A heroine who can't hide anything

A tsundere hides her feelings behind rudeness, a kuudere behind calm. A catgirl has a harder time hiding: she can say "I don't care" all she wants, but her ears have already swiveled toward you and her tail is standing straight up. That's her charm: her body works like subtitles for her words.

Japan even has an expression, "to wear a cat," meaning to act meeker than you really are. A catgirl is bad at wearing that mask, and audiences love it.

Where catgirls came from

  • Folklore. Japanese legends of the bakeneko and nekomata: cats that gain power with age and can turn into people.
  • Manga of the 1970s and '80s. In Yumiko Oshima's The Star of Cottonland, the kitten heroine was drawn as a girl with ears, so readers saw her through her own eyes.
  • Fashion of the 1990s and 2000s. Cat ears became a popular accessory in cosplay and maid cafés, and the archetype became one of the most recognizable in anime and games.

Kinds of catgirls

  • NekomimiA regular girl with cat ears and a tail, no explanation needed. That's just how the world works.
  • Shapeshifter