WMoe anthropomorphism is a form of anthropomorphism in anime and manga where moe qualities are given to non-human beings, objects, concepts, or phenomena. In addition to moe features, moe anthropomorphs are also characterized by their accessories, which serve to emphasize their original forms before anthropomorphosis. The characters here, usually in a kind of cosplay, are drawn to represent an inanimate object or popular consumer product. Part of the humor of this personification comes from the personality ascribed to the character and the sheer arbitrariness of characterizing a variety of machines, objects, and even physical places as cute.
WAfghanis-tan or Afghanistan is a Japanese yonkoma manga, originally published as a webcomic, by Timaking (ちまきing). It is also the name of the heroine of the manga. The manga is nicknamed Afgan
WHikaru Aizawa (藍澤光) is a virtual brand ambassador and product mascot created by Microsoft's Taiwan branch, as a moe anthropomorphism character created for the development technology platform Microsoft Silverlight. The character design and figure drawing were made by shinia, the dōjin painter, and the dubbing work by Minmin Yao. At first, Hikaru Aizawa was one of Microsoft Taiwan's "2010 Tech Days" campaign plannings, but immediately after its launch it received a wide response from Taiwan and Japan, which made Microsoft Taiwan decide to propose the character settings of three elder sisters, Yu, Aoi, and Lei, one after another. Afterwards, Microsoft Taiwan continuously conducted a series of official campaigns, including related software, special wallpapers, webpage games, related activities and amateur parties.
WInori Aizawa , also known as Internet Explorer-tan, is a moe anthropomorphism mascot character, originally of the Internet Explorer (IE) web browser and currently of its successor, Microsoft Edge, created by Microsoft Singapore and designed by Collateral Damage Studios. Inori was created in celebration of Anime Festival Asia 2013, and is featured in a video, Facebook profile as well as a special edition of the browser. Inori's purpose is to help advertise IE, and to convince anime fans to return to using the browser, due to its falling popularity. The character has received mostly positive reception.
WAzur Lane is a side-scrolling shoot 'em up video game created by Chinese developers Shanghai Manjuu and Xiamen Yongshi, released in 2017 for the iOS and Android operating systems. Set in an alternate timeline of World War II, players engage in side-scrolling shooter gameplay, using female moe anthropomorphic characters based on warships from the war's major participants. Other gameplay elements, like customizing a dorm and in-game characters, are also present.
WBincho-tan is a mascot character, created by Japanese manga artist Takahito Ekusa and produced by game goods company Alchemist.
WFairlyLife is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by Hooksoft and was first released for Windows as a DVD on October 10, 2008 as a limited edition. FairlyLife is Hooksoft's seventh title, along with other games such as _Summer and HoneyComing. The game is described by the development team as "infinite gravity! A full power noisy miracle romantic comedy ADV" . The gameplay in FairlyLife follows a plot line which offers pre-determined scenarios with courses of interaction, and focuses on the appeal of the five female main characters. The title and logo of FairlyLife is reminiscent of Hooksoft's fourth title Like Life, and both games feature moe anthropomorphism. A manga adaptation illustrated by Kurumi Morisaki was serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's manga magazine Comp Ace between September 26 and November 26, 2008.
WFastech 360 is the name given to a pair of former experimental high-speed EMU trainsets developed by East Japan Railway Company to test technology for the next-generation Shinkansen rolling stock. The name is a portmanteau of Fast, Technology, and 360 km/h, the target operational speed for production trains based on the new technologies. Speeds of up to 405 km/h (251.7 mph) were targeted during performance testing. Results of testing using these trains was incorporated into the E5 series and E6 series trains, entering revenue service from 2011, eventually operating at 320 km/h (198.8 mph).
WGirl Friend Beta is a 2012 Japanese smartphone game developed by CyberAgent for iOS and Android devices. As of June 2014, it has over 5.3 million users. An anime television series produced by Silver Link aired in Japan between October and December 2014. There are also five manga adaptations based on the game, and a PlayStation Vita spin-off game was released in November 2015.
WHetalia: Axis Powers is a Japanese webcomic, later adapted as a manga and an anime series, by Hidekaz Himaruya. The series' main presentation is as an often over-the-top allegory of political and historic events as well as more general cultural comparisons. Characters are personifications of countries, regions such as Hong Kong, and micronations with little reference to other national personifications. Both positive and negative cultural stereotypes form part of each character's personality.
WHinomoto Oniko is a Japanese moe character created in 2010 which originated from the Breaking News (VIP) Board on 2channel, and has since become an internet meme within various forums and imageboards in Japan. The character is a moe anthropomorphism of the phrase "日本鬼子", a commonly used Chinese ethnic slur against persons of Japanese descent.
WISIS-chan is a fictional manga character which originated on the Japanese internet textboard 2channel and was created in 2015 after a series of incidents in which Japanese nationals were kidnapped and beheaded by ISIL. The character is portrayed as a moe-style girl.
WJewelpet: Magical Change is a 2015 magical girl anime series produced by Studio DEEN and TMS Entertainment. It is the 7th and final installment in the Jewelpet anime franchise based on the characters jointly created by Sanrio and Sega Sammy Holdings. It is directed by Nobuhiro Kondo (Nobunagun) and written by Masahiro Yokotani. Character designs are done by Hiroki Harada and Tomoko Miyakawa. It aired in all TXN stations in Japan on April 4, 2015 to December 26, 2015, replacing Lady Jewelpet in its initial time slot.
WThe K.R.T. Girls are four anime-styled characters that serve as mascots for the Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit, a rapid transit system which covers metropolitan Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The girls consist of Xiaoqiong (小穹), who is depicted as a station worker at Yanchengpu Station; Amelia (艾米莉亞), a half-Taiwanese, half-German girl who works as a train driver; Ann (婕兒), a train mechanic; and Nana (耐耐), a Vocaloid-powered train announcer.
WKaiju Girls is a Japanese series of web anime shorts that first aired September 27, 2016, provided by the Docomo Anime Store service. These shorts are part of the Ultra Monsters Anthropomorphic Project , a moe anthropomorphism project made by Tsuburaya Productions based on past monsters/aliens that have appeared in the Ultra Series. Other than the short series, a manga series, a novel series and other projects are being considered in development. A second season premiered in 2018. A sequel film, titled Kaiju Girls (Black), was released on November 23, 2018.
WKanColle: The Movie is a 2016 Japanese animated film adaptation of the video game series Kantai Collection. The film was produced by Diomedéa, directed by Keizō Kusakawa, and written by Kensuke Tanaka and Jukki Hanada, featuring character designs by Mayuko Matsumoto and Naomi Ide. It was released in Japan by Kadokawa Pictures on November 26, 2016. It was confirmed that the film will get the 4DX and MX4D screenings throughout February 11, 2017. Aniplus Asia later screened the anime film.
WKantai Collection , abbreviated as KanColle , is a Japanese free-to-play web browser game developed by Kadokawa Games and published by DMM.com.
WKantai Collection , known as KanColle for short, is a 2015 Japanese anime television series created by Diomedéa, based on the game of the same name by Kadokawa Games. The series was announced in September 2013, and aired 12 episodes on Tokyo MX and KBS, and later on other TV stations, between January 8 and March 26, 2015. An animated film, titled KanColle: The Movie , was released on November 26, 2016. A second season by ENGI will premiere in October 2022 in Netflix, MBS, BS Fuji, TV Asahi Channel 1 and TV Tokyo, Funimation in the UK and Crunchyroll internationally.
WKumatanchi is a life simulation video game co-developed for the Nintendo DS by Vanillaware and doujin studio Ashinaga Oji-san. It was published on September 25, 2008 by Dimple Entertainment. The premise and gameplay revolves around the player taking care of an anthropomorphic girl based on the mascot character Habanero-tan, seeing her interactions with other anthropomorphic characters over two weeks in real-time. Due to its gameplay and subject matter, it was only released in Japan.
WLike Life is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by Hooksoft which was released on May 28, 2004 playable on Windows as a CD; a PlayStation 2 consumer console port called Like Life An Hour followed on April 28, 2005 by GN Software. An updated version of the original game released on September 28, 2007 called Like Life Renewal Edition , compatible up to Windows Vista, is playable on Windows as a DVD. A PlayStation Portable version of the game titled Like Life Every Hour was released on October 1, 2009. The gameplay in Like Life follows a plot line which offers pre-determined scenarios with courses of interaction, and focuses on the appeal of the five female main characters. The story revolves around Kazuma Kōsaka who is living a normal life in his aunt's home while he attends high school. One day, objects all over town start turning into girls, and his mobile phone is no exception; after the transformation, Kazuma names her Himeko Kōsaka.
WNyaruko: Crawling with Love , also known as Nyaruko-san: Another Crawling Chaos, is a Japanese light novel series written by Manta Aisora and illustrated by Koin. It was inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. The series' twelve volumes were published by Soft Bank Creative under their GA Bunko imprint between April 2009 and March 2014.
WOS-tan is an Internet meme consisting of moe anthropomorphs of popular operating systems, originating on the Japanese imageboard Futaba Channel. The designs of OS-tan, which were created by heterogeneous amateur Japanese artists, are typically female; for example, the personifications of Microsoft Windows operating systems are often depicted as sisters of varying ages. The -tan element in the term is a hypocoristic suffix in Japanese.
WRobot Girls Z is an anime television series produced by Dynamic Planning and animated by Toei Animation. The series is a comedic parody of various mecha series produced by Toei, anthropomorphizing robots from those series into magical girls. The series aired on the Toei Channel between January 4, 2014 and March 2, 2014 and was simulcast by Crunchyroll. A preview was streamed on YouTube on October 18, 2013. The opening theme is "Robot Girls Z" (ロボットガールズZ) by Kikai♡Shoujotai, whilst the ending theme is "Team Z's Power" by Robot Girls Team Z.
WSega Hard Girls is a Japanese multimedia project produced as a collaboration between ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Bunko imprint and video game company Sega. The project re-imagines various Sega video game consoles as anthropomorphized goddesses who appear all over modern Japan. The project has inspired a light novel series written by Tōru Shiwasu with illustrations by Kei, which was serialized in ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Bunko Magazine between 2013 and 2014, and an anime television series adaptation titled Hi-sCoool! SeHa Girls by TMS Entertainment, which aired in Japan between October and December 2014. A crossover video game with Idea Factory's Hyperdimension Neptunia franchise, Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls, was released for the PlayStation Vita in Japan in November 2015, and in North America and Europe in October 2016.
WUma Musume Pretty Derby is a multimedia franchise created by Cygames. A mobile game for iOS and Android was scheduled to debut in late 2018 and then delayed to February 2021. A 13-episode anime television series adaptation by P.A.Works aired from April to June 2018, followed by a second season by Studio Kai which aired from January to March 2021. A anime television series adaptation of the spin-off manga Umayon aired from July to September 2020.
WUpotte!! (うぽって!!) is a Japanese manga series by Kitsune Tennouji which began serialization in July 2009. An original net animation (ONA) series by Xebec was streamed on Nico Nico Douga and Crunchyroll between April and June 2012. The series started airing on Japanese television in July 2012. Its title comes from reverse-spelling of 鉄砲 .
WThe World of Narue is a Japanese manga series by Tomohiro Marukawa. The series follows Kazuto Izuka, an alien girl named Narue Nanase and the trials and tribulations of the young couple as they get to know each other. The title is taken from A. E. van Vogt's The World of Null-A.