Moe anthropomorphism

Part of the humor of this personification comes from the personality ascribed to the character (often satirical) and the sheer arbitrariness of characterizing a variety of machines, objects, and even physical places as cute.

The trend spread out of dōjin circles as commercial anime and manga also prominently feature characters who are personifications of inanimate objects.

The media studies scholar Yuji Sone has argued that since moe anthropomorphism is usually personified by beautiful young girls, it is an example of the outgrowth of otaku subcultural habitus into sexual fantasies.

An early example of this is with the video game series Touhou Project beginning in 1996 which depicts yōkai and other mythical beings as young beautiful girls and women who use magic to unleash a barrage of intricate projectile patterns called danmaku, or bullet hell.

The fan-created Bowsette, a gender-swapped and moe anthropomorphized version of the Mario antagonist Bowser that gives him the appearance of Princess Peach via the "Super Crown" powerup, became one of the most popular Internet memes of 2018.

[12] Although Chobits (2001) and Toy's iMac Girl (1998)[13] came first, the meme of turning computer-related phenomena into moe subjects did not start until Shiitake-chan (しいたけちゃん), the anthropomorphization of Internet Explorer's Stop button.

[14] When Microsoft released Windows 7 in Japan, they included a theme pack centered around a personification of the OS named "Nanami Madobe" with voice samples from Nana Mizuki.

The character was made by the 2channel community in response to the growing anti-Japanese sentiment amongst Chinese netizens online, and has since become an Internet meme within Japanese imageboards and forums.

[31] In 2015, Internet users created "ISIS-chan" (ISISちゃん), a moe anthropomorphized character of the jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Based on binchōtan and other types of charcoal, the anime and manga Binchō-tan uses the dajare in the Japanese word for coal (炭, tan) to create a series of cute girls.

Toshio Miyake argues that Hetalia's appeal lies in its combination of comedy and male personification of nations, with implicit homoerotic themes.