Ask John: What is OS-tan?

Question:
I heard about something called OS Tans and Trouble Windows. Are these the Microsoft mascots in Japan? Could there be an anime?

Answer:
Japanese culture is often referred to as the “culture of cute.” Contemporary Japanese culture has quite a fascination with creating and idolizing cute mascot characters for virtually any and everything. Probably the best known of all Japanese mascot characters is Hello Kitty, but other well known ones include Domo-kun, Terepanda, Afroken, Ecoco Ice and even the characters of Di-Gi-Charat, who were all originally created as the mascots for the Gamers chain of anime retail stores in Japan. In fact, the prevalence of cute mascot characters in Japanese culture and consciousness is so prolific that anime director Satoshi Kon made the influence of this phenomena a primary theme in his anime TV series Paranoia Agent.

Within the past year or two a number of new mascot characters have begun to make a name for themselves in the Japanese fan community. The most significant “new generation” mascots include Biske-tan, Ink-chan, Habanero-tan, Binchou-tan and the OS Girls.

Biske-tan, the unofficial fan created mascot for KFC restaurants, is a cute young girl usually dressed in a nightgown who wears a KFC biscuit with butter and syrup on her head. Her name is a pun on “biscuit” and the honorific “-tan,” which is a “cute” alternate version of “-chan.” It’s sometimes difficult to find image galleries of Bisque-tan which don’t include any nudity or erotic images, since her sweet, delicious and fluid covered nature make her rather sexually suggestive. Here’s a link to the homepage of a “Bisque-tan Only Event“, basically a gathering of Japanese Bisque-tan fans, and another fan page of Bisque-tan themed illustrations.

Ink-chan is the cute young schoolgirl mascot of the famous Moetan Japanese-English “otaku” dictionary published by Sansai Books. She’s also the star of several Japanese fan produced doujinshi comics.

Habanero-tan is the unofficial mascot of Tohato Habanero snacks. Habanero-tan and her companions such as Jalapeno-chan are all cute and sometimes sexy little girl spices, created by Japanese fan artist Shigatake. Ironically Habanero-tan and company can’t stomach spicy habanero flavored snack chips. Habanero-tan’s popularity has led to renditions (some of them risque) by other Japanese fan artists.

Binchou-tan is the pint-sized mascot of Japanese adult anime PC game development studio Alchemist. She and her companions have been the star of multiple short comics published in Japan’s Megami Magazine. A Binchou-tan anime is now in development.

Finally, the “OS-tans,” possibly the most well known of all the fan created mascots, are attractive human female personifications of various computer operating systems, thus the name “OS.” The free, online Wikipedia Encyclopedia includes an extensive entry on the OS-tans and a link to the now semi-famous fan produced “Troubled Windows” Flash animation. Devoted and diligent fans that search the internet may even be able to find an extended fan produced erotic illustrated story that features Ghost in the Shell’s Motoko Kusanagi hacking (in very sexually suggestive ways) into the OS girls!

While all of these mascot characters are undeniably cute and popular in Japan’s anime and manga fan community, since they’re unofficial, and especially because the OS girl “ME-tan” satirizes the Windows ME operating system in a humorous but not favorable light, it’s highly unlikely that official copyright owners such as Microsoft would ever approve of official anime adaptations of these unofficial mascots.