Anime Anime Global

In recent years, anime with anthropomorphizing non-human creatures, inanimate objects, and similar things have become popular.

There are many titles like this in the 2021 winter anime season, including “Cells at Work!” and “Cells at Work! BLACK”, which replace body cells with humans, and “Uma Musume Pretty Derby Season 2”, in which beautiful girl characters inspired by real racehorses play the main roles, are being broadcast. Anime!Anime! thinks that many readers have their favorite anthropomorphic titles.

Therefore, this time, we conducted a reader survey entitled “When you think of an “anthropomorphic” work, what comes to mind?” We received responses from 142 people during the survey period from January 28 to February 4.
The male-female ratio is about 35% for males and about 65% for females. About 65% of the age group were minors, and about 20% were in their 20s.

■ Anthropomorphic works that are fun and help you to learn things are ranked high!
1st place
1st place goes to “Cells at Work!” with an approval rating of about 35%.
This work is based on a manga that anthropomorphizes cells that work in the body. Currently, season 2 of the TV anime “Cells at Work!” is on air.

Readers commented on how they learned about how the body is working, “This anime is not only fun, but it can also increase my knowledge of high school biology.”, and “It is not only interesting, it’s also very educational! My major in graduate school is cytology, but even the professor praised this anime.”

2nd place
2nd place goes to “Touken Ranbu: ONLINE” with an approval rating of about 15%.
It is based on a game that depicts famous Japanese swords as male characters. Two anime, “Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru” and “Katsugeki Touken Ranbu”, have been released, and various media mixes such as the stage and movies are being performed.

Aside from the anime itself, there are many comments about how inspiring it is, “I think it is the best of anthropomorphic works that led to the discovery of swords that are said to no longer exist.”, and “It also influences crowdfunding to protect the swords, which are historical cultural property.”

3rd place
3rd place goes to “Hetalia Axis Powers” with an approval rating of about 10%.

This work is based on a manga that anthropomorphizes the countries of the world. It is a long-term series, and season 7 is scheduled to be broadcast in the spring of 2021. Readers commented, “Thanks to this anime, I have been able to study modern history.”, and “After all, this work is the origin of the anthropomorphic boom. With laughter and tears, world history becomes more interesting. I’m really looking forward to the anime’s new start in April this year!”

■Let’s introduce other comments!
For “Tama and Friends”, “It’s a cute anthropomorphic anime with cats and dogs, but in reality, they were ordinary animals, and it was real and interesting that they couldn’t talk to humans or communicate with them.”
About “Kemono Friends”, “I was impressed by the story of Kaban-chan, who using her inspiration and knowledge as a human, solved problems for her animal friends. A gentle world is healing my mind.”

About “Kantai Collection”, “A lot of fleets are anthropomorphized by beautiful girls full of individuality and are cute. It is also attractive to wear different costumes depending on the type of ship and to enjoy the relationship between sister ships.”
For “Uma Musume Pretty Derby”, season 2 of which is currently on-air, “You can understand the drama of horse racing in an easy-to-understand manner, and it is interesting as a sport breathless suspense story.”

In this survey, not only titles that are interesting to watch, but also works where you can learn various knowledge were ranked high.
There was also a vote for works that anthropomorphized the image of a real writer as a person of different abilities, such as “Bungo Stray Dogs”.

■ Ranking Top-10
“Talking about ‘anthropomorphic’ titles?”
1st place “Cells at Work!”
2nd place “Touken Ranbu: ONLINE”
3rd place “Hetalia Axis Powers”
4th place “Azur Lane”
5th place “Tama and Friends”
6th place “Kantai Collection”
7th place “Kemono Friends”
8th place “Bungo Stray Dogs”
9th place “Arpeggio of Blue Steel”
9th place “Uma Musume Pretty Derby”
9th place “Yōoukai Gakuen Y – N to no souguu”

(Response period: January 28-February 4, 2021)

* This questionnaire is part of a survey of readers’ awareness of “current interest in and attention to anime works and characters.” Regarding the results, we do not intend to decide the superiority or inferiority of any character or work. We hope that this article will help you to get to know new works and characters, and to deepen your understanding and interest.