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For the inevitable launch of our site community we need to come up with a mascot design to help us promote ourselves.

To the community, I'd like to ask you to share your ideas on what kind of mascot would best promote and represent and promote community.

They can be just about anything, lolis, chibis, robots, animals, ships, etc. Be creative and try you best at creating a new, original concept. It doesn't matter if you can draw or not, even a description is fine.

Please try to follow this format when proposing an mascot:

Name: (What is the name of your Mascot)

Description: (Description of the mascot, provide any background behind you character and/or why you chose to create them)

Charm Point: (What is the "trademarked" aspect of them that sets them apart? It can be a pose a catchphrase, an special action/attack pose, or something else all together)

(Anything else you wish to include. E.g., Hobbies, blood-type, extended family, favorite food, favorite anime/manga, whatever idols do, etc.)

The top voted mascot suggestion may be commissioned into a work for the our site launch.

Try to keep things safe for work and do your best for the future of our community!

I'm looking forward to what everyone has to offer!

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  • 3
    I thought we already had Sakamoto, the fire-breathing walrus...
    – Cattua
    Commented Feb 26, 2014 at 21:43
  • Maybe we should have periodically changing mascots. For a lot of the fansub sites, I enjoy seeing a different banner and mascot on every refresh.
    – Mysticial
    Commented Feb 26, 2014 at 21:53
  • 7
    @Mysticial that would not be very maintainable in the long run. Once we decide on a character, maybe we can use different "versions" of it for promotion purpose.
    – Jin
    Commented Feb 26, 2014 at 22:00
  • 3
    while I'm thinking about moe character, I think it's a good to choose a character that related with Q&A such as detective character for example like Conan... But it's just my opinion...
    – Darjeeling
    Commented Feb 27, 2014 at 2:10
  • 3
    Should we really be coming up with full character proposals? I have a few ideas for points or aspects of a character, but I definitely couldn't flesh them out into a full character, and I'm not sure that would be the most useful thing anyway for @Jin and whoever ends up designing the character.
    – Logan M
    Commented Feb 27, 2014 at 2:12
  • 4
    As a side suggestion, I think that once we have our mascot, we should rename and re-avatar the Community bot to w/e we chose. Give them a bit more purpose/presence/
    – кяαzєя Mod
    Commented Feb 27, 2014 at 16:16
  • IMO we should have multiple bot characters different from site's mascot, each with their own personality and active in different times of the day. Would feel like there's a lively gang working in the HQ.
    – Hakase
    Commented Mar 2, 2014 at 4:03
  • Sounds like a good idea. I'm guessing it has to be original.
    – Izumi-reiLuLu
    Commented Mar 2, 2014 at 20:06
  • 1
    I'm a little bit confused as to why we even need a mascot in the first place. Do any other SE sites have one? And if we do need a mascot, why does the mascot need a "description" or a "charm point"? Surely the mascot will just be part of the imagery that shows up in the site's design?
    – senshin
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 2:14
  • 2
    Each site represents a certain community with special needs, catering to which could greatly improve overall user experience and the site's value. For example, mathematically-themed SE sites have cool formula markdown, and the UX site has a really great interface, as expected from UX fans. Personally, I don't know of a popular anime and manga themed community that doesn't have a mascot. It only seems natural to have one.
    – Hakase
    Commented Mar 6, 2014 at 5:38
  • 2
    @user1306322 MAL, Crunchyroll, /a/, /r/anime, AniDB, MangaUpdates, and AnimeNewsNetwork all lack mascots AFAIK (granted, some of these may not meet your definition of "community"). Can you give some examples of anime-themed communities that do have mascots? Because I wasn't aware that was really a thing.
    – senshin
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 14:51
  • 1
    In any case, if we are going to have a mascot, I still don't see why we need anything besides visual features like "red hair" or whatever. All of the answers so far have some sort of elaborate life story for the mascot characters, which strikes me as really excessive.
    – senshin
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 14:52
  • 1
    I guess we just need to come up with a better list requirements for the mascot then, with reasons explained for each requirement.
    – Hakase
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 16:20
  • 2
    I think we might need to take a step back and research more what site mascots are all about and come up with a more detailed set of requirements. AND get more attention from active users somehow.
    – Hakase
    Commented Mar 17, 2014 at 6:37
  • 1
    For example, maybe create a huge list of various character traits, vote on them and select from the most prominent ones. Try different combos, see what looks appropriate.
    – Hakase
    Commented Mar 18, 2014 at 10:34

6 Answers 6

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Name: Ai-chan

Description: Highschool detective. Carries a magnifying glass wherever she goes and determined to find out answers to all of Anime & Manga Stack Exchange's questions!

Having moved on from simple highschool mysteries, Ai now works as professional sleuth and tries to solve all of A&M's puzzling questions. She's still a highschool student though, so she mightn't get all of them ^^;

Raggedy hazelnut hair and wears a pale blue sailor fuku uniform (could have a summer version also).

When she's not solving mysteries, you can find Ai unwinding with a good light novel/manga on the sofa.

Charm Point: Very enthusiastic about finding answers and always tries her hardest. She gets very upset when she can't find an answer to a question (it's cute though).

When stuck on a particularly hard mystery, Ai scrunches her face up in intense consentration until she has a vivid realisation. I can imagine an exclamation mark over her head when she finds a solution

Blood Type: A

Age: 17

Star Sign: Gemini

Favourite Anime/Manga: Lupin III

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  • 1
    She also owns an adorable tiny pet mech that helps her with quick facts and analysis?
    – David Starkey
    Commented Mar 12, 2014 at 18:19
  • ooh, that could be neat :)
    – Toshinou Kyouko
    Commented Mar 12, 2014 at 22:29
1

Name: Hina-Chan

Appearance: Vegetable green hair (Na in Hina can mean vegtables/greens), Purpelish eyes (like in the picture before) , about the size of Squid Girl

Personality: She has a radiant personality (Another play on the name Hi can mean day/sun), always willing to help people. Always looking happy and ready to cheer you up. And very Adventurous/Curious.

Background: As she is not that old yet she sees every day as an adventure. Whenever possible she try's to learn new things, try new things out in her world wide exploration. Trying to turn everything into a Adventure.

Charm Points: Due to her bright personality, and curiosity she makes for a good hyper active cheery and adventurous girl (although this sometimes is quite tiring) She is always trying to learn/find out new things.

She also is kind of clumsy at times, causing some of her adventures to be off short duration.

Other:

Blood type: B

Hobbies: Discovering new things, Going on trips.

Family: Family consists of her Father and Mother, And the last 4 years a Nephew also lived with them

Her mother is a Model for a swimsuit magazine, which often forces her to travel the globe. Hina joins her on these trips whenever she can

Her father runs a local local book store, selling all kinds of rare and antique books. Which Hina some times secretly reads through to find certain 'Treasure maps'

Her nephew is 3 years younger then her and often goes with her whens he goes out Exploring/adventuring. Due to him being younger he most often can't keep up and hurts himself somehow, making the duo return early from their adventures

Favorite food: Hina is a huge sweet tooth, with her favorites being Pocky and Botan rice candy

Least Favorite food: Hina dislike's vegtables, and all foods that look green.

Favorite book: Artemis fowl, She also is trying to find a Fairy to extort gold from using Artemis as a guide to do so.

Favorite Manga/anime: One piece, she likes how they are searching for a huge treasure while adventuring to do so.

1

Seiko-chan (惺子), 18 years old, high-school student. (name roughly means "sincere child")

She's knowledgeable, kind, honest, helping and straightforward. And good-looking, of course.

Seiko-chan represents the greatness of StackExchange community, and, in their turn, users are inspired to become great like her.

She loves experiencing various emotions the world of anime and manga can offer through inspiring adventures, fantasy, dramas; alluring romance, ero-manga; light-hearted comedy, slice of life; more serious seinen and josei, sci-fi, sports, and whatnot.

Seiko-chan's favorite drink is tea. Different kinds of tea, which perfectly fit the mood and allow for best entertainment experience.

She also enjoys cosplay and has some friends who share her infatuations.

Anime and manga just happen to be one of her main interests in entertainment. And so this is for many users, so don't forget to join the Chat for some on- and off-topic discussion!

[end of cool part]

Forgive me if I messed up with the Japanese, for I am lvl 1 in it.

If anything, I'd go with Shaft's art style for realistic proportions, attractive body figure and serious, yet adventurous feeling. Along the lines of Hanekawa Tsubasa of Monogatari series.

I imagine it would be pretty awesome to have a random rotation of header backgrounds of Seiko-chan with various cups of tea, reading some manga or watching anime, if anyone is up to the task of drawing them.

Seiko-chan's friends could partake in her cosplay parties, parodying famous scenes and characters in the site's header and footer.

I'm opposed to cliche mascot characters with standard trademark elements, and StackExchange deserves much better. Which is why I thought of the above. Feel free to be inspired by this thought, and create your own unique proposition worthy of this site.

3
  • Are you sure about hentai part? Might not be favored by some people
    – Darjeeling
    Commented Mar 4, 2014 at 6:02
  • instead of hentai (which means pervert in japanese from what i remember) you could use ero-manga or ero-works if you want to include anime and eroge (h games) as well, there is ero-manga (mainly doujin) which i wouldn't count as hentai but are more mature than your usual content, i equate this to the first 2 levels of classification used by Yuri-ism (level 3 contains nudity but no actual sex but i avoid that myself)
    – Memor-X
    Commented Mar 6, 2014 at 5:20
  • or you could use Seinen manga, Josei manga or find a term which would include both
    – Memor-X
    Commented Mar 6, 2014 at 5:26
-2

Name: Dexter

Info: A very skilled warrior. Very kind but can be annoying at times and thrives to become the best of the best though perseverance and love. Can be clumsy but that is what makes Dexter, Dexter. Also very talkative!

Relations:

Nanny Kate- His nannie: )

Claney Mihi- His Aunty : )

Best friends- Jamie and Shawn

Mum + Dad- Raiko + Tress

Hobbies: Enjoys eating, sleeping, having fun, being with family and fighting bad guys and loves to be a rebel to his principal.

Age- 15

Fav foods- He says 'gotta be everything'

Inspiration: @miharu-dante.

Fav anime: Full Metal Alchemist; Fairy Tail

Professions: Warrior/Mage and Sorceress

Strength: 3/5 Still needs training though

School: Capital Bay School for the Magic Arts

Best spell: Dazled Fury

Graduation Status: Not yet

Charm point: Loves to say "my time is now" and has a very bad history with lady's as he always goes awkward around them.

Dexter says to pick him for Mascot. Working on an image to for him too. Not good at drawing though : )

-2

Names: Azeru-kun (♂) and Aseko-chan (♀)

Description:

Azeru-kun and Aseko-chan are the fraternal twin ambassadors of Anime.SE. Azeru-kun is smart and reserved, he is very good at logical deductions and enjoys detective manga. Aseko-chan is a natural-born leader, she is a natural at any sports and likes adventure anime. Azeru-kun enjoys sharp and deep conversations and prefers to settle arguments with negotiation (though he usually ends up failing to do so), while Aseko-chan is much more chatty and is quick to use her fists on arguments (to the annoyance of her brother).

Despite their personalities being almost exact opposite and despite their frequent fights, they are always very close with each other.

Charm Point:

Azeru-kun wears a diamond-shaped pendant (♦) and Aseko-chan wears a diamond-shaped hair clip (♦).

Best friends:

Rivals:

Azeru

  • Favorite genres: detective, shoujo, mecha, slice-of-life
  • Likes: reading manga, the Hiitachins (he admires them as he thinks he's a gentlemen like them)
  • Dislikes: red graffiti, cosplay, singing, his twin sister
  • 180-degree: Left

Aseko

  • Favorite genres: adventures, shounen, sports, horror
  • Likes: her twin brother, watching anime, red markers, putting costumes on Azeru
  • Dislikes: singing, the Hiitachins (they creep her out)
  • 180-degree: Right

I know zero Japanese, so I picked a Japanese-sounding name that somewhat rhymes with A.SE. If they turn out to mean something offensive, I apologize in advance, any suggestions are welcome.

-2

Name: Sakamoto (Type Unicorn)

Description: Sakamoto is one of the the most charming unicorn you will ever see. While our site has meidos and lolis (also waifus), there's severe lack of unicorns. Unicorns have been a popular subject across many SE sites and SE meta memes.

Sakamoto is the gear that makes things turn, he digs through old questions and bumps up unanswered questions that have been buried under the sands of time. He sifts through the flags and delivers them to the moderators. He keeps tally on upvotes and downvotes. He the one responsible to compiling organizing the review queues, writing the labels to the tags and making sure the feeds arrive on time! He gives it his all so visitors from around the world can have a good time on this site! He's the one that gets things done behind the scenes!

Sakamoto desu ga~

Design not final. May be subject to change. In case you are wondering where the original archetype comes from, this is the unicorn from 'The Horizon In the Middle of Nowhere' series. (I have yet to figure out an original design for him, so this serves as a placeholder for now.)

Charm Point: Sakamoto's charm lies in this simple, nondescript design. There's enough detail for a shape, but not too much detail to bog him down. This makes him easy to draw and be reproduced by others. His uses his magical horn (which doubles as a drill, a "giga-drill") to get things done around the site since he technically has no hands. While it doesn't seem like it, Sakamoto can actually fly thanks to his magical tail, which is actually a harisen.

He's round like Bubbles, the official SE mascot, but he's not flat, instead he's like fluffy and soft to touch, like a dango. He has little-bitty feet that go "clop-clop-clop" as he walks. His cute little eyes and button nose can disarm even the most unloving brutes. If he was a Servant That cute radiant blush of his up his Charisma to A Rank (Saber only has Charisma that is B Rank) and light even the darkest of places.

Blood Type: O

Birthday: Dec. 11, 2012 (12/11/12)

Hobbies: Organizing the logistics of Anime.SE, spotlighting old questions so they can get answers, delivering bounties that have been awarded, handing out badges to helpful users, delivering notifications, delivering feeds to the chat rooms, and much much more~

tl;dr: This site needs more unicorns.

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  • 1
    Unfortunately, there may have been to many pony-themed creatures ravaging the internet in the recent past. I'd like to see something more neutral or at least less fandom-specific. And more anime-themed in general.
    – Hakase
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 0:03
  • 5
    -1 Sakamoto is a walrus
    – Logan M
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 0:53
  • 4
    But really, Sakamoto is a black cat with a red scarf that lets him talk in Japanese.
    – Hakase
    Commented Mar 10, 2014 at 12:49
  • I actually find the concept more "neutral" than some of the other ones listed here, tbh...
    – Maroon
    Commented Mar 12, 2014 at 1:48

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