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Humanoid Female Animal

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Evolution hit her like a truck.

"I got a little confused, though, because The Chipmunks are actually Chipmunks and The Chippettes are little girls. Apparently the Chipmunks takes place in a universe where extensive gene splicing has taken place, since their father in the movie is a human being."

In many cartoon TV shows, films, and video games, the female animal characters may be drawn more obviously anthropomorphic than the male animals.

The males will look like cute cartoony critters or real animals, while the females will have curvaceous, more humanoid body shapes. They may come complete with Hartman Hips and/or Non-Mammal Mammaries. Frequently, females will be the only ones to have human-like hair, often long and flowing.

There may be a reasonable purpose for this: Humans are much more visually oriented than many other animals (except most birds), and these features are the most obvious visual cues for humans in telling female humans from males. Other species may have different visual cues, but what's the use in expecting the audience to recognize them? And what else could you do to distinguish that your animal character is female? Just give them boobs, hips and makeup, and call it a day.

It is worth noting, perhaps, that facial hair is probably the one mostly male-exclusive attribute used for such characters, this being one clue of masculinity that is not hidden by clothing.

(Then again, this might be done for some other reasons, though it is hard to imagine what they might be...)

In other words, the female animals tend to be at least a half-notch closer to the "human" end of the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism than the male animals, to the point of looking like outright Beast Men compared to their male equivalents. Because of this, they are rarely ever depicted as Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animals or Half-Dressed Cartoon Animals; see Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females.

This trope applies only to characters based on actual known species. Aliens, monsters and mythical beings can have Bizarre Alien Biology, after all.

Sexy Dimorphism is a related concept for fantasy races, though since they usually start out more anthropomorphic than this trope, it's done with Beast Man males and Little Bit Beastly females. See also Men Are Generic, Women Are Special; Cute Monster Girl; Beast Men, and — of course — Cat Girl. Subtrope of Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism. Furry Female Mane is a subtrope of this. Adults Are More Anthropomorphic is similar, but with age instead of gender.

Sometimes results in Furry Confusion.


Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • The female hamster in the Kia electric car commercial looks much more humanoid in contrast with the male hamsters in the same commercial and any hamster in all other Kia car commercials, who are also giant, but are still just Funny Animals.

    Anime & Manga 
  • Every character in the world of Montana Jones (an Indiana Jones Expy) is an anthropomorphic feline. While their bodies are like those of humans, they have fur, and their heads resemble the ones of big cats, like for example tigers - with the notable exception of Melissa Sone, who basically looks like a human female with cat ears and cat nose. No fur (or fur that just happens to have the colour of Caucasian skin), and no protruding animal-like muzzle.
  • Subverted with the Ctarl-Ctarl of Outlaw Star: The few males of the species we see (Aisha's subordinates and ranking officer) have fewer feline features than Ctarl-Ctarl women.
  • In Killing Bites, the male "Brutes" will often transform into their animal forms from head to toe during fights while the females tend to stay as cute monster girls. The first women who we see completely transforming have abhorrent reptile motifs such as lizards and chameleons.
  • Seton Academy: Join the Pack! features this heavily, to the point of to the point of parody. Almost all of the male animals (bar our Token Human protagonist) retain their animal features and appearances, tending to straddle the lines from Civilized Animal to Funny Animal. Meanwhile, the female animals tend to resemble humans bar a few obligatory features that indicate their nonhuman lineage. Some female animals such as Miyubi and Bonobo don't even have those token features but instead look straight up fully human.
  • Samurai Pizza Cats: Many of the female characters, such as Polly, Francine, Lucille and Princess Vi, have smaller muzzles and shojo-style eyes.

    Asian Animation 
  • Rebecca of Dreamkix is noticeably more human-like (and taller) than her teammates. She also is the only one of the regular female cast to have a Furry Female Mane.

    Comic Books 

    Films — Animation 
  • The female mice in An American Tail look a little more human-like than the male mice, more so in the sequels.
    • In the first film, Bridget has Caucasian flesh-colored hands which look much more human than those of any of the other mice, male or female.
  • Justified in The Cat Returns, as Haru began the film as a human, and was gradually turning into a cat as she remained in the Cat Kingdom.
  • Sawyer from Cats Don't Dance looks more human-like than Danny. While Danny's really, really skinny, Sawyer has Hartman Hips and a leg-to-body ratio closer to human.
  • Kitty Mouse in The Great Mouse Detective.
  • Gummibär: The Yummy Gummy Search for Santa: Kala looks more humanoid than Gummy, Harry and Vampiro.
  • Downplayed in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, which introduces a female counterpart for Scrat. She looks quite similar to him, but has humanoid hips and a more puffier chest serving as an analogue for breasts, and she appears to be wearing eye makeup.
  • Inverted in Kung Fu Panda in that Tai Lung (a male snow leopard) has a body that looks more human-like than that of Master Tigress [a female tiger]. His body is muscular and looks more human-like so as to contrast with her sleeker, leaner body.
  • Inverted in the Madagascar franchise. For example, Moto Moto the male hippo has a somewhat humanoid chest, but Gloria the female hippo doesn't. Also, Vitaly the male tiger looks a little more humanoid in the chest than the other cats in the franchise, male or female.
  • Rare non-animal example: In The Nuttiest Nutcracker, Sparkle, the only female nut, has a female humanoid body while the rest of nuts are more Cephalothorax looking.
  • Inverted in Open Season, where Eliot the Mule Deer is almost always bipedal, while Giselle, his love interest, is a full-on quadrupedal Talking Animal.
  • In The Pebble and the Penguin, the female penguins are given scary human hips way up where their wishbones should be and look more human-like in general.
  • Frog!Tiana from The Princess and the Frog has a somewhat more humanoid body than that of Frog!Naveen.
  • Beans looks considerably more human-like than Rango. Also, Angelique the vixen looks considerably more human-like than the other characters, whether male or female.
  • Maid Marian from Disney's Robin Hood (1973). What makes this even more obvious is the fact that all of her dance moves are based on those of Snow White!
  • Goldie the golden pheasant from Rock-A-Doodle has an extremely extremely humanoid figure, and her feet are drawn to look like high heels. Her silhouette looks nothing like a pheasant and everything like a human woman with feathers and a small beak added. However, her love interest Chanticleer looks more like an actual rooster but with human arms instead of wings; every animal in the film not named Goldie, while still anthropomorphic, bears a much stronger resemblance to their intended species than she does.
  • Inverted in Rover Dangerfield, where the character of Rover is humanized quite a bit (he can even stand on his hind legs while doing comedic bits), while the canine love interest looks like a real dog.
  • The wolves in Sheep & Wolves play this trope straight: the females have a Furry Female Mane.
  • Thumbelina (1994): Mrs. Toad looks far more humanoid than her sons, complete with Non-Mammal Mammaries. It's a direct consequence of her being designed to resemble her voice actress, noted Ms. Fanservice Charo.
  • Downplayed in Zootopia; most of the animal citizens of the titular city have designs mostly accurate to their real-life counterparts regardless of gender. However, two particular female characters — Judy Hopps and Gazelle — have noticeably curvier, feminine figures with Hartman Hips note . Some inverted examples can also be seen in the case of Chief Bogo and Gazelle's male backup dancers, who have more masculine, hunkier builds than most.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • Gender Inverted with Mr. Men and Little Miss as Mr. Clever is the only Cartoon Creature in the franchise is more humanoid as he got a human nose, ears, and small eyes like a human.
  • Myth Adventures: Played straight with Trolls and Trollops (who are the males and females of a single species). Trolls are big ape-like creatures with shaggy green fur. Trollops look like really attractive human women with green hair.

    Pinball 
  • A minor case appears in Devil's Dare. The male green demons have visibly wrinkled wings, bald heads, and three-toed talon feet, while the female demons (on the original backglass art) resemble green-skinned demonic babes with smooth wings.
  • Mousin' Around!: The only female animal in the game's artwork - seen in a male cat's dreams on the backglass - is an anthropomorphic cat with clothes, curly hair, and a sizable chest. By contrast, every male animal is either barefoot but otherwise fully dressed (the mice) or non-anthropomorphic (the male cat).

    Video Games 
  • Tawna, Coco, and the trophy girls from the Crash Bandicoot series are more humanoid compared to Crash himself and other animal characters.
  • Donkey Kong:
  • Many skins in Fortnite that have opposite-gendered counterparts qualify, such as Copper Wasp and Tsuki (and the latter would later gain a variation that made her look even more human). Inverted however, with Meowscles being more humanoid than his sister Meow-Skulls.
  • Inverted with Ramone (who really turns out to be Nermal in disguise) and Arlene in Garfield's Fun Fest.
  • When Tess is turned into an ottsel at the end of Jak 3: Wastelander, her proportions remain quite human, much more human than any of the males shown.
  • In Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Kirby fights against the Beast Pack, an army of Intelligent Gerbils who have kidnapped the Waddle Dees for some unknown purpose. While they mostly look like Cartoon Creatures or realistic beasts, one of their top enforcers is Clawroline, a leopard girl with an exaggeratedly curvy figure and makeup.
  • PokĂ©mon:
    • Jynx is essentially this trope, although it looks more like a full-on human than an animal. This is also true with Gothitelle.
    • Gardevoir and Lopunny both would be a more straight example. Subverted however, by the fact that these Pokemon can be both genders.
    • In an inversion, many Fighting-types such as Hitmonchan, the Machop line, Throh, Sawk, and Hariyama have a stereotypical human male build, though in the case of both the Machop line and Hariyama, there's a slight chance they can be female.
  • Ratchet & Clank, sister series to the above, also plays with this trope. Sasha, Girl of the Week from game three, has a decidedly human face shape and hair. Both Ratchet and Sasha's own father have more feline facial features (and, in her father's case, a lion-like mane for hair).
    • See also Angela from game two, who's actually a female Lombax (Ratchet's species).
  • Inverted in the Shining series. Khris and Alef in Shining Force feature very canine features, Sarah and May do so in Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya, and so does Grace in Shining Force 3.
  • With the notable exception of The Contessa (who is a spider-centaur-thing with no humanoid legs), the female characters in the Sly Cooper video games tend to have more human-like bodies than the male characters.
    • With the exception of the inspector, there's not much difference, especially in the Holland hotel in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.
  • The females of Solatorobo tend to have peach fur and very short muzzles, while the males have longer, more animal-like noses and fur colors from a wider palette like white, grey, or orange. Males may also have bicolor fur (such as Red's tan-and-white face) or distinctly animal-like patterns (QuĂ©bec is tiger-striped), while all females ever get is a single stripe on each cheek (though that's all some males have, too).
    • The exception to the "short-muzzle girls" rule is Merveille, who has a longer nose with her peach fur. Notably, this tendency toward short muzzles tends to make people mistake Red's sister Chocolat for a Felineko when she is in fact just a short-faced Caninu.
  • Rouge the Bat from Sonic the Hedgehog, even compared to most of the other female characters. Aside from her ears, wings, and tail, she has the second-most human-like body proportions in the series. Vanilla the Rabbit looks even more humanoid than Rouge, with her being taller than most other anthropomorphic characters in the series except for the ones who are meant to be The Big Guy.
  • Downplayed with Krystal from Star Fox Adventures. Aside from having the Wrong-Type-of-Mammal Mammaries, the only thing human about her compared to Fox is her human-like head hair.
  • Enough people think that Tera follows this, with the all-male cute critter style Popori and the much more human-ish Elin.
  • The Stripperific gator girls and fish ladies that appear in The First Funky Fighter, complete with Non-Mammal Mammaries. Getting them to appear takes a bit of guesswork, though.
  • Tauren, Pandaren and especially Worgen females in World of Warcraft are more human in body shape than their male counterparts. Somewhat justified in the case of the Worgen since they aren't a species per se, but are actually cursed (or blessed, depending on who you ask) humans. The curse works by bringing out the natural aggression in the person, so it makes sense the women might be a little less affected since they've been taught not to be aggressive. Furbolgs, quillboars, and wolvars subvert this, however, as females of those species look no different from the males.
    • Subverted now with the new Tauren models. Advancing technology has made it easier to give male models more human-like characteristics: and the Blizzard artists took advantage of that. Though there was also a lore reason, as the Tauren and other "beast races" were no longer conceived of as being quite so bestial.
  • Most of the Monsters in Evolve could, in spite of their abilities, pass off as natural animals under the right circumstances, but the Wraith, which is specifically stated to be female, has an appearance that is distinctly female to match. This was intentional per Word of God in order to work the uncanny angle.
  • Downplayed with Mipha from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Compared to the male Zora such as her brother Sidon (who is twice as tall as a human and has a head vaguely resembling that of a hammerhead shark) and her father Dorephan (who is ten times at tall as a human and has a whale-like body), and even compared to the other female Zora, she has a relatively more human-like appearance, seemingly lacking even the sharp carnivorous teeth of the others.
  • The Rat God from Mad Rat Dead looks less like a rat and more like a human woman with a rat's ears and tail. It becomes egregious when you compare her to (the male) Mad Rat, who is basically a cartoon rat. A Justified Trope because the Rat God isn't even a rat at all, she's a parasite infecting Mad Rat's brain, causing him to hallucinate. Her true parasitic form resembles a cluster of neon-colored cells.
  • Out of all the races in the Ivalice Alliance games, the Viera are the most human looking aside from their longer nails and long bunny-like ears. Male Viera do exist, but only the females are allowed to adventure outside of their tribe, thus the males are never shown.
  • Tryrush Deppy applies this to cars. The males simply look like cars standing upright on their rear wheels. The females look like this.
  • A curious example from Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem involving Tomboy and Girly Girl. Penelope Pussycat, as mentioned below, is normally built like any other of the cats (or skunks) in Looney Tunes canon, with short legs (comparable to Pepe or Sylvester). As of 28 November 2022, there are six versions of her in the game, her 'Original' version and five others. Of them, two keep that posture: Dread Pirate Penelope and Lunar Penelope, both stereotypically badass-types (pirate and martial artist). The other three are Kitty Kelly (her "Carrotblanca" appearance), Couture Penelope, and Countess Penelope. All three are wearing fancier dresses, hats (or powdered wig for the Countess), and even shoes (hidden under the Countess's dress but visible in some animations). And in all three cases, she has more human proportions and curves.
  • T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger: Leopard princess Lotus, who looks more like human woman with leopard coloration, ears, tail and paws.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • Zig-zagged with Furry work. Often, a particular artist's characters have about the same level of anthropomorphism regardless of gender, while others fall into this.
  • In Adventures of the Puffincat, the image of a female puffincat is essentially a woman with cat ears and a beak (as opposed to the male puffincat, which is more or less what you expect when you imagine something with that name). Amusingly enough, the only difference the narrator recognises is the presence of a bow in her head.
  • Lambasting this trope is the basis of this tweet, which shortly thereafter went viral for it.

    Western Animation 
  • Common in Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the early 1960s with animal protagonists. One notable aversion is Cindy Bear.
    • Actually, the female animals were generally sleeker and daintier, but most stuck pretty much to the body conventions of their male companions (thus were merely female, and not sexualised from the viewer's perspective). The only real examples of this trope are Floral Rugg from The Hillbilly Bears and a few female cats that appeared in Top Cat.
  • Subverted at the two same characters in The Adventures of Puss in Boots
    • Played straight with Dulcinea (female), who has a humanlike figure, in contrast to Puss (male), who has a build more like a cat with a two-legged stance.
    • Inverted with Sphinx (female), who stands on all fours, whereas Puss usually stands on two legs.
  • In the second cartoon series, but not in the three live-action movies, Alvin and the Chipmunks the Chipettes are more humanoid.
  • Generally averted in The Amazing World of Gumball: if we see male and female characters of the same species, either the difference in body shape is minor with neither being more humanlike (after season one, Penny's body is more curved than her father's) or doesn't exist (body-wise Gumball is identical to his mother at his age, but shorter, even having the same large hips). However, there are a few straight examples:
    • The Wilson family: The father and son are almost naked cephalothoraxes covered in fur/hair. The mother and daughter are still quite cartoonish, but have heads distinct from their bodies, are fully clothed, and only have visible hair on their heads and faces. Nothing but their rainbow-colored hair even indicates it not being Gender Equals Breed.
    • The Robinsons: The husband and his son have pill-shaped bodies and no necks. The wife, again, is still not very humanlike, but has Hartman Hips and a clear division between her head and body.
  • Animaniacs:
    • Rita is a Civilized Animal cat who often walks on two legs, but her friend, Runt, is a four-legged Talking Animal dog.
    • Minerva Mink is normally more humanoid than Wilford B. Wolf until Wilford becomes a werewolf, which in that case, he is just as anthropomorphic as Minerva.
    • Played with regarding Slappy in the "Buttermilk Slappy" short. She's shown as being more human-like during when she looks to be in roughly mid-20s or so. Then she "regresses" to the more squirrel-like form we know and love.
    • Also played with regarding Dot Warner in "Roll Over Beethoven". When she dresses in a red dress and shoes, she looks inexplicably more humanoid than usual.
  • Many of the female characters from Arthur.
  • The two adult female leads in Birdz, Betty Storkowitz and Miss Finch, qualify. Both have Non-Mammal Mammaries and the latter has Hartman Hips.
  • Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers: Gadget Hackwrench, compared to the other members of the Rescue Rangers, looks less like a rodent and more like a cute human girl with her feminine figure, Furry Female Mane, and skin-colored fur. The only indications that she is, in fact, a mouse are her ears, tail, pink nose, and buck teeth.
  • In Disney's Springtime for Pluto, a male caterpillar with a long green body and multiple arms and legs transforms into a completely humanoid dancing female butterfly.
    • Clarice the chipmunk is more anthropomorphic than Chip 'n Dale.
  • On DuckTales (1987), female ducks are far likelier to have a head of hair or even a human shape, i.e. Magica Despell, Mrs. Beakly, and especially Gandra Dee, who basically looks like a curvy blonde human woman with a bird beak.
  • Bernice, Grandma-Ma, and Agnes Delrooney from Duckman look more humanoid than Eric Duckman and the other male ducks.
  • Early example: The titular character of the 1932 Van Beuren Studios cartoon "The Farmerette."
  • The female Dogfaces in Goof Troop and A Goofy Movie look a little more human-like than the male ones, to the point where their noses, muzzles, and ears can often be their only non-human feature.
    • This has been lampshaded by both Don Rosa and Carl Barks, who draw "real" historical characters with this generic doglike feature because editors informed both artists that it would be less jarring to see them around Funny Animals. In any case, Barks made exceptions quite often, especially with many 'ethnic' characters. Rosa, on the other hand, made only one exception, in Quest for Kalevala, where the Finnish god-heroes were drawn with human noses and five fingers.
  • In Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats, Cleo looks distinctly more anthropomorphic than Riff Raff and Heathcliff. Then again, the rest of the Catillac Cats (Hector, Wordsworth and Mungo) are also more anthopomorphic than Heathcliff and Riff Raff, as are most of the dogs and other adversaries. On the other hand, Heathcliff's girlfriend Sonja (who is from the original comics, unlike Cleo), has the same round body type that he does.
  • Played straight in Kaeloo, where the female animals shown in men's magazines are bordering on Little Bit Beastly. Even Kaeloo herself, who lacks most forms of Tertiary Sexual Characteristics has some serious junk in the trunk and has a light curve to her hips which is often accentuated in the way she stands. She is also significantly less prone to dropping a Furry Reminder than her male friends. Pretty also seems to have curvy hips as well (but no other curves).
  • Looney Tunes
  • Mousey Galore is more anthropomorphic than the other mice in Pinky and the Brain, even more so than the other female mice.
  • Patrol 03: The male characters look like real animals that just wear police hats, glasses and lab coats at the most, while the females are humanoid and wear full uniforms.
  • Sophia in The Raccoons looks much more humanoid than all the other aardvarks like Cedric and Cyril. Of the raccoons themselves most of the females look as anthropomorphic as the males, with the exception of Lisa who has a more human shape than her mother and aunt Melissa.
  • Regular Show: Zig-zagged - Mordecai (male) and Margaret (female). Resemble each other, although Margaret also wears a skirt. Margaret's friend Eileen is a humanoid mole, but apart from her tail and feet she looks completely human.
  • Inverted with the two cats from The Simpsons; the Simpson family's pet cat, Snowball II (a female cat) and Scratchy (a male Funny Animal cat) from The Itchy & Scratchy Show. This is likely because, in universe, Snowball II is a "real" cat and Scratchy is a "cartoon" cat.
  • In South Park, ManBearPig is a hulking, ugly monster. Eventually we see meet his son Chuck-Chuck, who's Ugly Cute at best, and his wife PigBearGirl, who's basically a normal woman in a Jungle Princess outfit, but with a piggish nose and animal ears.
  • In SWAT Kats, the female cats look more anthropomorphic than the male cats (and only males have distinctly cat-like striped coats and whiskers). This is mostly in the heads/faces and hands/feet; Male body builds are fairly humanoid with a few exceptions.
  • Rebecca Cunningham from TaleSpin has a slimmer, more anthropomorphic body than Baloo.
  • In Tiny Toon Adventures, Binky Bunny, Bimbette, and Margot Mallard are more anthropomorphic than Buster Bunny, Johnny Pew, and Plucky Duck respectively. Averted with Fifi La Fume and Shirley The Loon, and mostly averted with Babs Bunny.
    • In "Lifeguard Lunacy", the three pool babes that faun around Arnold Pitbull look human except with dog noses. The Credits Gag for that episode was "Quick Question: Those Babes around Arnold - What kind of animals were they?"
    • Hamton's mother Winnie counts, and her pig features are her tiny snout and curly tail.
  • The female cats in Tom and Jerry look more humanoid than Tom does, except those in Chuck Jones directed ones.
  • Kitty Katswell of T.U.F.F. Puppy looks more humanoid than Dudley Puppy.
  • Most of the protagonists of Food Fight are bipedal Funny Animals, with the exception of the female lead and love interest Sunshine Goodness, a Catgirl.
  • Betty Boop started life as one of these. Although she was intended as the girlfriend of the studio's dog character Bimbo, her canine features were pretty much limited to a Dogface nose and dangling ears, which evolved into her more familiar hoop earrings.

 
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Danny Gonzalez female bear

Danny remarks the absurdity of the female bear in Little Panda Fighter having a human-esque figure.

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