Definition
You might have heard of anthropomorphism or just "anthro" as a term related to furries before. In this case it has (almost) nothing to do with furries.Anthro means "human," morph means "to change into," so anthropomorphism means "to change into a human." Therefore, moe anthropomorphism would mean "to change into a moe human."
In other words, the practice of drawing things, any things, as humans who are moe. This includes turning them into cute girls, or boys as well, or maybe not even "cute," but something else entirely, like "cool," etc.
Things that can be moe anthropomorphize include: animals, mystical creatures, objects, vehicles, websites, yes, websites, organizations, and basically every single last thing in the whole universe including the universe as a concept itself. (see
So this practice includes turning animals into cute girls, which might be "furry,"
Overlapping Terms
A number of terms overlap with moe gijinka 萌え擬人化.First, moe anthropomorphization of animals can sometimes be considered "furry,"
Sometimes, however, the characters end up with just ears and tail, which, by some, wouldn't be called furry. For example:, cat anthropomorphized into a girl can have just "cat ears,"
Such characters are also sometimes labelled jingai musume 人外娘, "non-human girl," which labels any girl character that's non-human, including monsters and chimera created from crossing humans with animals.
A specific type of jingai musume are "monster girls," or
Lastly, Super Mario characters that have been turned into princesses by donning the Super Crown, like Piichi-hime-ka ピーチ姫化.
Examples
Some victims of moe anthropomorphism and the anime which targeted them include:- Kemono Friends けものフレンズ
An entire zoo of animals. - Kobayashi-san Chi no Meido Doragon 小林さんちのメイドラゴン
Mythological dragons. - Kantai Korekushon (Kancolle) 艦隊これくしょん -艦これ-
Battleships. - Robot Girls Z ロボットガールズＺ
Giant robots. - Kaiju Girls 怪獣娘
Giant monsters. - Upotte!! うぽって!!
Guns. - Touken Ranbu 刀剣乱舞
Swords. - Houseki no Kuni 宝石の国
Gems, minerals, Marie! - Hataraku Saibou はたらく細胞
Red blood cells, platelets, macrophages, pathogens, etc.
Even cancer. Yes. Cancer. - Miracle Train: Ooedo-sen e Youkoso~ ミラクル☆トレイン〜大江戸線へようこそ〜
Train stations (no, not trains, train stations, The buildings. Yes, really)
-Chan & -Tan Mascots
A trend surrounded by moe anthropomorphism is the creation of moe mascots to represent brands. This is often done without the acknowledgement of said brand. People on the internet just take a logo of the brand or something and use as basis to design a whole cute girl from it.In other words: it's a meme.
These made-up mascots usually receive the name BRAND-tan or BRAND-chan. The -tan suffix is used mostly by otakus toward cute characters and idols. It's like the -chan ～ちゃん
Some notable examples of moe anthropomorphized mascot characters include:
- Windows 10-tan
- Mac OS X Leopard-tan
- Linux-tan
- Wikipedia-tan
Pretty much every browser, too.
And, everybody's favorite:
- ISIS-chan.
Yep. That happened.
Earth-chan
Of course I couldn't leave this out: Earth-chan, the moe anthropomorphization of the whole planet Earth.In anime, there are many cases where things are turned into cute anime girls. And there is a term for that:萌え擬人化, literally "," which refers to turning something, like, anything at all, into agirl (or guy.)You might have heard of anthropomorphism or just "anthro" as a term related to furries before. In this case it has (almost) nothing to do with furries.Anthro means "human," morph means "to change into," so anthropomorphism means "to change into a human." Therefore,anthropomorphism would mean "to change into ahuman."In other words, the practice of drawing things, any things, as humans who are. This includes turning them into cute girls, or boys as well, or maybe not even "cute," but something else entirely, like "cool," etc.Things that can beanthropomorphize include: animals, mystical creatures, objects, vehicles, websites, yes, websites, organizations, and basically every single last thing in the whole universe including the universe as a concept itself. (see Examples below.)So this practice includes turning animals into cute girls, whichbe "furry," kemono ケモノ , (might not, too,) and it also includes turning mystical creatures, objects, vehicles, websites, yes, websites, organizations, and literally every singe last thing in the whole universe into a cute girl.A number of terms overlap with萌え擬人化.First,anthropomorphization of animals can sometimes be considered "furry," kemono ケモノ Sometimes, however, the characters end up with just ears and tail, which, by some, wouldn't be called furry. For example:, cat anthropomorphized into a girl can have just "cat ears," nekomimi 猫耳 , or, in the case of other animals, kemonomimi ケモノ耳 Such characters are also sometimes labelled人外娘, "non-human girl," which labels any girl character that's non-human, including monsters and chimera created from crossing humans with animals.A specific type ofare "monster girls," or monster musume モンスター娘 , which refer specifically to the anthropormophizations of monsters of RPG and fantasy games.Lastly, Super Mario characters that have been turned into princesses by donning the Super Crown, like Bowsette , are said to have undergone " peachification ,"ピーチ姫化.Some victims ofanthropomorphism and the anime which targeted them include:A trend surrounded byanthropomorphism is the creation ofmascots to represent brands. This is often done without the acknowledgement of said brand. People on the internet just take a logo of the brand or something and use as basis to design a whole cute girl from it.In other words: it's a meme.These made-up mascots usually receive the name BRANDor BRAND-. Thesuffix is used mostly bys toward cute characters and idols. It's like the～ちゃん honorific , but a bit weirder.Some notable examples ofanthropomorphized mascot characters include:Pretty much every browser, too.And, everybody's favorite:Yep. That happened.Of course I couldn't leave this out: Earth-chan, theanthropomorphization of the wholeEarth.
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