Ridiculously Cute Critter / Anime & Manga

• Most characters in Aggretsuko are designed to be absolutely adorable, like most of Sanrio's properties. But looks can be deceiving. It is actually a Crapsaccharine World where the characters deal with real world adult problems. The main character is a red panda, one of the cutest animals on earth, but under her adorable appearance she is hiding a ton of rage, which she deals with by singing Death Metal. Even some characters who are based on not stereotypically cute animals are also pretty adorable, such as Haida the spotted hyena. One character named Tsunoda, a gazelle, is actually The Fake Cutie, who uses her appearance to get what she wants.
• Potato, the puppy from AIR that some people think was so named because it resembled a pile of mashed potatoes. It's disturbingly intelligent (Kano can apparently talk with it), says nothing except "Pico pico" and is mind-bendingly adorable!
• Sodom from Betrayal Knows My Name looks like a winged black hamster/guinea pig... who can also transform into a powerful dragon when needed.
• CLANNAD:
  • Botan, the baby boar. When it first appears, Tomoya and Sunohara aren't quite sure what it is, though they both agree that it's ridiculously cute. After the time-skip Botan is grown, but is still depicted as cute. Doesn't hurt to have kindergartners playing around it as if it's a living stuffed animal.
  • The big dango family, of course; they could be described best as small rolls of bread with Super Mushroom eyes.
• Delicious in Dungeon has the adorable fluffy, white dog form of dream!Laios that Marcille sees, much to his irritation since he had imagined himself as a badass wolf.
  • The Winged Lion, Kensuke and the no less letal dungeon rabbit count too.
• Isako from Den-noh Coil uses a group of virtual pets to do some of her chores. They are all extremely adorable fluffy round things, but underestimating their abilities would be a big mistake.
• Mad Scientist Watari from Descendants of Darkness has his fluffy little owl 003.
• Digimon:
  • Patamon is probably the Rookie that fits the most; of course, that's before he becomes the super-special-awesome Angemon.
  • Culumon from Digimon Tamers exemplifies this trope. It has to be among the most "awwwww" inducing critters ever seen. In Culumon's case, this is actually an Exploited Trope. Because it knows it's cute, it'll often use that cuteness the same way a stray puppy or kitten would, to get things he wants or needs like food, attention, among other things. He also uses that cuteness to motivate and approach the main trio of Tamers, often to help them out in some way.
  • Marine Angemon: Most of the supercute Digimon are at Baby and In-Training levels (the levels of actual infant Digimon, and the heroes' Sleep-Mode Size.) Marine Angemon? Mega. (That is, the levels of the heroes in Super Mode, and post-midseason Big Bads.) The Powers That Be sadly didn't let him out of the bag much, but he saves the day in a big way once. D-Reaper is a program that is basically an Eldritch Abomination. Its base matter, called 'chaos,' is the red gel its creations are made of and revert to when defeated. It keeps spreading no matter how many you "kill." See Fighting a Shadow; nothing actually destroys D-Reaper matter. Nothing except Marine Angemon's attack, normally used for healing. Said attack takes the form of pretty colorful bubbles, naturally.
  • Impmon, he even has a tummy smileyface.
  • Then we have Cutemon in Fusion.
  • Puwamon in Digimon Data Squad. Best described as a little ball of feathers with big Puppy-Dog Eyes.
• Doraemon, the cute robot cat from the future.
• Chibisuke from Dragon Drive. Well, he's not as small as a few others, and he turns into a much bigger dragon later, but still.
• Pip from Dragon Goes House-Hunting is a fluffy Hraesvelgr chick with big, round eyes and innocent look that quickly wins him Letty's, and later Nell's, affections.
• The Puuchus from the Excel♡Saga anime are meant as a parody of this. They're actually evil alien invaders and when you hit them they bleed purple and take on the haggard features and guttural tones of Golgo13. Domesticated Puuchus on the other hand turn into heroes from shows like Captain Harlock or Gundam. Not ugly, but definitely weird.
• Fairy Tail has a newborn baby Happy who earned his name by making everyone in the guild go happy by just being ridiculously cute.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist, Xiao Mei, the midget panda actually stunned Scar into silence with her cuteness.
• Gugure! Kokkuri-san's animal youkais all have cute fluffy Super-Deformed modes that they'll often go into especially to gain sympathy with Kohina. In particular:
  • Inugami the dog youkai specifically invokes this by basing his dog form on trendy mascots in order to appeal to Kohina.
  • Shigaraki the Tanuki initially subverts this with his rather unsightly animal form, but he later switches to this trope in order to appeal to women.
• While the animals characters are already cute in Happy Happy Clover, Hickory the Flying Squirrel◊ takes the cake due to his cute voice in the anime, big eyes, and is so small compared to the others. Same goes for the tiny field mouse who shows up in the manga.
• Happy Lesson: Subverted when Kisaragi brings a box full of live chicks...for the purpose of them being the subject of dissection. The entire classroom's reaction is an extremely anguished Big "NO!".
• While Heaven's Design Team features plenty of cute animals, the sea otter takes the cake. Fluffy, adorable and smart, its precocious antics cause Neptune and Shimoda to Squee for almost the entire chapter.
• In Hetalia: Axis Powers, most of the Non-Human Sidekicks. Hanatamago and Pochi are some that are named, both being fluffy little dogs. China has a little panda, England has his little spirit friends and so on. There is also a recurring white bunny with gray ears seen with America, England and Japan (probably based on the author's pet rabbit). Tony the alien is also rather cute. There's also Kujimarou the bear cub (with drastic memory problems!) belonging to Canada.
• Pero Pero from His and Her Circumstances, the dog that gets around by rolling around.
• The main character of Idol Angel Yokoso Yoko has a pet flying squirrel named Mu, who looks like a walking ball of fluff with a streak of blue hair and a bobtail.
• Kirara◊ from Inuyasha looks like a cross between a kitten and a fox kit, with adorable mews to match. At least until she transforms.
• The eponymous animals of the Jewelpet series all look very cute and cuddly and have precious little gemstone eyes that make it hard not to want to give them a hug. Even better, Lady Jewelina created the Jewelpets specifically to make humans happy.
• Lady!!: Leonard. He's a cute fluffy squirrel with big blue eyes and an Adorable Fluffy Tail, and he loves cuddling Sophie's cheek. He's also dressed in a dapper red bow by the second half of the season 2.
• The sheep and the bunnies in Karneval. All characters (apart from Gareki) seem to find them adorable as well.
• The Keeper Wants to Build a Zoo in Another World, so He Tames Monsters: The Al-Miraj look like round, fluffy bunnies or lemmings with stubby unicorn horns.
• The Bearbees from Kyo Kara Maoh!. They're snuggly embodiments of love that sprinkle glitter, say 'Nogitsu!' and concider Yuuri and Wolfram to be their parents, making them Greta's siblings. They're highly endangered and their poop makes very high-quality, but very smelly, paint.
• Macross:
  • Guvava, Mylene Flare Jenius' Empathy Pet from Macross 7. Basically a Tribble with eyes.
  • Ai-kun, the little green alien creature that steals Sheryl's panties and which Ranka befriends from Macross Frontier. Later Ai-kun molts and becomes a stage-1 juvenile Vajra, and somehow still manages to act obnoxiously cute.
  • The Ragnan mercats from Macross Delta are cute little half-cat/half-seal things, with Querule taking the cake among them.
• Made in Abyss, despite its incredibly harsh environments, has several of these. They're generally fairly harmless, with the exception of the horde of weasel rabbits that briefly attack Riko and Reg in the Third Layer. One example looks suspiciously similar to a certain space ferret from another show seen as a genre deconstruction, but doesn't appear to be dangerous in any way.
• Magic Knight Rayearth features, in one episode, a stupidly-cute, injured, foxlike critter that Hikaru instantly adopts and names "Hikari" after her old dog. Turns out it's actually a demonic monster named Vigor, who deliberately played this trope in order to get the jump on them.
• Fuzzy from The Morose Mononokean is a dog spirit who looks like a ball of fur with stubby legs and big eyes. Ashiya certainly loves cuddling him and plays with him whenever he can.
• Moyashimon features one of the few successful attempts at making bacteria and mold spores cute. This especially goes for the series mascot, an anthropomorphic spore of Aspergillus oryzae.
• Natsume's Book of Friends: Nyanko-sensei is so cute and round that he has spurred piles and piles of merchandise, from cellphone-straps to giant pillows. His outwardly-abrasive personality only makes him cuter, since we all know he's actually a big softie. Of course, everyone in-universe with the exception of Taki seems to think he is an ugly, fat cat.
• In Onegai My Melody, Mari Land is a world entirely populated by cute critters. Heck, characters in general are like this.
• One Piece:
  • Chopper's half-human form is definitely an example. Even though creatures of his type (animal zoans) look like adult humans crossed with animals, Chopper ends up looking like a three-year-old cosplaying as a plushie, for reasons of Cute, and possibly because he was actually an animal that became half-human. To his dismay, this caused the Marines to mistake him for a harmless pet instead of the full-fledged, Badass Adorable crewmember he really is, and thus they gave him a pathetically low bounty of 50 Beri.
  • The Tontatta dwarves are tiny, have big puffy tails, pointy noses, and look adorable. Even by their standards, their princess Mansherry is so cute that she causes Cuteness Proximity in almost everyone she meets.
  • Ladies and gentlemen, Baby Laboon◊. An adorable whale cub that made the Rumbar Pirates' hearts melt.
• Photon has Koro-chan, a critter about the size of a bunny, but with two long tails instead of two long ears. Koro-chan is usually Keyne Aqua's pet, but Koro can also function as part of a computer system, like a wetware CPU. On his own, though, Koro can only chirp and squeak unintelligibly.
• Pokémon:
  • Cute creatures have been a mainstay of the series from the beginning, starting with Misty's Togepi, which even Team Rocket thinks is adorable.
  • Then brought right back in with two of the main group's Pokémon in Best Wishes. Ash's Oshawott (who Ash even says is adorable), Iris's Axew, and Trip's Vanillite (although Iris disagrees).
  • Professor Icarus's Elgyem. It's got big eyes, it's all shy and timid, and it makes little "Ri-kuuuuuu" noises. D'awww.
  • Pokémon Adventures has this happening all the time. Because of the author's chibi art style, all of the pokemon are ether this or Ugly Cute.
  • Even Team Rocket has had cute Pokemon, especially Chimecho, Mime Jr., Cacnea, Wurmple, and Woobat and even Meowth.
• The fairies◊ from every◊ incarnation of◊ Pretty Cure. They're so damn ''cute''!◊
• The main character of Princess Tutu is actually one of these! Ahiru's (which means 'Duck' and is named that in the dub) true form is that of a yellow duckling with big, big blue eyes. Even the resident Tall, Dark, and Snarky can't resist her cuteness.
• Pudding-chan and other dessert characters in Pudding In Love.
• Kyubey of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Who wouldn't make a contract with something this cute? Enforced. Word of God says he/it/they was deliberately designed to be this trope to hide his true nature.
  • Charlotte the Dessert Witch is right up there too. At least, until it reveals its true form: a gigantic clown/cake/worm thing with rows of razor-sharp teeth and a ravenous appetite for human flesh.
    • Charlotte's disarmingly cute appearance is probably the main reason for her sizable fan following. She's so insanely popular with fans she made a triumphant comeback in Rebellion as the best friend of Mami, and she spends the vast majority of her screentime being downright adorable. We even learned her identity as a Puella Magi, and she’s just as cute!
• Another example from Sayuri Tatsuyama is Pukupuku Natural Circular Notice which features very cute pets such as hamsters, puppies and cats.◊
• Queen Millennia: Mayu creatures look like babies with fur and are said to be the cutest and gentlest in the universe who represent Earth itself.
• ChuChu, the little purple marmoset from Revolutionary Girl Utena (Particularly in the manga).
• Rumiko Takahashi Anthology's "Tragedy of P" has Pippin, a Humboldt penguin that the protagonist's husband brought home from work. Virtually everyone who lay eyes on him immediately goes Cuteness Overload, and even the protagonist, who was against keeping pets from work, immediately relents after realizing how adorable he is.
• The Keronians in Sgt. Frog including Keroro, Tamama, Giroro, Kululu, Dororo and every other that shows up over the course of the series. There's also pop-star alien girl Sumumo who isn't Keronian but might as well be.
• Hoshimaru in Shadow Star is an adorable star-shaped creature with big, round eyes. Everything else in the manga he's in is not adorable.
• Along the same lines, Pokota from Slayers Revolution is the a prince, bound into the bizarre but adorable shape of an alien bunny looking thing with gigantic wing-hand-ears, a cape, and a zipper up his stomach that opens on to L-space. He is, of course, Stronger Than He Looks.
• In the manga version of So I'm a Spider, So What? new-born Taratects like the protagonist are pig-sized spiders but their art is more in line with plushy than abomination. It helps that she's also pink.
• Studio Ghibli:
  • The soot spirits in Spirited Away, little puffballs with eyes. Boh in his mouse form counts too.
  • Jiji the cat from Kiki's Delivery Service, with his adorably large head.
  • The title character in Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea when in fish-form is made to look especially cute.
• Ryo-Oh-Ki from Tenchi Muyo!: a fluffy little cabbit — a cat/rabbit hybrid. She also turns into a starship - a Cool one, not a cute one, though. In Tenchi in Tokyo, she also has a Mini-Mecha form. This one is cute.
• The Animal Soldiers from Tentai Senshi Sunred. Their attempts at fighting Sunred are commonly thwarted by squealing schoolgirls picking them up and hugging them.
• UFO Baby has Pepo, Luu's adorable, stuffed animal-like alien space pet that's a Peponian... from the Planet Pepo. Guess what it says? That's right. Pepo!
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Kuriboh, from which LittleKuriboh of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series gets his name, is a ball of fluff with large eyes, small hands and feet, and a tiny, high-pitched voice. And despite it being a Dark-attribute Fiend-type monster, this is one case where Dark Is Not Evil.
  • GX takes it to the next level with a winged version of the fluffball as Judai Yuki's duel spirit partner.
• The bears from Yuri Kuma Arashi all look like tiny little teddy bears.
• Magotan from Kitchen Sentai Cookrun is an adorable kitchen assistant who has a wealth of knowledge of food and ingredients. Mitten from the second season is a friendly alien who helps the heroes.