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A character, creature, etc which is heavily associated with a fictional universe, to the point of being the (official or unofficial) mascot. This can be despite the presence of other creatures, characters, etc. In Video Games, this tends to be a popular enemy (or unit) and can overlap with Mascot Mook. In other works the role can often fall to the Team Pet or another Ridiculously Cute Critter or Small Annoying Creature.
See Mascot for when this is used to advertise a product.
"Cute" Series Mascots:
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Anime and Manga
- Tenchi Muyo! has the adorable cabbit (cat/rabbit) Ryo-Ohki, which has the ability to transform into a spaceship.
- Black Hayate and to a lesser extent Xiao May in Fullmetal Alchemist.
- Kon in Bleach. He even points this out.
- Yu Yu Hakusho: Puu!!!
- Magic Knight Rayearth: Pu pu-puuu! Mokona! (Also a mascot of sorts for Xxx HO Li C and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle)
- Kodomo no Omocha has a ubiquitous bat/rabbit hybrid, appropriately named Babbit. It probably exists only for this trope.
- For Full Metal Panic, there's Bonta-kun, with the entire second season being named after the sounds he makes, "Fumoffu".
- For Heroic Age it's B-Navi. Be careful though, because it actually transforms into a gun used to fire the Cool Ship's main weapon.
- In Welcome to the NHK! Sato lampshades this trope by saying "Every RPG needs a wimpy mascot character!" while beating up a lookalike for Dragon Quest's slimes.
- The series itself actually contains a de-facto mascot in the form of that creepy-adorable dancing purple alien that is used as a personification for 'conspiracy'.
- Moyashimon has an unusual example: a cutesy, anthropomorphic Aspergillus oryzae spore.
- Sadaharu and Elizabeth from Gintama. The series also parodies the whole mascot concept with Makoto-chan, the ill-advised, short-lived mascot of the Shinsengumi.
- Chibi-san from Chibisan Date.
- Haro from the Gundam franchise, despite not appearing in four of the seven Alternate Universes.
- Kyubey from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Its face and Catch Phrase appears everywhere in the fandom because of how cute and innocent the fandom thinks it is. /人◕‿‿◕人\
- Pokémon features Pikachu as the de facto mascot for the animated series and (slightly less so) for the games.
- Agumon is something of an unofficial mascot for the Digimon franchise, being featured as the partner of The Hero in two different anime series and a manga, and a prominent presence in most — if not all — video games and virtual pets.
- Suzuri from Ride Back. Unusual in that she's one of those rare cute sidekick-type characters who not only dies during the series, but dies rather brutally (we don't see her head getting crushed; that happens off-screen. But we do see the blood on the asphalt).
- Clara in Princess Jellyfish.
- Odate Buta is so associated with Yatterman that when the live-action movie started getting posters, the first one just showed him looking out at the viewer. Nothing else was needed - he's that well-known and associated with Yatterman.
- One Piece: Due to his popularity, Chopper has gradually become an icon for the series, to the point where it seems he and Luffy are the only characters
Comic Books
Literature
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Oddly enough, the promotional mascot for the Hitchhiker's universe (in the USA) is a little green guy that never appears in the books (or TV show, or movie, or radio show, or computer game...) themselves - though most fans consider Marvin to be the series' real mascot.
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who's sentient Cool Ship, the TARDIS. Also he's had K9, who's lately moved to The Sarah Jane Adventures.
- To the point where when the Metropolitan Police tried to trademark the Police Box and sue the BBC for infringement, the judge ruled that the rights belonged the BBC, since they had been selling merchandise without any complaints for nearly 40 years!
- Cameron from The Sarah Connor Chronicles (also mentioned below.)
- The "Grr Argh" monster from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who you may remember as the badly-drawn monster that appears after every credits sequence. Not only does Tara quote Mutant Enemy's mascot, it sums up "Becoming" perfectly.
"Ooohhh, I need a hug."
- Ttark from Kratts' Creatures.
- Abby Sciuto, NCIS. Full stop.
Puppet Shows
- Kermit the Frog for The Muppets. He was also the mascot of the Jim Henson Company before Disney bought him out.
- Sesame Street has Elmo, also the mascot for the show's parent company Sesame Workshop. Big Bird used to fill this role before Elmo proved to be a massive merchandising success.
Tabletop Games
Toys
Video Games
- Prinnies from Disgaea and other Nippon Ichi games.
- A lesser example: the fairies from Legend of Zelda, Navi in particular.
- Pokemon's Pikachu, particularly in the anime. Each new generation of Mons also has a lesser, ambiguously official mascot: Pichu for Pokémon Gold and Silver (and their remake), Absol (unofficially) for Pokemon Ruby And Sapphire, Lucario for Pokemon Diamond And Pearl and Zoroark for Pokemon Black And White.
- According to Bulbapedia, Pichu is Johto's Pikachu, Minun and Plusle are Hoenn's, Pachirisu is Sinnoh variant and Emolga is Unova's, though this one is more like Pachirisu than Pikachu.
- There's Mario for Nintendo's mascot, and obviously for the Super Mario Bros. series. Nintendo Power had Nester, and the Famicom Disk System had a critter called Disk-kun, who appeared on the title screen of Smash Ping Pong and starred in the last-ever FDS game, Janken Disk Shiro.
- Custom Robo has the Ray series of Shining Fighter class robos, one of which represented the franchise in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
- Final Fantasy: Chocobos and Moogles, and to a lesser extent, Cactaurs, Cait Sith, and Tonberries.
- Sora, Donald, and Goofy from Kingdom Hearts.
- Portal has the very friendly Companion Cube, which will not threaten to stab you. It's so popular that Valve's made plushies and fuzzy dice in its image. The iPod-esque turrets might even have a stronger claim to the title, appearing in Valve promotional materials even outside the Portal franchise, and getting a much greater and more varied role in the sequel.
- Pikmin has, obviously, the Pikmin.
- The Dragon Quest series has Slimes.
- Animal Crossing: Tom Nook.
- Rabites from the World of Mana series.
- Rappies from the Phantasy Star series.
- Tran from Beatmania IIDX.
- Twilly for Adventure Quest in particular and all the other Artix Entertainment games to a degree.
- Kero the frog and Grey the alien in Tokimeki Memorial 2.
- Carbuncle in the Puyo Puyo series.
- The priring from Latale, which was so cute it was made into a pet.
- Vault-Boy from Fallout.
- Jack Frosts from the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona series got so popular that Atlus chose them as their official mascot.
- Ragnarok Online had Porings, in a very forcing way.
- Chickens in Fable. Hell, Fable III starts with a chicken running around the city as an allegory for the rest of the game.
- Mr. Saturn for the MOTHER series.
- The Grox from Spore.
- Missile the shiba-inu police dog has become this for the Ace Attorney series, despite initially only appearing once as an optional character. Similarly, Missile the pomeranian from Ghost Trick, which shares the same universe (and who is a major character).
- Dungeons of Dredmor has the Diggles. Ye gads, the Diggles...
- The Borderlands series has the Claptrap, who was the star of a web series promoting the first game and is often seen in advertisements.
- The short, cute, big-eyed plant critters known as mandragora have achieved the status of Final Fantasy XI mascot both in official and unofficial works. In-game, there are numerous mandragora-themed equippable items to find, many of which have the ability to change the character's appearance to a mandragora. Mandragora have a prominent place in much of the official promotional artwork as well. The first and most important fan-made wiki as well the unsanctioned third-party windower program both use the mandragora as a mascot as well. Mandragoras have even appeared as the game's contribution to other games in the same company, such as appearing as a summon in Dissidia.
- Star Wars The Old Republic has seemingly adopted Blizz as their unofficial mascot. He's a rocket launcher wielding, Jawa, tanking companion of the Bounty Hunter class.
Web Comics
Web Original
Western Animation
"Non Cute" Series Mascots:
Film
- Darth Vader for Star Wars, though mascot duties have also been passed around to Yoda, the Clone and Stormtroopers, Darth Maul, and (especially in the franchise's early days) R2-D2 and C3-PO. Even the Death Star is something of an icon for the franchise.
- Possibly Gollum for the Lord of the Rings movies.
- The Ugly Cute Slimer and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters. In universe, it's explained that Stay Puft is the mascot for a brand of marshmallows and the star of his own cartoon TV series. The "NO-GHOST" company logo also serves as a mascot.
- Filmations Ghostbusters have Belfry the pink bat, the Ghostbuggy, Prime Evil, the series Big Bad (arguably), and Tracy, the gorilla.
- For the Terminator series, Arnold's iconic face has been etched into our collective memories. The metallic skull of the T-800 Terminator would also count as iconic. Also, Cameron is the iconic character for The Sarah Connor Chronicles spin-off. (The last one isn't in the "non-cute" category, but never mind.)
- Ash Williams for the Evil Dead films, making it one of the few horror movie franchises known more for its hero than its villain.
- The Pink Panther had an Animated Credits Opening with the titular diamond's flaw visualized as what it's said to resemble — a pink panther. The animated character was so popular that he got his own series of animated shorts in addition to becoming the mascot for the movie series, even as Artifact Title set in.
Tabletop Games
- Mech Warrior: The Timber Wolf BattleMech for the video game series and arguably the whole Battletech universe. Completely deserved, as mecha don't get any cooler than the Timber Wolf. (And calling it the Mad Cat among the wrong group of fans will get you labeled a stravag freebirth.) The second most iconic mech is the Atlas, which is super huge, has a menacing figure, with tons of fire power to match the Timber Wolf.
- Warforged fill this role for the Dungeons & Dragons setting Eberron.
- Warhammer 40000: The Space Marines are the main mascots. Especially the Ultramarines, who appear in most of the promotional artwork and the starter set; they are even called "poster boys" by players of other armies.
Theater
- Cirque Du Soleil shows often start with a stylized logo in print ads and at their website, but eventually switch to a memorable supporting character (or representative of a memorable character group) to serve as the show's face. This is particularly important with the Las Vegas resident shows, since as many as eight different shows are running there at one time; a well-chosen mascot helps establish the style/tone that makes the production distinct from its sisters.
Video Games
- The Big Daddy from Bioshock.
- Headcrabs from Half Life.
- Pyramid Head for the entire Silent Hill series.
- Metroid: The eponymous energy-sucking, flying fanged jellyfish aliens of the series. Very young infants can run into Ugly Cute, though.
- Super Robot Wars: The SRX is the mascot of the series and Banpresto in general. It has a head shaped like the company logo, and its Game Breaker upgraded form is even named Banpreios!
- The Fiend from Quake was the mascot for Id Software in the latter half of The Nineties.
- Nightmare for the Soul series; ironically, while Nightmare represents the series' evil sword Soul Edge, most installments in the series (and all installments featuring Nightmare himself) are named after Soul Edge's heroic counterpart Soul Calibur.
- Soul Edge is probably the real mascot. Though the name of the games is now Soulcalibur, the Soul Edge is still by far the central character.
- Some of this is made nil by the fact that Nightmare is Soul Edge/Inferno's host (and in SCIII and SCIV, Nightmare was literally the living incarnation of Soul Edge). Nightmare, however, was featured on the Project Soul logo from SCII to SCV (wherein the logo was redesigned to show a re-imagining of the Soul Embrace from SCIII) and is essentially the central antagonist of the series starting in Soulcalibur (Soul Edge/Inferno is the de-facto Big Bad), making Nightmare's claims have a bit more weight to them.
- Needles Kane and his flaming clown head ice cream truck in Twisted Metal.
- The Koala in Tokimeki Memorial : Forever with you
- The Heavy Weapons Guy for Team Fortress 2.
- Captain Falcon of the F-Zero series.
- Ryu, who doubles as the Series Mascot for Street Fighter and the face of Capcom's fighting game division.
- The spectral ninja Scorpion has gradually become the mascot of the Mortal Kombat series. Sub-Zero is a close second, being the first "ninja" that the developers created. Scorpy and Subby have been the default fighters for player 1 and 2 respectively since Deadly Alliance.
- Liu Kang can also be considered the mascot of the series, being the longest-running protagonist by far. His ability to shape-shift into a dragon evokes the iconic logo after all; even before said dragon was redesigned from klassic green to chrome black.
- As of Mortal Kombat 2011, a Scorpion look-alike serves as the figure on the logo for Netherrealm Studios. Given his popularity among fans and the developers (specifically Ed Boon), it was only a matter of time.
- Command And Conquer series: The Mammoth Tank. Also The Commando and Agent Tanya.
- Marco Rossi from Metal Slug
- The Creeper from Minecraft
- The Gas Mask Helghan troopers in Killzone.
- Master Chief for Halo
Web Original
Western Animation
Company Mascots:
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
New Media
Video Games
- Jack Frost (from the Shin Megami Tensei franchise) is the mascot of Atlus Corpora.
- While the monsters you meet in Shin Megami Tensei are based on mythologies, possibly because of Jack Frost status as a mascot, you will meet original Jack Frosts like King Frost, Black Frost, Ichigo Frost, B Hawaii Frost, Lemon Frost, Melon Frost, Mirukin Frost, Frost Five and Lucifrost.
- Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army has the dapperest Frost of them all.
- Until he was displaced by Mega Man and Ryu, Captain Commando was the face of Capcom.
- Sonic the Hedgehog has been Sega's mascot since 1991. Alex Kidd is commonly remembered as having been Sega's mascot before Sonic, though Opa-Opa actually was used more often for cameos back then.
- Pac-Man, one of Namco's oldest characters, is essentially the face of his franchise.
- Mario is essentially the face of Nintendo.
- Mr. Pants for Rare.
- Hudson Soft's mascot is a tiny bee. The bee has shown up in several of Hudson's video games, including Adventure Island and Milons Secret Castle.
- Neko-Arc (a comedic miniature catgirl form of Tsukihime's main heroine) is the official mascot of Type Moon and the Nasuverse.
- Asagi serves as one for Nippon Ichi (along with the Prinnies mentioned above), as she makes a cameo in all of their games.
- Recently, it seems like they're trying to make Nisa their new one.
- Unofficially, Max for Lucasarts' adventure games.
- Compile's cute mascot, Randar (or Lander), appeared in several of their games.
- Toaplan had a similar but more purple and less round mascot named Pipiru, who appeared at the end of Zero Wing and was hidden in Out Zone and Truxton II. Even after Toaplan went defunct, Pipiru briefly appeared in a cutscene in Donpachi.
- Terry Bogard for SNK, originally, it was Athena.
- Konami tried in the late 1980s to establish Konami Man as their mascot. He never really caught on, though Konami Wai Wai World gave him the leading part, along with his Distaff Counterpart Konami Lady. Konami Man still makes occasional cameos in Castlevania games.
- Solid Snake and Simon Belmont also qualify, due to being the heroes of some of Konami's biggest franchises.
- The obscure company Asmik had the mascot Asmik-kun, called Boomer in the US.
- Amstrad's first-party label Amsoft named its mascot after executive Roland Perry. Roland became the star of eight mediocre to awful games, which never established any consistent model for drawing him.
- Heavy Weapons Guy is the face of Valve, showing prominently in all their Meet the Team videos, and representing them in most third-party promotions and crossovers.
Western Animation
- Disney:
- M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E!
- To a (much) lesser extent, Tinkerbell; Walt used her has the mascot for some of the series he hosted as well as the original ad campaigns for Disneyland (This was at ABC's insistence - they didn't want the project to take Mickey down with it if it tanked).
- Warner Bros.
- Pixar: Luxo Jr. the lamp. Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear also qualifies, being the most popular Pixar character.
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