Moe Anthropomorphism

Moefication of either characters who are not normally moe, or objects and concepts which are not even alive. Very popular with Fan Art and merchandise. Often referred to as "gijinka", the Japanese word for "anthropomorphism".

The mecha musume—basically, battle vehicles or Humongous Mecha rendered as cute girls—are a common form of moe anthropomorphism. Can also overlap with Cute Monster Girl if the moefied character is a monster. If the original character is male, Gender Flip may be a component, although "cute moe boy" implementations do occasionally happen.

Could easily be Nightmare Fuel or Fetish Fuel for some, depending on what is changed, what it looks like, and its gender.

Compare Anthropomorphic Personification, Sexy Whatever Outfit.

Humanity Ensues, while technically unrelated, can be compared as an in-universe variant thanks largely to the utilization of Morphic Resonance.

Examples of Moe Anthropomorphism include:

(Note: As all of the below are by definition in an Anime Style, and almost all of it is fan-art created for the web, they have been sorted by the source material they are based upon.)

Based on Advertising

  • The notorious OS-tans are moe versions of operating systems and programs; their boob size is often proportional to memory requirements. Windows ME is the Ensemble Darkhorse, who became a popular character for her good intentions but decidedly unstable nature (and her cute Idiot Hair). Windows 2000 is the Tall, Dark and Bishoujo type (strongly associated with Yuri Seme role), Windows XP has excellent graphical capabilities, and Windows Vista has transparencies and even more memory requirements (except for Basic-tan who's a Tsundere loli). Windows 95 is a Yamato Nadeshiko usually portrayed carrying a katana, destroying Microsoft's PC competition once and for all, and eats very little memory. Norton Anti-Virus is portrayed as a lecherous, ghostly doctor who makes the girls strip naked even for the most minor ailments; McAfee as a faith healer; and AVG as a handsome student doctor. Also with theme song.
    • There are Linux-tans as well. Linux-tan herself is a bit of a Shrinking Violet, and Slack-tan is a Wrench Wench. There are also Unix-tans, with UNIX-tan herself being somewhat a Tsundere. (Here is a pretty good lineup of the major ones.)
    • In Japan, a campaign run by Bing (MSN's search engine) from December 18, 2009-to January 18, 2010, which has closed on February 18, had five mascots: Nanae, Nana, Nanako, another Nanami, and Nanao.
  • Akikan! does this for soda cans. These soda girls need carbon dioxide infusions (through kissing) to live. Japan really can make anything moe.
  • Okayama Prefecture in Japan has anthromorpized their prized homegrown-jellies into moe girls.
  • And of course who can forget Hatsune Miku, a Vocaloid (singing computer program) that got this treatment right on the box. Like ME-Tan, she wields a negi for self defense, and appears to have a personality of her own. There is even manga about her now.
    • And she is not the only one in her software line to have gained an anthropomorphism...
  • Fruity Loops (a music synthesizer program) has FL-chan [dead link] , popular among the Vocaloid fandom.
  • Several Japanese railways have their trains Moe-fied. See here (site has NSFW content and ads) for an overview.
  • Ryohoji Buddhist Temple in Tokyo-suburb Hachio-ji City, successfully raised attendance by anthromophizing it's patron deities into moe mascots.
  • A magazine ad for the Asus ROG Crosshair IV Extreme motherboard has it in the form of a short-haired brunette in a techno-fetish costume, holding a BFG three times her size and based on the device's design. Not very "moe" but still.
  • Habanero-tan is a cute loli pepper thing based on a habanero-flavored snack chip. There is also Jalapeño-tan, Habanero-neesan, and Milk-san. Jolokia-tan, the hottest pepper in the world, is the Alpha Bitch.


Anime and Manga


Based on Film


Based on Folk Lore

  • Entaku Seitokai (Round Table Student Council) does this for the King Arthur legends. Heroic knights of old turned into the cute girls of today. A liberal amount of Gender Flip is also applied in this instance.
    • The visual novels Knight Carnival! and 12+ also provide moe versions of Arhurian legends.


Based on History

  • Axis Powers Hetalia features countries in Moe form, educating us about history (sort of) with all the attendant tropes related to moe, and then some.
  • this book (site has some NSFW ads) about Moe countries, 74 Countries Turned Into Bishoujo, continues the Hetalia tradition, only all-female. And yes, North Korea is included.
    • It's hilarious how England looks almost exactly like Louise.
  • Moe Moe Niji Taisen does this for World War Two planes and tanks. They battle by causing Clothing Damage.
  • Along the lines of Axis Powers Hetalia the webmanga and web novel series Miracle Train Chūō-sen e Yōkoso about the Japan Railways Chuo Train Line has five of its major stations (Zero Tokyo, Shintaro Shinjuku, Riku Nakano, Takuto Kichijōji, and Luna Tachikawa) personified as Bishonen. We're not kidding, official site here and Anime News Network report here. The characters have even been given voice actors.
    • There's also an anime called Miracle Train, though it focuses on the Oedo line instead of the Chuo line.
  • Strike Witches: Probably the most well-known example for military Moe Anthropomorphism.
  • There's a bunch of models for AP'd WW 2 planes as little girls with the appropriate national costumes and plane parts as clothes/prosthetic limbs. Surprisingly not very moe, or at least their eyes aren't.
    • On a related note, there's a moe version of the Battleship Bismark around the internet somewhere. A link cold not be found, but it's somewhere around Deviant ART.
      • The Bismarck was probably from Mitternacht Marine.
  • Afganisu-tan, a Japanese online Yonkoma about the history of Afghanistan. Infamous for presenting the September 11th attacks as a rogue cat (Al-Nyada) biting Meriken.
  • Green Dam, the Chinese censorship/nanny tool once said to be a mandatory installation on all the country's new computers (until the government apparently backed down), was Moefied as a protest. Mildly NSFW link here.
  • The Japan Self-Defense Force even had their own moe mascots [dead link] . So much for fighting lolis.
    • Connected with that is Mari-tan, the personification of the U.S. Marine.
  • There was some fanart floating around that moe'd several WorldWarII [dead link] figures.
  • Moe Hayabusa space probe! Yes.
  • Just to prove that yes, nothing can avoid moe anthropomorphism, we present you with Japanese-made gijinka of a Chinese slur for the Japanese (ads and much of the other parts of this site are NSFW).
  • Japanisches Kaiserriech Mitternacht Marine is a webcomic revoving around the various personifications of World War Two weaponary, like planes and tanks.


Based on Literature


Based on Live-Action TV


Based on Military Aircraft


Music


Mythology

  • Various deities from religions around the world are personification of certain concepts or locations. Not all of them are cute, though.
  • Egyptian gods are occasionally depicted as trees or normally inanimate objects with human arms or heads attached.


Based on Sports


Based on Tabletop Games


Toys


Based on Video Games


In Video Games

  • There's an Eroge called MonoGokoro MonoMusume that has moe-anthropomorphized objects as most of its principal cast. Objects turned into cute girls include a computer, a pillow, a Humongous Mecha toy, a washing machine, and a pair of panties.
  • A good portion of Touhou characters feature this to some degree or another, with characters like Letty being the personification of Winter, Nitori, a Kappa, having the turtle shell and head plate of the actual mythological beast turning into a backpack and a cap, or Yamame, a giant spider monster, being a girl with no monstrous features except for design elements of the dress she wears.
    • Some of the girls, like Medicine and Kogasa are tsukumogami, which are basically personifications of inanimate objects, so they are kind of this in-universe as well as out.
  • There's also the free-to-play MMO TPS CosmicBreak, where a part of robots are your usual mechs while others are mecha musume.
  • The Triggerhearts from Triggerheart Exelica are design to resemble mecha musume.
  • All of the Real Robot series in Super Cosplay Wars Ultra is done by a girl with only the Gundam Wing cosplay being the only exception.
  • The whole point of Hyperdimension Neptunia. Moe versions of the big three consoles, among others.
  • There's humanised versions of the romanceable birds in Hatoful Boyfriend, visible in a brief portrait when you first meet them.
  • Dododonpachi Saidai Oujou: Ladies and gentlemen--meet Lolibachi.


Webcomics

  • Mab, queen of cute things, is a fan of the webcomic Jack. Those familiar with both comics will know this could not possibly end well. Thus, we get Mab's Chibi Hell, which is, according to various sources, adorable, awesome, an offense against all that is good and right, or all of the above. Or, to quote the author:

"She has chibified the unchibifiable. Drip is undeserving of ever looking this innocent."


Western Animation


Web Animation

  • Someone has managed to personify Adobe Flash. As in the animation program.


Web Original

  • Wikipedia has Wikipe-tan (along with Commons-tan and Quote-tan), TV Tropes has Trope-tan, Encyclopedia Dramatica has AE-tan and Uncyclopedia has Uncyclo-tan.
  • OC Re Mix uses OCR-tan, with a new one for every forum version. The youngest, Ocr1-tan, is the first incarnation of the forum.
  • Most of the boards of 4chan have a moe anthropomorph. For example, /a/ is a Meganekko under-age Trap with an Ahoge.
  • The CWCki Wiki of Sonichu has CWCki-tan, and the majority of that "art" will likely make you cry inside, especially the one for Valentine's Day.
  • The Final Fantasy Wiki, there's FFWiki-tan, a Viera librarian that takes care of the Chocobo in the Wiki's logo.
  • Firefox-ko, for the Firefox browser.
    • There's also Opera-tan, for the Opera browser.
  • Captcha-tan. The spambot that 4chan had to implement the captcha for (leading to Captcha-tan's creation) was also anthropomorphized as "Cornelia".
  • Skewered in this Anime News Nina comic.
  • Fantendo now has their own Fan-Tan.
  • One meme that came out in 2017 is Earth-chan. A common running gag is her saying she isn't flat. She is often depicted as sick (because pollution and stuff).
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