more adorable.
Like the Futurama example above, the Phineas and Ferb episode "Meapless in Seattle" has the alien Mitch become a being so cute that he can entrance people, including Phineas.
Best taken in small doses, as the cuteness has been known to cause tooth decay.
I take the token inanimate entry for the Smart cars◊.
The original Mini.
I see your original Mini and raise you [[The Love Bug]], Herbie.
Being one can be a problem for child actors. Facial features that make children ridiculously cute such as round faces, tiny noses, etc... don't look so well when they grow up and enter adulthood, sometimes ruining their acting career.
