Mecha Musume

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Humikane's rendition of the American M4A3 Sherman from "Volume 2."
Humikane's rendition of the American M4A3 Sherman from "Volume 2."

Mecha Musume (メカ娘 meka musume?, lit. mecha daughter) are moe anthropomorphisms similar to the OS-tans. Mecha Musume is the accepted term in the west, but the Japanese call them Mecha Shōjo (メカ少女 meka shōjo?, lit. mecha girl). Mecha Musume is the term used by the artist Shimada Humikane (島田フミカネ) for his copyrighted commercial and artistic designs.

Mecha Musume are a recent trend in Japanese anime fandom. In Japanese usage the word mecha can refer to any kind of mechanical device such as a gun or a robot. In the case of Mecha musume they are specifically personifications of military hardware. They should not be confused with other types of moe military mascots, like those representing something abstract like a country's navy or army.

Mecha musume look like cute girls wearing armor inspired in its design by some kind of military hardware. Usually the body is exposed with only the limbs encased in armor, though sometimes they wear more and sometimes less "protection". The design of the armor reflects the weapon system that they are a personification of. Most common are tanks, aircraft and ships, but also anything from ICBMs to military field kitchens. Some carry weapons that also reflect the thing they represent. Mecha musume are usually based on real military systems. Fictitious designs model themselves after historical and modern military equipment.

The clothing worn by mecha musume varies considerably. Besides military uniforms various anime-themes are also common, such as school swimsuits, seifuku, maid outfits and shinto shrine maiden dresses. The dress can sometimes help identify the military system. A shrine maiden's dress means the girl represents a Japanese aircraft or ship, usually from World War 2. Various other anime themes are often incorporated, with animal ears being particularly common.

MS shōjo (or Gundam girls) are related to mecha musume. They preceded the trend of turning weapon systems into girls as Gundam girls first appeared in print in the 1980s. MS bishōjo are girls drawn wearing helmets and armor designed to resemble various mobile suits, usually gundams or zakus. Fanart of girls drawn to resemble mecha from other anime and games are also popular. A distinction is made between Mecha Musume and Mobile Suit Girls because the latter are based on futuristic fictional walking mecha and predate Mecha Musume by nearly two decades.

A commercial breakthrough occurred in 2006 in response to the growing popularity of fan-created mecha shōjo designs. Particularly prominent has been the artist Shimada Humikane whose character designs have been used for collectible figure sets and two anime OVA. He named his designs Mecha Musume, which quickly became the accepted term for mecha girls among anime fans in the west. The Japanese only use the term Mecha Musume when referring to Humikane's works.

Humikane put his mark on the sets of Mecha Musume collectible figures representing World War II military vehicles that was released by Konami. The designs are a mix of actual and fictional WW2 weapons such as the M4 Sherman and Valentine tanks and the ficticious Morane-Saulnier Ms-462 (modelled on the Morane-Saulnier M.S.406). So far three sets have been released along with three larger scale models. The larger single models are the Messerschmitt Me 109E3, the MiG-60 (a fictional design most likely based on the MiG-1 or MiG-3, in keeping with the World War II theme) and the Reggiane Re-2200 Furiata (a retro-futuristic fictional design unrelated to any real aircraft).

A Mecha Musume-themed anime OVA called "Strike Witches" animated by the Japanese animation studio GONZO was released at the end of 2006. Humikane was the character designer. As the titles implies the girls are witches that use magic both to merge with their mechanical components and to fly and fight.

Sharing the mecha musume style is "Sky Girls", an anime OVA released in August 2006 and . It was produced by Konami and J.C. Staff with Humikane as co-designer of the characters. Sky Girls differ from mecha musume in that they are not based on actual or fictional military hardware but wear futuristic personal battle armor.

A new magazine was launched in fall 2006 called MC Axis (MC☆あくしず). It styles itself a "Moe military magazine", which means it focuses primarily on cute girls in a military setting - including mecha musume.

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