The Tamagotchi digital pets, being one of the defining toy fads of The '90s, have seen enough popularity to accumulate several references in pop culture.
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Anime and Manga
- One promo for Aikatsu! had Ichigo and Aoi meet Yumemitchi and Kiraritchi. This was because both shows aired a half-hour after each other at the time the promo was broadcast. In addition, the arcade game featured "Miracle Travel" from Miracle Friends.
- Crayon Shin-chan has an episode where Shin-chan's mother is sidetracked by playing with a Tamagotchi pet.
- In one episode of Yo-kai Watch Jam - Yo-kai Academy Y: Close Encounters of the N Kind, one character plays a mobile game that resembles Line de Hakken! Tamagotchi.
- Zombie Land Saga:
- Saki Nikaido is fond of Tamagotchi pets and owns a Generation 1 Tamagotchi that keeps evolving into an Oyajitchi due to her not taking very good care of it.
- In one episode, one of the girls is shown to own a 20th anniversary M!X with a Maimaitchi on it.
Asian Animation
- The Chinese cartoon Nana Moon is based on a series of virtual pets that are a mockbuster of Tamagotchi, having similar handheld designs and working functionally the same way. In fact, the toys' manufacturer, M&D, flat-out started producing bootleg Tamagotchi toys with the actual Tamagotchi branding on them at some point afterwards. The cartoon itself isn't a mockbuster of the Tamagotchi anime, though.
Comic Books
- In the Pinky and the Brain comic story "Braintech", the Brain has a Tamagotchi as his helmsman.
Comic Strips
Film - Animation
- Mei from Turning Red has a Tamagotchi that she takes with her everywhere, and which she names Robaire Jr. after her favourite member of the Boy Band 4*Town. At the end of the film, it's revealed that her mother Ming's red panda spirit has been sealed inside it since there weren't many other containers available, and Ming has to regularly feed it like a typical Tamagotchi. Fittingly, the movie takes place in 2002, when Tamagotchi toys were still popular.
Film - Live-Action
- Young Madeleine from No Time to Die is shown playing with a Tamagotchi in 1998, back when Tamagotchi toys were still popular.
Literature
- Sam's college friend Marx compares friendship to having a Tamagotchi in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow when they are discussing Sadie.
Live-Action TV
- In The Big Bang Theory episode "The Vacation Solution", in response to Amy questioning his experience in biology, Sheldon pulls out a Tamagotchi that he's been raising since 1998 and claiming it to still be alive. The kicker? The model in question appears to be a McDonald's toy!
- In the Schooled episode "Tamagotchis and Bells", Tom Scott was playing with his Tamagotchi in the middle of a P.E. Dodgeball session, much to the annoyance of the coach, Rick Mellor. Scott is soon followed by his peers, and by extension the whole school, leading to Mellor confiscating them. He decides to try one for himself, and soon has a change of heart, becoming motivated to being a real parent.
- In the June 15th, 2019 episode of Jeopardy!, Tamagotchi was the answer to the $1000 clue in the "Remember the 1990s" category ("In the late 90's, this toy from Bandai helped you attempt adulting by raising a digital pet"). The clue was answered incorrectly as "Tomatogotchi" by contestant Becky, then answered correctly by fellow contestant E.J. a few seconds later.
Toys
- Among the many, many characters in Garbage Pail Kids is Tommy Gotchi, a character from the "We Hate the 90's" line who has a Tamagotchi toy for a head and is depicted in his sticker pooping, a reference to how Tamagotchi pets occasionally leave behind poop that has to be cleaned up. The defecated materials are rendered as pixel art to fit the Tamagotchi theme.
Video Games
- In ANNO: Mutationem, one of the collectible items is called the 'Annogutchi', an animal-styled life simulator toy.
- One of the items found in the first Chibi-Robo! game is a Tamagotchi virtual pet, received as a gift when you complete all of Captain Plankbeard's sidequests. Once received, you can interact with it. (Bandai co-produced Chibi-Robo, so this is also an example of Company Cross References.)
- Digimon, having been designed as a male counterpart to Tamagotchi, was practically contractually obligated to reference it:
- Nanimon's character design is patterned off of Oyajitchi, and is even said to be a being from a virtual pet that transformed into Nanimon to survive the Digital World.
- Wizardmon's staff and Belphemon's Sleep Mode alarm clock both look like Tamagotchi devices.
- Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 features Mametchi as a playable driver. We kid you not, a Tamagotchi once participated in Mario freakin' Kart! Not only that, but the courses of the Waluigi Cup, Stadium Arena and Waluigi Stadium, also feature several Tamagotchi-themed advertisements, including cameos of Mametchi's family, Tama-Friends, and the Tamagotchi Planet.
- In the Robopon games, Crowle's design is based off of the Tamagotchi character Oyajitchi's design.
- Secret Little Haven has an "Egg Friend" minigame that, like Tamagotchi, features a virtual pet in an egg-shaped interface. The fact that it has "egg" in the name is a pun; "egg" is a slang term for an obviously transgender person who doesn't yet realize that, which fits the main character Alex who plays the game.
Web Comics
- Awful Hospital has Tamagotchis as a "greyzone" (our neck of The Multiverse) conceptual manifestation of a piece of childcare technology that involves a real egg and a real (transdimensional) alien badogby.
Web Original
- The Mysterious Mr. Enter made an episode of Growing Around called "Pixelotchi" that features the eponymous virtual pet (which, by the way, is explicitly referred to as "very similar to a Tamagotchi pet" in the script). The virtual pet allows the owner to raise a mix-and-match critter of their own design and literally runs on heat, a likely reference to the then-current Tamagotchi m!x.
- Almost always expect MF217 to show his work regarding the root origins of Digimon by how it started off as a spin-off of Tamagotchi meant for boys, by emphasizing monster battles and edger looking monster designs. He'll pretty much bring this up to basically debunk anyone talking to him about how the Fandom-Enraging Misconception of Digimon as having been a "Pokémon rip-off".
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball:
- In "The Puppets", Darwin thinks the batteries on a "digi-pet" he finds in the Watterson house's attic have gone low, and he throws it into a box where it writes the words "CLEAN ME" on its screen. The "digi-pet" looks exactly like a Tamagotchi toy, albeit with two buttons instead of three.
- In "The BFFs", the Furby expy Fuzzy has a Tamagotchi-like friend named Hank who greatly resembles Kuchipatchi.
- In the Animaniacs (2020) episode "Suspended Animation", one of the images shown after Yakko swallows the tablet is one of the original Tamagotchis.
- In Bob's Burgers episode "A-Sprout a Boy", Purrbo, the virtual pet game Gene is addicted to, is basically Tamagotchi.
- In the Code Lyoko episode "False Lead", Odd becomes addicted to Jean-Pierre, his pet Tamagutchi. At the end of the episode, Odd finds out that Yumi took the virtual pet to help with his addiction and gave it to her little brother Hiroki, who throws it into the street and lets it be run over by a car after its battery runs out of power.
- In Fanboy and Chum Chum, the eponymous duo's Japanese-American friend Yo owns a Tamagotchi expy called the "Yamaguchi" and has raised a cat named Scampers on it. In the episode "Digital Pet Cemetery", Fanboy burying Scampers in a sacred grave after feeding him too much results in the digital pet coming back to life as a zombie.
- In the Gravity Falls episode "Scary-oke", one of the items found in a box belonging to Gideon is a Tamagotchi.
- In The Owl House episode "Eclipse Lake", Luz and Amity use Tamagotchi pets as communication devices.
- One sketch in the Robot Chicken episode "Ginger Hill in: Bursting Pipes" involved a Maskutchi and Hashizoutchi being abandoned by two boys to play with Moon Shoes.
- We Bare Bears: In the episode "Occupy Bears", among the bears' trash thrown out by a construction worker is a Tamagotchi, most likely belonging to Panda.
