CatGirl: Cat Girl

Is there any specific reason that there is a Nekomimi section on Unusual Ears instead of just a link to Cat Girl as a subtrope, like we do with Pointy Ears? Especially given that the Cat Girl page refers to Cat Girls as Nekomimi in the first sentence. Is there a distinction that is worth preserving? If so, it needs to be spelled out.

Also, while we are on the topic, maybe a non-gender specific trope name can be found for Cat Girl. Maybe Cat-Eared Person, with Cat Girl, Cat Boy and Nekomimi as redirects? If not, than we should at least soft-split the examples so that Cat Boys are listed separately.

EDIT: For those that are new to this thread, we have expanded the conversation to include spliting off subtropes from Cat Girl. Please read the whole thread and look at the attached crowner before making responses to this initial post.

edited 9th Aug '11 7:23:39 PM by Auxdarastrix

Also, make it limit to Kemonomimi. I'm kinda annoyed Petting-Zoo People cats are linked to Cat Girl even though they're essentially Kemono.

I think changing Nekomimi to a redirect for Cat Girl works, but leave a section on Unusual Ears explaining what it actually is. And Cat Girl is the pre-existing term. We already have Cat Boy as a redirect.

Also, western works still refer to full anthropomorphized animals as Cat Girls.

Hmm? Cat Girls are not limited to girls with cat ears. Petting-Zoo People can still be Cat Girls, I believe.

But, yeah, I think the examples from Unusual Ears should be moved.

edited 7th Aug '11 7:46:38 PM by Heatth

I messed up making this thread, so if some helpful mod could list "Cat Girl" as the article and make the discussion title something like "Cat Girls and Unusual Ears" that would help. Thanks.

Also: Cat Girl is a preexisting term, but either this trope is about more than females (in which case it should not have a female specific name) or it is about just females, in which case the population of male cat characters should be split off into another article. The simplest solution is the change the name to a gender neutral term and leave the two gender specific terms as redirects for specific examples on work pages.

Unless we can start adding Conan the Barbarian and the like to Action Girl, of course.

edited 7th Aug '11 7:49:51 PM by Auxdarastrix

You can change (or add) the article by clicking in the button in the top left of this thread. Just above your avatar.

Anyway, while Cat Girl is (much) more common, the Cat Boy is a common variant. And there is no much of a difference between the two aside the gender, which is why they share the trope.

Which would be why I'd prefer not to split it, or at least not a hard split. A soft-split and/or a gender-neutral title would would make the title more accurate and descriptive. I'm not arguing, mind you, that it has been misused or has created problems. I'm just saying that on general principle, gender-specific terms for gender-neutral concepts annoy me.

Also, why is this on the Always Female index if it is intended to be gender neutral?

Edit: Apparaently "Always" does not always mean "Always". Sigh... See the Trope Repair discussion for that particular Charlie Foxtrot.

PS: Also, how Anime specific is this supposed to be? I mean, if I look at the link to the trope on Catwoman, and I end up digging through several paragraphs of stuff on Japanese culture before I even get to a mention of Western cat-people...

Perhaps the general trope (cat eared people) needs to be described first before we get to the various ways this trope has been manifested in a specific culture, genre or fandom.

edited 7th Aug '11 8:48:27 PM by Auxdarastrix

Not every trope on the index is intrinsically female. Abhorrent Admirer and Bridge Bunny are two other tropes there. As for the name, Token Loli is in the exact same boat(and features Token Shota as a redirect). Not everything that appears sex-specific on the surface is.

EDIT: Ninja'd, but the last sentence still stands.

edited 7th Aug '11 8:45:12 PM by BioTube

I agree the general trope should go first. I do think the trope is suficiently predominant in Japan to warrant some comment on that end, but the general description should always go first.

One final thought before I go to bed: Does there need to be a clear distinction made between characters that wear fake cat ears and those with biological cat ears? Maybe a soft split?

A distinction should be made in the description, but the weird thing about this trope is that a Cat Girl is a Cat Girl, no matter whether she's real or fake, just the ears or fully anthropomorphized (or, oddly enough, male). They're treated the same pretty much always.

How about this for a reorganized description?

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A Cat Girl is a character that looks mostly like a human, however she has the ears of a cat. Cat Girls sometimes have other feline features, such has cat tails, Cute Little Fangs, cat-like Animal Eyes, claws, and personality traits that conform to feline Animal Stereotypes. A Cat Girl will often have a Verbal Tic that imitates the sound of a cat, such as "Meow" is English works and "Nya" in Japanese works.

Some catgirls are biologically Cat Girl, either because of some degree of non-human ancestory or because of a change brought upon by Magic and Powers or Applied Phlebotinum. Others catgirls merely wear cat-themed costumes, sometimes as part of a wider feline relate Animal Motifs. Characters who are fully human but with a cat theme tend to be the more acrobatic sort of Badass Normal.

The Cat Girl is most commonly female, perhaps because of the Feline Female association, or perhaps because Most Writers Are Male. The combination of feline and female seems to resonate strongly in the collective muse and shows up in many forms, ranging from the "10,000 horsepower innocent" cyborg Nuku-Nuku (from All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku) all the way up to the devastatingly sexy criminals such as Ana and Una Puma from Dominion Tank Police and Catwoman. However, Catboys can also be found, particularly in media targeted at a female audience. They tend to be either Keets or bad boys, and are actually more likely to wear collars than their female counterparts - especially in Fan Art.

Expect a Western feline-themed character to be portrayed as especially sexy and especially dangerous, with Femme Fatalons and agility second only to Spider Man. The Cat Suit is usually the outfit of choice. Cute Little Fangs are sometimes present but seldom used in a cute manner. Claws, whether natural or in the form of clawed gloves, tend to be particularly popular.

The Japanese (or at least manga and anime creators and fans) seem to have a fascination with particular fascination with catgirls, which they call Nekomimi, which translates to literally "cat-eared". They are found in genres as widely varied as High Fantasy (Merle and others in Vision Of Escaflowne), light comedy and Cyberpunk, proving that they are not a setting-specific feature, but a general type that can be inserted into just about anything. The Cat Girl motiff in Japan seems to have roots in ancient myth with a Nekomata, but the first true catgirl (and thus the trope) appears to have been created by Osamu Tezuka in the 1950s.

In Japan the Cat Girl is closely associated with Moe. It is noteworthy that the most common method of drawing anime characters, particularly females, tends to give them catlike features (large eyes, a small mouth and a skull shaped much like that of a young human child) - and that cats are extremely anthropomorphic for non-primates in the first place. Given this, the Cat Girl is possibly nothing more than the logical conclusion of this. Anime Catgirls usually have Cute Little Fangs and a tendency to use a Cat Smile when happy. Female Catgirls often have a Genki Girl personality.

Anime characters which are not actually catgirls often show up as catgirls in the fantasies of other (male) characters. Collars often make a prominent appearance in such cases. In a less suggestive context, playful female characters often have catgirl avatars in Cyber Space sequences. See also Sprouting Ears for examples of characters that do not normally have cat ears being temporary drawn with cat ears because of the use of Super-Deformed art to emphasis certain emotions are character traits.

Catgirls are extremely common subjects of cosplay and roleplaying and in the US at least, catgirl cosplayers are often stereotyped as obnoxious, pushy preteens with squeaky voices, broken Japanese, and gratuitous use of the "Nya" Verbal Tic. (Cosplaying a pre-established character who just happens to be a catgirl is much more socially acceptable, but cosplaying your own original catgirl, or just wearing cat ears with your normal clothes, fits right here.) 'Please spay your catgirl' is a common joke in some circles, reflecting the general low esteem they are held in by some people, especially those who conflate them with the more negative aspects of the Furry Fandom. However, catgirls are a popular subject of Fan Art among US anime fans, including catgirl versions of non-catgirl characters.

For other animal-ear themes, see Little Bit Beastly and Unusual Ears. Compare also to Petting-Zoo People, where you'll find the literal anthropomorphic cat people, rather than characters that are essentially human but a few feline features added on.

Possibly related is the "air intake"◊ hair formation found on long-haired characters, which might resemble cat ears...

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edited 8th Aug '11 6:33:38 AM by Auxdarastrix

Should throw in a mention that catgirls very frequently have a specific vocal tic, adding "-nya" to the ends of words and sentences. "Nya" being the Japanese onomatopoeia for a cat's meow.

Will do.

I'm thinking that mention of the internet meme should be moved to examples instead of being a part of the description. Under what heading should memes be listed?

Over in the Special Efforts thread for the Stock Japanese Characters index, the question of whether or not the Japanese Nekomimi concept should be split off into it's own trope, separate from the more western concept of anthropomorphic cat-people.

I'm currently undecided on the issue, but since this TRS thread is already here, I thought I would put the question to everyone else. Does anyone feel such a split is necessary?

edited 8th Aug '11 6:30:20 AM by Meeble

I think it might be worthwhile. There are anthropomorphic cats in anime and manga, of course, but they are much less common, especially nowadays, than the standard ears-and-maybe-a-tail Cat Girl. The usage of them also differs, generally being closer to what you'd see in a western version, and not used for fanservice and ZOMGSHESSOCUTE like Cat Girls are.

So yes, I'd support a split, and I think it would make for more focused, usable pages.

I don't think a hard split is necessary, and at any rate, given the strong performance of this article in terms of usage and inbounds, I don't think a major change to the nature of the article would be a good idea. I'd prefer just some tweaks to the description and possibly a rename to "Cat-Ear Person" or "Cat Girls and Boys".

I think the basic concept of a character having cat ears for reasons of cuteness, sexiness or to associate them with some feature of the animal is basically the same whether you are talking America or Japan. If there are differences worth noting in how it is expressed in each culture, a stronger description should do the trick.

The thing is, not all western examples are Petting-Zoo People types. One can make the argument that the Petting-Zoo People examples should be excised and moved to the more appropriate trope, but I don't think cat costume wearing westerners such as Catwoman needs to be segregated from cat costume wearing Japanese characters.

Should some of the gory details perhaps be moved to an Analysis or Useful Notes page? Both the original and the rewrite seem a bit wall-of-textish.

Regardless of whether the Nekomimi should be split from the Anthromorphs, I would think that people who are just wearing false cat ears as part of a costume probably should not qualify for this trope.

They should only count if they physically possess feline features, in my opinion.

edited 8th Aug '11 6:36:11 AM by Meeble

Hmm...looks like the full on anthromorphs are already split out, so that objection has been covered it seems.

Given that, assuming the wicks and examples are correct, I guess its ok. Though it might be worth considering which of the western comic examples of this are actually examples of this trope and not some other one. Wearing a cat-themed costume like Cat Woman's, has a distinctly different set of implications than Nakano Azusa having a set of cat-ears stuck on her head and looking ludicrously cute.

Though considering its usage and inbounds, I'm not exactly jumping at the bit at the idea of fucking around with it either.

Hmm...thats sorta the main issue here. There are certainly characters considered "Catgirls" even though they only wear costume ears, and even frequently don't have them. And then there are characters who "gain" cat-like features sometimes, but not "really", its an artstyle shift.

So maybe this trope is overly broad...

(also its kinda annoying getting ninja'd with a post that makes you reconsider the post that was ninja'd. Ah well)

edited 8th Aug '11 6:39:18 AM by SakurazakiSetsuna

Is there consensus on moving the Nekomimi section of Unusual Ears to Cat Girl? I can do that latter today, unless we need a vote on it.