By now, everyone's used to anime having no shortage of talking animal characters. As if taking a leaf from the Disney of old, anime has no problem turning animals into characters who are more human than animal. Shows like Beastars does this to play with predator/prey dynamics in unique ways.
Interestingly enough, this trend isn't just limited to animals. Anime has created a habit of making a lot more than animals into humans. Over the years, they've anthropomorphized everything from game consoles to giant robots.
10 Hetalia: Axis Powers Turned Countries Into Humans
Not every anthropomorphization ends up as cute girls. Hetalia follows a bunch of countries represented as young boys. The show takes place before World War II and introduces both the Axis and Allied Powers alike as characters. There’s the gentlemanly United Kingdom, impulsive America, prideful France, and many more.
Hetalia followed the adventures of all these characters in brief, five-minute episodes that ran for several years because the series itself was actually mega-popular before streaming really caught on.
9 Hi-Scoool! SeHa Girls Made A Series Based Off Sega Consoles
SeHa Girls is a series where the main characters are anthropomorphic versions of Sega consoles. The three main characters are based on the Sega Saturn, the Dreamcast, and the Mega Drive, characters who are trying to graduate from Sehagaga Academy.
The anime is full of references to popular Sega games, including Virtua Fighter, Space Channel 5, and Sonic the Hedgehog. True to form, each of the girls behaves similar to how their consoles did, with Dreamcast even hooking up to the internet via her dial-up modem.
8 Robot Girls Z Made Mazinger Z And Other Giant Robots Into Young Girls
This one feels like it was an inevitability. Anime has been about mecha for years, so, it was only a matter of time before someone had to turn the giant robots into young girls. Toei Animation created Robot Girls Z in 2014 about a collection of robot girls modeled after the legendary Mazinger Z series and more.
The girls form a group known as “Team Z,” who occasionally protect the city from anthropomorphized versions of Mechanical Beasts. The leader of this group is Z-chan, based on the original Mazinger Z, right down to having her own rocket fist attacks.
7 Mobile Suit Gundam Build Fighters Try Had A Character Make A Gunpla Girl
This is easily the most meta anthropomorphic character. In the world of Gundam Build Fighters, the Gundams are just plastic models like they are in the real world. And in addition to having combat tournaments, they also have tournaments showing off the most popular Gunpla designs. One of the designers, Minato, was so obsessed with the main character, Fumina, he was able to turn her into a Gunpla model, which was capable of moving and acting with the help of the Plavsky particles.
6 Akikan Was A Harem/Fighting Anime Featuring Girls Based On Soda
The late 2000s were an interesting time for anime and resulted in some series people would rather forget. Like Akikan, which introduced the concept of soda cans being turned into young girls. The main character is an incorrigible pervert named Kakeru Daichi, who has a habit of collecting rare drinks.
When he cracks open a can of melon soda and drinks it, it turns into a living, breathing girl. Melon is an Akikan, girls who were created to fight one another to find out whether steel or aluminum cans were better for soda. Not only is this a weird slice of life, but also a battle manga as well.
5 Sword Art Online Alternative – Gun Gale Online Turned The Main Character's Gun Into A Talking Being
P-chan deserves a special spot here because of how unexpected her appearance was. In Gun Gale Online, the characters are all eager gamers who log into the titular Full Dive VRMMO to compete in shooting competitions against one another.
But when the main character, LLENN, is in the middle of a particularly difficult fight, she hallucinates that her gun, a pink P90 that she dubbed P-chan, is actually talking to her. The show doesn’t have any other characters like this, but P-chan briefly cheers LLENN on and protects her at the end of a fight, allowing her to win the Squad Jam battle royale tournament.
4 Kantai Collection Featured Reincarnated Battleships As Young Girls
Who doesn’t want to watch an anime about Japanese naval ships transformed into girls? When a threat referred to only as the Abyssal Fleet begins attacking ships all over the world, there’s only one group that can stop them: The Kanmusu, the spirits of ancient Japanese ships reincarnated into the bodies of young women.
If that’s not weird enough, they also have access to special weaponry that can only be accessed by using the spirits of the ancient naval ships inside of them. Surprisingly, this isn’t the only time battleships have been anthropomorphized - it would happen again with Arpeggio of Blue Steel, only this time, they used World War II battleships.
3 Upotte Has A High School Of Girls Who Are Real-Life Guns
Considering just how much people love guns, the fact that someone eventually turned them into high school girls shouldn’t be surprising. In Upotte, all the girls are actually based on specific guns, and they attend school in the hopes of graduating and becoming the special weapon for servicemen.
The lead protagonist is Funko, a character based on the FNC assault rifle, but there are plenty of others based on popular weapons like the FAL, the M14, and the Galil AR. The girls in this series are constantly in shooting competitions with one another but don’t actually bleed when they get hit by their (live) rounds.
2 Fullmetal Alchemist Turned The Seven Deadly Sins Into Homunculi
Not every anthropomorphic character is meant to be cute. In Fullmetal Alchemist, the homunculi created by the primary series villain represent the Seven Deadly Sins. Each of them makes up secondary antagonists of the series, working to carry out the will of their creator in their own ways. The ones that stick with everyone the most are probably Lust, Gluttony, and Envy - Gluttony for his monstrous transformation, Lust for being gorgeous, Envy for taking out the most beloved character in the series.
1 Neptunia Took Place On The Planet Of Gamindustri
The world of Gamindustri is divided into four different lands: Planeptune, Lastation, Lowee, and Leanbox. Their world has been at war for years, and they only recently signed a pact to agree to be friendly with one another. Each land is run by a different goddess: Neptune, Noire, Blanc, and Vert - all of whom are based on gaming consoles.
But while all the girls are supposed to be managing their nations, the goddess of Planeptune would much prefer to goof off instead. Neptunia is a fanservice anime from every direction, both in terms of the character designs as well as references to the gaming world.