Ask John: What Happened to All the Cat Girls?

Question:
What ever happened to all the animorphs? Catigirls used to be as common as the big eyes themselves in older anime, nowadays there seem to be no more bunny girls or nothing. What’s up with that?

Answer:
Actually, anthropomorphic characters are still as common now as they ever were, but many of them may be appearing in lesser known anime shows nowadays. Since the beginning of 2001, cat girls starred in Magical Nyan Nyan Taruto; an army of cat-girl maids appears in UFO Princess Walkure; the (non-)threatening aliens of Ground Defence Force Mao-chan are cat-girls; Pao, from G-On Riders, is a cat-girl that wears some sort of “dragon” costume; and Ichigo, the star of Tokyo Mew Mew, transforms into a magically empowered cat-girl. And, of course, Di-Gi-Charat with its cat, rabbit and panda themed characters, is still very popular. Final Fantasy: Unlimited included a werewolf girl and a fish-man in its cast. Juuni Kokki co-stars a human sized talking mouse. And there are also recent shows including Otogi Story Tenshi no Shippo and Fruits Basket that star characters possessing or possessed by the spirits of animals.

Anthropomorphic characters do seem to be somewhat less common in contemporary illustrations and “image art,” but they are still a significant presence in especially current television anime.