Need to report a crime? She's all ears.
Rabbits and hares (the latter of which includes the so-called "jackrabbits") are usually presented as the good guys in fiction, if not The Hero outright.
This is a result of What Measure Is a Non-Cute?; adorable fuzzy animals are usually on the side of good, and ugly creepy ones are usually the bad guys. As such, expect them to have a common predator for an enemy, like foxes, snakes or wolves. In addition, there is a tendency for rabbits and hares to gravitate towards roles as the main character of a work, not only because their cute looks make them fitting for such a role, but also because they possess a higly distinct appearance thanks to their most recognizable physical trait: A pair of unusually elongated ears. This characteristic thus lends itself easily to the rule that main characters should possess signature design traits that set them apart from the rest of the cast.
This positive portrayal of lagomorphs is by no means universal, but it's common enough that subverting it has become its own trope. Inversions and subversions are usually a Hair-Raising Hare. Even then, it should be telling that scary rabbits are often treated more as a twist of expectations than something more natural.
A Rascally Rabbit can also be a Righteous Rabbit, as long as its trickery is aimed at people who deserve it, Doc.
This is a subtrope to Good Animals, Evil Animals and Herbivores Are Friendly and is also a type of Animal Stereotype. Compare Nice Mice, Bunnies for Cuteness and Cute Kitten.note
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- In Osamu Tezuka's 1965 manga The Amazing 3 (Wonder 3 or W3 in Japan), Bokko (Captain Bunny or Bonnie in some English versions) is the kind-hearted leader of an alien trio who transform themselves into Earth animals to study humanity. Disguised as a White Bunny, Bokko and her teammates (who pose as a duck and a horse) befriend a human boy, a relationship that eventually saves the world. The aliens were sent to Earth because the Galactic Federation is afraid that humanity's violent nature makes them a threat to the universe. The heroes' friendship with the boy convinces them that humans should be given time to evolve instead of being destroyed.
- Cat Shit One features rabbits as the good guys.
- Terriermon and Lopmon from Digimon Tamers both resemble rabbits, a semblance that grows stronger as they digivolve. The former is one of the three main Digimon from the start, while the latter undergoes a Heel–Face Turn late in the show (though Terriermon is more meant to resemble a dog more than a rabbit, hence the name). Not only that, but Lopmon within the genre as a whole has a final form called Cherubimon, which as the name suggests, is modeled after the holy angels Cherubim.
- Angoramon from Digimon Ghost Game is a very fluffy rabbit and the kindest of the series' three partner Digimon, being very protective of the main characters and Ruli in particular. He's also formed strong friendships with other Digimon that have been stranded in the human world.
- Jewelpet: Most of the titular characters are good-aligned by definition; The Heroine Ruby is the best example in the series.
- In Made in Abyss, Nanachi's bunny-like appearance is a clue that they're a good person, despite their initial rudeness.
- Patty Rabbit, the main heroine of the 1986 series Maple Town, is a kindhearted, brave, and cute rabbit who spends most of her time with her family and friends. She's also very serious when it comes to rescuing her friends from a wolf who is the main antagonist of the series.
- Hare from the Monster Rancher anime is an annoying and mischievous, but ultimately good rabbit monster.
- My Hero Academia: Invoked with pro-Hero Rumi Usagiyama, AKA Mirko. Her Quirk, Rabbit, grants her long, rabbit-like ears and immense leg strength, which is very suitable for her style of fighting.
- Wenet from Oh, Suddenly Egyptian God is a kind-hearted hare deity, helping out the other deities' messily planted crops while they're asleep, by replanting them and growing them overnight.
- In Sailor Moon, the main character Usagi. Usagi means 'rabbit,' and not in some distant, esoteric "Genius Bonus for those who know the etymology" way; it's a very standard word. Her name is straight-up "Rabbit" and more than one foreign dub names her "Bunny." Her Girlish Pigtails are pretty much symbolic rabbit ears and there's a rabbit pattern on a lot of her things. Her full name, Usagi Tsukino, translates to "Rabbit of the Moon." (As for why, there's a pattern of craters and darker spots on the moon that's said to resemble a rabbit,
so there's an association between rabbits and the moon in a lot of Eastern... stuff. It's less common, but not unheard of, outside of China and Japan.)
- In the Star Wars: Visions episode "Lop and Ochō", Lop is a kind-hearted, idealistic, rabbit-like alien who is quite capable of wielding a lightsaber with some skill when she has to.
- Milk, one of the Yes! Pretty Cure 5 mascots, is a bunny, and while she's a stuck-up tsundere, she's also the only mascot as of this writing to gain both a human form and superpowers instead of just one, the other, or neither.
Comic Books
- Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars! is a Space Opera that takes place in a World of Funny Animals, and Captain Bucky O'Hare is basically Captain Kirk as a rabbit.
- Bunny vs. Monkey: The Protagonist of the series is a rabbit who always has to protect the forest from Monkey and his friends.
- Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! is an Affectionate Parody of the Super Hero genre. Captain Carrot is Earth-C's equivalent of Superman, and he leads a Super Team of heroic Funny Animals with unusual powers.
- Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, a member of the Captain Marvel family in Shazam!.
- Fleetway's Sonic the Comic has the loyal rabbit Johnny Lightfoot on Sonic the Hedgehog's main crew of Freedom Fighters.
- Super Rabbit from Marvel Comics is an anamorphic, talking rabbit who can transform into a superhero simply by rubbing on a ring.
- The titular hero of Tom Strong has an animal equivalent in talking rabbit Warren Strong.
- Miyamoto Usagi is the rabbit Hero Protagonist of Usagi Yojimbo. Usagi is kind and honorable almost to a fault, but has a trickster streak as well.
Films — Animation
- Lucky Jack from Home on the Range is a friendly fellow who helps the cows capture Alameda Slim.
- Boingo in Hoodwinked! subverts this trope, by virtue of turning out to be the mastermind behind the "Goodie Bandit" robberies.
- Bunnymund from Rise of the Guardians, a six-foot-tall Awesome Aussie take on the Easter Bunny. Like the other guardians, he's a heroic figure dedicated to protecting children, and he specifically acts as the Guardian of Hope.
- The poor but loving rabbit family from Disney's Robin Hood (1973) are definitely sympathetic, complete with one of the children being the film's Kid-Appeal Character.
- Another Disney example is Judy Hopps from Zootopia (pictured above), who joins the police force hoping to make the world a better place.
Films — Live-Action
- Roger Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a heroic Nice Guy, even if a little bit off-kilter.
Literature
- In Redwall, the few rabbit characters seen are fussy, complaining females or their Henpecked Husbands. Hares, on the other hand, are unambiguously heroic (and very, very British).
- In the children's book series Sweet Pickles we have Responsible Rabbit, a Funny Animal rabbit who works as a banker and could out-do Twilight Sparkle in OCD habits.
- In The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign, the summoner who's famous for never killing his enemies and answering all requests for help is called Alice (with) Rabbit.
- The protagonist rabbits in Watership Down are the heroes of the work, and from their perspective pretty much every other animal is a slavering hellbeast (while Humans Are Cthulhu). However, most of the true villains are also rabbits, so it's a Zig-Zagging Trope.
Live-Action TV
- The titular hero of Kamen Rider Build has a variety of animal and object-themed superpowers, but his primary form is RabbitTank. The Rabbit side is portrayed as being symbolic of his heroic ideals and desire for peace, while the Tank side reflects the inescapable fact that he was created to be a weapon of war. Notably, in the few times one side is given precedence over the other, it's always the Rabbit.
- The Yellow Ranger in Tokumei Sentai Go Busters and Power Rangers Beast Morphers is rabbit-themed. Part of the concept is that the Rangers have different physical skills, with the rabbit representing leaping ability where the Red Ranger's cheetah is speed and Blue's gorilla is strength.
Myths and Religion
- The Rabbit is the fourth year of the Eastern Zodiac. This is because she tried to go across the river by hopping on some rocks. She ended up falling on a log, which took her to the finish line.
- The rabbit's association with the moon is because of another story from Chinese Mythology that shows this trope. One day, an old man was walking through the woods and he complained that he was hungry. Three animals heard that and decided to help the man. The monkey started gathering fruits, and the fox looked if there was some meat he could get quickly. The rabbit, however, was outsourced as it only knew how to get grass. It then proceeded to make a fire and throw itself in it, as a means of offering itself. The old man then revealed himself to be the Boddhisatva and the rabbit was not burned, but granted access to the moon, where it keeps Chang'e company. The rabbit in the moonnote is seen pounding the elixir of life, its shape formed out of the craters on the moon.
Tabletop Games
- Bunnies & Burrows, which was inspired by Watership Down. The PCs are rabbits that go on adventures. and are generally expected to act heroically. Although given how RPG players frequently act...
- Trix Condello from Crimestrikers is another Guile Hero/Karmic Trickster. She starts as a Con Artist (albeit with a Just Like Robin Hood moral code), but after a life-changing encounter with the titular heroes, she does a Heel–Face Turn and joins the team to use her skills for good.
Theatre
- Rabbits Kingdom follows the heroic adventures of two rabbit kings and their entourages. They interact with kingdoms of other animals — wolves, birds, mice — all of whom seem to look up to the rabbits.
Video Games
- Double Subverted in AdventureQuest, which has a werehare as a pet usable in combat. It looks terrifying and ferocious, but deals Light damage which is usually associated in-game with good.
- Guren from Bound by Blades is one of The Bound, a trio of heroic animal warriors out to save their kingdom from an Ancient Evil. She's also the only girl in the team.
- Clive, one half of the titular duo of Clive 'N' Wrench is a rabbit on the trail of an escaped time-traveling criminal while being assisted by his monkey sidekick Wrench.
- Usalia from Disgaea 5 is a wererabbit and arguably one of the nicest characters in the series. She's so nice that she ends up being a catalyst for "Christo" aka Lamington's future goals as seen in the first game.
- Double Subverted with her Berserker state, especially post chapter 10 when it becomes Usalia's overload skill. Its not evil, just very dangerous to the point of being one of the best overload skills in the game.
- Dusty Revenge, an action game set in a world of sentient animals, have the titular character being a heroic rabbit on a quest of revenge against the villains who killed his girlfriend. Before he discovers he's The Chosen One to stop a villain from recovering a doomsday artifact. The prequel Dusty Raging Fist have Dusty as the hero who saves the world from the forces of darkness again.
- This would have been the case in Kingsley's Adventure, the titular character being originally conceived as a rabbit before being changed into a fox someways through development.
- In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, going into the Dark World without the Moon Pearl makes you change your shape based on your personality. Link, being a good guy, is transformed into a rabbit.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the Zonai are revealed to have been a race of benevolent bestial-looking humanoids with vaguely rabbit-like appearances, primarily in their Unusual Ears. In ancient times, they helped uplift the Hylians to an advanced civilization after descending from their home in Floating Islands high above Hyrule, and they fought side-by-side with the Hyrulean races against Ganondorf in the ancient Imprisoning War. Their king, Rauru, serves the same role as King Rhoam in helping Link acclimate to the world and his new powers, as granted by the right arm Fused to Link (the arm in question belonged to Rauru when he was alive, and was the only part of him left over when the seal on Ganondorf finally failed).
- Most rabbits in Lonely Wolf Treat are racist jerks towards predators. However, there are a few notable exceptions, namely Mochi, Boreas and Annie.
- Moshi Monsters has the Funny Bunnies, a species of benevolent rabbits who tell jokes.
- Zig-Zagged in The Night of the Rabbit: The Marquis de Hoto is sometimes enigmatic, does seem to be well-intentioned, but some characters hint to his apprentice (the player character) that he may have sinister ulterior motives. He turns out to be just as good as he claims, thus playing the trope straight. However, he also turns out not to be the real Marquis de Hoto; he is, in fact, a memory of the rabbit that the Marquis de Hoto was in the past. The real Marquis de Hoto subverts the trope, having undergone a Face–Heel Turn and been imprisoned some time before the events of the game started.
- Paladog has Hood the archer (Rabbit Hood, geddit?), who is easily the most useful of all your allies (despite that list including bears, rhinos, penguin wizards, bomb-throwing pirate monkeys and dragons) because his special attacks plow through all enemies. Using only Hoods causes what can best be described as a Wave-Motion Gun that can kill enemies before they're even spotted and severely weaken the enemy's base.
- Cream the Rabbit from Sonic the Hedgehog, a young bunny girl who joins Sonic's group after she rescues her mother from Eggman in Sonic Advance 2. Assisting Cream is her lovable Chao companion, Cheese.
- Spyro: Year of the Dragon introduces bunny-girl Bianca, apprentice to The Sorceress. She tries to come off as threatening and scare the heroes away, but it's very quickly clear that her heart's just not in it. She's only helping the Sorceress capture dragon eggs because their world's magic is drying up. Once she finds out the real reason her mistress wants all those baby dragons, she immediately switches sides to help Team Spyro defeat the Sorceress and rescue the remaining eggs. Also, she hooks up with Spyro's buddy Hunter.
- Peppy Hare of Star Fox, a veteran space pilot that serves as a guide for Fox McCloud.
- TinkerQuarry: Peter, the first toy to show genuine concern for the protagonist and join the party, is a golden plush rabbit.
- Touhou Project: While she was originally introduced as a haughty and cowardly boss character in her debut game, Reisen Udongein Inaba has developed into a completely heroic character. She's one of the most level-headed characters in the series and will occasionally solve incidents. In fact, she's one of the four playable characters in Touhou Kanjuden ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, going back to her birthplace on the Moon to stop the invasion of Gensokyo.
- Zombidle has the residents of Talar Country, who are all rabbit-people. Their knights, king, and wizard actively fight against the evil Bob the Necromancer and his legions of undead and demons. Since you play as Bob the Necromancer, these rabbit-people are your enemies. You can also have their king subvert this trope by bribing him, after which he'll help Bob to destroy the very country he rules over.
- Jazz Jackrabbit: All the rabbits in the games are portrayed as good guys who fight against the forces of Devan Shell.
Web Animation
- Cuddles from Happy Tree Friends is one of the friendliest and sweetest characters in the series, and is always happy to help and hang out with his friends.
- Melody Briar from True Tail is a cheerful Genki Girl bard who joins the heroes, but don't underestimate her because she's a Nice Girl — when she fights, she becomes the personification of Beware the Nice Ones.
- The titular Angel Hare, despite taking the role of the archetypal Analog Horror monster, is a genuinely benevolent Animalistic Abomination that wears the form of a cartoon rabbit to guide the protagonist.
Webcomics
- In The Fuzzy Princess, Lauren Ipsum is a friendly young rabbit who works at the library in St. Paws' royal castle. She becomes Princess Kat's best friend and eventual love interest.
- Ruby, the protagonist of Ruby Quest, is a rabbit and one of the nicest people in the facility (though to be fair, she and Tom are also the only people there who approach being sane). Inverted in the backstory, when she (along with everyone else there) suffered from violent fits because of a treatment she was being given, which was connected to an Eldritch Abomination.
Western Animation
- In The Adventures of the American Rabbit, a hero with superhero powers is born once a generation specifically in a village of rabbits.
- The hares in The Animals of Farthing Wood are the most useful animals in the group who can't fight or fly, as their speed allows them to deliver messages and warnings quickly, partake in search parties efficiently, and their vibration detection allows them to be among the first to sense danger. While the rabbits are also mainstays of the protagonist cast, their tendency to panic and need constant saving makes them less heroic.
- The 2006 revival of Biker Mice from Mars had the Biker Mice work together with a group of benevolent alien rabbits in the episode "First Mice on the Moon".
- Many Bugs Bunny short films had Bugs in a heroic role where he (in Joe Adamson's words) "fought Yosemite Sam because it was the right thing to do." Of course, he'd use his wiles and sense of being a Karmic Trickster in his battles.
- Crusader Rabbit, the first cartoon star created specifically for TV, is probably the Ur-Example. He's a smart and brave little guy who, with assistance from his pal Ragland T. Tiger, is never afraid to tilt at windmills.
- Doctor Snuggles features Benji and Freddy, two rabbits who are friends of Doctor Snuggles and also help him with his inventions.
- Mr. Herrimann of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends isn't so much righteous as he is fastidious, to the point of anal retention.
- In The Mandrake, Herman the farmer is a hard-working rabbit with a kind personality who takes in and ends up adopting the mandrake child that he was paid to grow.
- Miraculous Ladybug: The Kwami are benevolent animal-themed spirits meant to empower heroes through a Transformation Trinket called a Miraculous. Among their number is Fluff, who represents the rabbit from the Chinese zodiac and can use a pocket watch to turn her partner into a rabbit-themed Time Master. Alix is apparently destined to wield her powers as the Future Badass heroine Bunnyx.
- In the cartoon series Ricochet Rabbit and Droop-a-Long Coyote, Ricochet is a heroic sheriff in The Wild West. This is a Heel–Face Turn as he first appeared as an antagonist in a Touchè Turtle cartoon three years earlier.
- Bunnie Rabbot, debuting in Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) and continuing to appear in the Archie comics, is one of the main members of the heroic Freedom Fighters, possessing cybernetic limbs following an attempted Unwilling Roboticization by Robotnik.
- The Drifter from the Thunder Cats 2011 episode "The Duelist and the Drifter" is this, although he's also an eccentric Trickster Mentor. He brings himself out of an Heroic BSoD involving the episode's villain to guide Lion-O to victory.
