As you are likely familiar, anime artists have a passion for taking things and turning them into beautiful anime characters. They’ve done it to planets, fast food mascots, and flags. Fully realized anime series are a little more rare compared to the abundance of Twitter and Pixiv fanart, but there are a few series that take abstract concepts or inanimate objects and put a face on them.
Best Anime Where Objects are Personified as Cute Anime Characters
Kantai Collection
Kantai Collection is about girls that are reincarnations of the Japanese Imperial Fleet. This is easily one of the most popular shows in this vein, but some of the fanboyism I think is lost if you don’t know very much about Japanese ships.
Hetalia
While Kantai Collection is really quite popular for waifus, Hetalia is popular for husbandos. Really, though, Hetalia brings the nations of the world to life in the form of people whose personalities sort of stereotype the country the represent. It’s a great comedy if your national pride is not easily wounded.
Moyashimon
While Moyashimon doesn’t quite take bacteria and makes the cute girls, it does make them cute. It gives them faces and makes them more like food mascots you would see on Japanese snacks.
Cells at Work
Cells at Work brings the body to life, rather literally. Red blood cells work as delivery people to deliver oxygen around the body, white blood cells serve as a sort of vicious police force, germs are the villains, and cancer is understandably a tragic. The downside is you may feel pretty bad the next time you get a cut that bleeds.
Arpeggio of Blue Steel
Very similar to Kantai Collection, Arpeggio of Blue Steel doesn’t follow reincarnations of ships, but rather ships that all have a cute girl as its sort of core. So very literally, every warship has a cute girl inside it.
Uma Musume
What happens when a racehorse dies? Well, it is reincarnated into a girl who then perhaps goes to a school to run track. Oddly enough, while it is said race horses are reincarnated into these girls, one girl insinuates that her father was a farmer and her mother was a horse, so…
Miracle Train
This little series is for all those Japanese female train weebs out there. All two of you. Joke aside, Miracle Train is about the stories of handsome men that represent the various trains on the Oedo line. It’s appeal is perhaps lost on people who know neither the trains or lack an interest in bishie boys.
Kemono Friends
Sure, there are plenty of series about talking animals, but only Kemono Firends takes exotic animals and makes them cute girls. It is essentially a safari of furry lolis..
Akikan
Canned soda, juice, coffee, and tea are big in Japan, so I guess why not this? Akikan features cans that turn into girls, who then fight each other like weird little Pokemon.
Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru
This is one more for the ladies. In it, famous Japanese swords are brought to life by a sage as handsome powerful men. They then are sent back in time to stop the past from being changed. Like other series on this list, some of the appeal may be lost if you know very little about famous Japanese blades and those that once wielded them.
Starry Sky
Another boy harem for the pile. This time, they took the 13 zodiac constellation and turned them into very handsome school boys that are all of course enamored with the lone girl to transfer into their once all-boys school.
Haiyore! Nyaruko-san
Someone somewhere said, “you know what? Let’s create a romantic comedy where some of the eldritch terrors were cute girls.” And then they did. The end.
Land of the Lustrous
While there are many “not that great” series on this list, Land of the Lustrous is actually one of those great anime series worth watching. It also happens to fit this particular theme. In it, gems and other minerals are basically people that are all fighting a war, yet not every gem is sturdy enough for battle.
Upotte
Truly the most ‘murican of anime series. Upotte takes beloved guns and turns them into beloved waifus. At the school, they are all competing to be assigned to a serviceman, so it is good for incels too, I guess.
Robot Girls Z
This is a treat for those that are into classic mecha series and literally no one else. The series follows three girls based on Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, and UFO Robot Grendizer that do typical mecha plot things, but do so in a cuter way.
Hyperdimension Neptunia
Neptunia takes the console wars seriously. It follows the wars and warriors in the realms of Gamindustri. While all the consoles are fictional, you can definitely see some tech inspiration in the designs, names, and personalities of these brightly colored waifus.
Do you have more anime series where cute girls are actually things? Let fans know in the comments section below.
