Adorable Fluffy Tail

"Poof it softer, make it better
Fluff it faster, makes us cuter"

"Oh, my god! This man is my exact double! [Gasps] That dog has a puffy tail! [Chases after the dog] Hehehe! Here puff! Here puff! Hehehe!"

— Homer Simpson, The Simpsons, "Fear of Flying"

Many things factor into the Rule of Cute—size, colour, aesthetic and shine. However, there's also another factor—fluff. And what better way to embellish a cute texture like that by adding it to an equally cute animal?

While some animals have particularly fluffy tails, in the realm of fiction, expect them to be over-exaggerated, large and colourful. In some cases, animals may have more than one tail. Additionally, they can be subject to modification and dolled up. It's also common for other characters to Squee over them.

Apart from cuteness, this trope could be used to show how open and friendly characters are—if they trust you, they'll let you touch them. However, not all animals like being touched there—petting them there without permission could lead to some serious consequences, so tread with caution.

Characters without one can be seen as either a counterpoint to or be portrayed more negatively than those with one. Part of the reason why You Dirty Rat! is a trope is because rats have tails that are hairless, the complete opposite of fluffy.

Of course, perhaps they just exist because they look cute.

This trope is frequent in the kemono genre.

Could overlap with Ridiculously Cute Critter, Fluffy Dry Cat and Artistic License – Biology.

Ways this trope can play out:

• Characters remarking on the tail.
• Characters stroking and playing with it to emphasize how soft it is.
• Characters using the tail as a duster, fashion statement or something of the like.
• Characters being embarrassed/bashful about the reputation their tails bring
• Characters wagging the tail to emphasize the fluff.
• Characters curling up and using the tail as a pillow or blanket.

Examples

Anime & Manga

• The Bush Baby: Jackie's pet bushbaby, Murphy, has big ears and a lemur-like tail. Look at little guy!◊
• The Helpful Fox Senko-san: Senko has a massive, golden, fox tail with a white tip at the end, that has reached Memetic Mutation amongst the fandom for how fluffy it is. Shiro has a thinner, fluffy white tail, and Sora has four fluffy purple tails.
• Yoko of Idol Angel Yokoso Yoko has a pet flying squirrel named Mu, who looks like a ball of fluff and has a little rabbit-like bobtail.
• Inuyasha: Sango's Nekomata companion Kirara has two fluffy tails. There are a few times across the series where the fluffiness of those tails is enjoyed as being adorable and comfortable to rest on.
• Lady!!: Sophie's pet squirrel has wide blue eyes, puffy cheeks and a massive tail that's about the size of it's body. He loves cuddling with Sophie and sometimes uses his tail to comfort her cheek.
• In episode eight of Muromi-san, Yeti gets a fluffy tail thanks to Wiseman.
• Pollyanna: Chip Mack has a very big, bushy tail that stands out from the other squirrels because of it's size and stripes.
• Spice and Wolf: Holo's luxurious, fluffy tail is her pride and joy. Lawrence will often try to coax her into laying it over his lap on colder days, too.

Fan Works

• A Certain Droll Hivemind: During the attack on the mall, Yui becomes convinced that the assailant is trying to look like a red panda (she's not trying to look like a red panda). She decides to take a moment to explain to the assailant that red pandas are not actually pandas, and she should have brought a cute fluffy tail.
  This is a useful fact for her to know. That may have made it harder for her to prepare her costume. Taxonomic confusion is problematic. Although if she was trying to dress up as a red panda, she should have brought a fluffy tail. The Network agrees that the fluffy tail of the red panda is its cutest feature.
• Lighting Candles: When Tadashi Hamada becomes a kitsune guardian spirit upon his death in Big Hero 6, he has a fluffy fox tail both in animal and (sometimes) in human form. This shows Tadashi's gentleness, signaling that he's trustworthy even when he looks like a wild animal, as while Jack Frost makes fun of him for it, young Nozomi most remembers Tadashi's fluffy tail and how he let her pet it when she was scared. His friends also call him adorable in fox form and pet him (though they didn't know it was him at the time).

Films — Animated

• The Bad Guys (2022):
  • Mr. Wolf is a wolf, a scruffy kind of handsome and a criminal mastermind...who hides a softer, even Adorkable side. Early in the film, we see there's some good in him when he starts wagging his big wolf tail after he gets called a "Good boy".
  • There is also the good-hearted Diane who, being a vixen, sports a huge, fluffy tail of her own. However, her tail somehow disappears when she dons her Crimson Paw suit.
  • Subverted with Professor Marmalade who, as a guinea pig, is absolutely adorable, but lacks a tail. This lack of a tail is used as subtle foreshadowing that he's actually full of shit, as he talks about how doing good deeds makes "his tail wag"; since he has no tail, upon rewatch we can tell he's lying so as to relate to Mr. Wolf and manipulate him.
• Turning Red: When Mei, struggling with her new ability to turn into a giant red panda when she gets emotional, accidentally reveals herself to her best friends, the first thing Abby does is scream, "You're so fluffy!" and bury her face in Mei's fur, while Priya plays with her huge fluffy tail while remarking she's always wanted one.

Literature

• A Hero's War: Demihuman fukas have big eyes and fluffy tails large enough that a mildly derogatory nickname for their species is "tails". Tail behaviour shows their mood, like dogs, and its appearance is tied into their ideas of attractiveness. The fluffiness is generally off-limits, though, except to romantic partners.
• In Warrior Cats, several characters have fluffy tails as a notable feature. Squirrelflight, in particular, was named Squirrelkit due to her fluffy tail, and she had hoped her warrior name wouldn't be Squirreltail after it too.

Mythology

• In Japanese Mythology, a Kitsune's tails are a sign of power. With each century they live they gain a new tail, thus naturally acquiring power and experience. Said tails are often depicted as very, very big, large enough to hide their Hoshi No Tama (Magical Star Balls that may contain their magic or life, depending on the myth) and to cause them no small amount of trouble hiding when they shapeshift into human forms. As fluffy as they may be, however, it's best not to touch them; it may result in them growing offended and cursing you for your impudence.

Video Games

• The arctic foxes in Animal Jam all have extremely fluffy tails (far more than their real-life counterparts) solely to up their adorableness. In one official short, the arctic fox even pulls a giant top hat out of its tail!
• Arknights: Though most characters in this game are Little Bit Beastly, some with animal-like tails, Provence has a fluffy purple tail that's bigger than the rest of her body.
  "I'm Provence, your average disaster relief worker. Hmm, why are you staring at me like that? Interested in my tail?"
  - Provence's introduction
• Averted in Deltarune where Susie, being a lizard monster thing, has no fur on her body, yet Noelle (who, as a cute deer monster, actually fits the trope) still finds her reptilian tail to be adorable, to Susie's dismay.
• Far Beyond the World features Ranok, a humanoid wolf and the P.O.V. protagonist's love interest. One of the many things that endears the main character to Ranok is the latter's habit of wagging his floofy wolf tail whenever he's happy.
• Roxanne Wolf from Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach is an animatronic, well, wolf made to be appealing to children and, although she's made of metal and plastic, her hairdo and tail are detailed so as to look furry. When Gregory grievously damages her, she loses her tail altogether, adding to how terrifying she now looks.
• Genshin Impact: Yae Miko is very proud of how fluffy her tail is, and specifically notes it is more fluffy than Gorou's. This is somewhat an Informed Attribute since her tail is never actually shown in a context we can compare it to other characters.
  "He certainly has a beautiful tail. Although... mine's a little softer." Yae Miko, about Gorou.
• Grimms Notes: Kaguyahime (the Moonlight version) has an almost unnoticeable, but very cute round bunny tail.
• Many Pokémon qualify for this trope, notable examples being:
  • Minccino. It has a fluffy, grey tail with a white tip at the end. Its Pokemon White Pokedex entry states the following:
    These Pokémon prefer a tidy habitat. They are always sweeping and dusting, using their tails as brooms.
  • Minccino's evolution, Cinccino, gains a pair of Twi'lek-like head tails that are even fluffier! one even wrap around its neck like a scarf.
  • Skitty. On its own it looks like it has quite a fluffy tail. Game Freak seemed to agree, as there is an item called the "Fluffy Tail" that's shaped like a Skitty's tail.
  • Eevee and some of its Eeveelutions. Flareon's is bushy and fox-like, while Sylveon's is thinner and cat-like.
  • Zorua. It heavily resembles a fox cub and has a black fluffy tail with a red tip. Its evolution, Zoroark, has a hairstyle that resembles a fox tail as well.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: While many characters fit this criterion, Miles Prower is the most obvious example, as he has not one, but two adorable fluffy tails which earned him his nickname "Tails". One of his Idle Animations consists of his tail wagging, and Sonic Origins shows that before knowing the blue hedgehog, he was bullied by other foxes for his mutation.

Web Animation

• hololive: Fubuki Shirakami is a white-haired kitsune that has a fluffy white tail with a black tip. It is extremely poofy and has a white star on it.
• Natasha Nyanners^note Who is currently an independent VTuber but was formerly associated with VShojo has a fluffy, pink cat-tail.
• Nina Kosaka of Nijisanji EN, being a Kitsune, had nine of them, one of which she put glasses on and named Robert.

Webcomics

• Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures: Despite looking like a purple anthropomorphic cat with fairy wings and antennae, Mab has a long fluffy tail that looks more squirrel-like which she is quite proud of. In fact she left the fae world because the new queen decreed that nobody could have a fluffier tail than herself and she refused to change it.
• El Goonish Shive:
  • Grace Sciuridae has a big, fluffy tail in both her native full- and half-squirrel forms and is one of the friendliest characters in the cast. She grows two more tails in her omega form, which look notably sharper since she is more threatening in this state.
  • Played With with Nioi, a part-skunk hybrid with a big fluffy tail. While she serves an Evil Overlord Alternate Self of Tedd, she protects Grace from Damien's explosion and takes pains to give Ellen and her own Alternate Self memories of a happy childhood. Kaoli, the alternate self, herself plays this trope straight.
  • With the nature of this being a Transformation Comic with copious animal hybrid transformations, multiple characters get temporary adorable fluffy tails at one point or another.
• End Of Infinity: After the incident with the mysterious package, Jasz gained fluffy, droopy ears, and an equally fluffy tail, as well as a nice set of fangs and claws.
• Furthia High has had this commented on twice with Hugo's tail.
• Housepets!: Great Kitsune has 7 tails, compliant with the Japanese Mythology detailed above. When Lois meets him for the first time, he has to warn her not to cop a feel, or else be cursed.
• Sequential Art: While Christmas shopping with Kat Vance, Scarlet the squirrel girl feels something gripping her tail. It's a little girl, utterly charmed by the luxurious fluffiness of Scarlet's tail. Both the girl and Scarlet proclaim simultaneously: "I know what I want for Christmas!"
• TwoKinds features the Keidran, a race of humanoid canids and felids who often sport some large, adorable, furry tails. Special mention goes to Adira, a snow leopard Keidran sporting a long, incredibly fluffy tail that her shy, even more adorable daughter Maeve likes to nibble on.
  • The Team Pet, Mrs. Nibbly is a cute squirrel, so of course she counts too, and her tail becomes even larger in the Magical Mishaps side comics when a magic collar turns her humanoid.

Web Original

• Kittisaurus:
  • DD is a Norwegian Forest Cat who has a large, hairy brown tail. It resembles a feather duster.
  • Lala is a white munchkin cat and is nicknamed "Fluffy tail" by Claire Luvcat because hers is extremely fluffy.
• Like most cats, Lizzy of Owl Kitty hates getting wet. For the Jaws parody, the behind-the-scenes video shows how footage of a black cat swimming (Nathan the Beach Cat, with creators' permission) was combined with Lizzy's notoriously fluffy tail to create the illusion of Lizzy-as-the-shark swimming underwater.

Western Animation

• Centaurworld: Played for Drama as Horse, a hardened war horse, starts to become softened by the magic of Centaurworld. Her long, straight mane and tail are the first things to turn fluffy as part of this gradual Forced Transformation into a cuter form more befitting Centaurworld. This freaks Horse out since she's scared her rider won't recognize her when they reunite, but her friends think it's wonderful.
• Miraculous Ladybug: Timetagger annoys Bunnyx by nicknaming her "Fluffy Tail" since she has a rabbit bobtail.
• Psyko Ferret: Despite being a ferret, Psyko has a fluffy tail, as well as red fur.

Real Life

• Pomeranians have fluffy, curled tails. They stay straight at birth but curl as the dog ages.
• Norwegian Forest cats have bushy, feathery tails. They're hairy animals in general, which gives them the appearance of being very fat.
  • The Turkish Angora, Persian, and Siberian breeds of cat also have very bushy and fluffy tails, due to their thick fur coats.
• Squirrels are known for their long, bushy tails that are about as large as the rest of their bodies. The tail has a wide variety of purposes, such as balance, warmth, communication, acrobatic abilities, and defense.
• Foxes have poofy, brush-like tails.
• Raccoons and skunks are often considered cute for their little snouts, thickset bodies, and fluffy tails, in contrast to their propensity to scavenge in the trash for scraps.

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