In manga and anime, a cat girl is a character that has cat-like features, such as feline body parts—"cat ears," nekomimi 猫耳, "cat eyes," nekome 猫目, "cat mouth," nekoguchi 猫口, and a "cat tail," neko-shippo 猫しっぽ—and ending their sentences in nyaa にゃー, "meow."
Anime: Akame ga Kill!, アカメが斬る！ (Episode 6)
Anime: Uchi Tama?! Uchi no Tama Shirimasen ka? うちタマ？！～うちのタマ知りませんか？～ (Episode 1)
Anime: Gintama 銀魂 (Episode 12)
Anime: Ishuzoku Reviewers, 異種族レビュアーズ (Episode 1)
Anime: Tokyo Mew Mew, 東京ミュウミュウ (Episode 2)
Anime: Asobi ni Iku yo! あそびにいくヨ！ (Episode 1)
Anime: Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo no Dorei Majutsu 異世界魔王と召喚少女の奴隷魔術 (Episode 1)
Anime: Nekopara ネコぱら (Episode 1)
Anime: New Game!! (Season 2) (Episode 2)
Anime: Onigiri 鬼斬 (Episode 3)
Anime: Hataage! Kemono Michi 旗揚!！けものみち (Episode 10)
In Japanese
There are two ways to say "cat girl" in Japanese: nekomimi ネコミミ, and neko-musume 猫娘.
The word neko-musume 猫娘 means "cat girl" in Japanese. Literally, it means "cat daughter," however, musume 娘, "daughter," can also mean a random "girl," since any girl is somebody's daughter, so neko-musume means "cat girl.".
This is similar to how ojousama お嬢様 literally means "daughter," but can also mean "rich girl."
One problematic thing, though: Neko-musume ねこ娘, with neko officially spelled with hiragana, is the name of a certain character from an extremely well-known series: Gegege no Kitarou ゲゲゲの鬼太郎.
Anime: Gegege no Kitarou ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 (2018) (Episode 2)
Consequently, if you google neko-musume 猫娘, you'll get many results featuring her, and turns out she doesn't even have cat ears, which makes the term utterly worthless.
- On Pixiv, this is so rampant there's even a suggestion to tag works as kyatto-gaaru キャットガール, the katakanization of "cat girl," instead of neko-musume to avoid confusion.
The better term to refer to cat girls generally is nekomimi ネコミミ, "cat ears," because pretty much every cat girl is going to have them. Of course, nekomimi doesn't refer to the girl herself, it refers to the feature, to refer to the girl, you could say:
- nekomimi kyara
猫耳キャラ
Cat-ears character.- nekomimi kyarakutaa
猫耳キャラクター
(same meaning.)
- nekomimi kyarakutaa
- nekomimi joshi
猫耳女子
Cat-ears girl. - nekomimi musume
猫耳娘 - nekomimikko
猫耳っ娘 - {{nekomimi wo tsuketa} onna no} ko
猫耳をつけた女の子
A child [who] {is female [who] {attached cat-ears}}. (literally.)
A girl wearing cat-ears.
The same idea applies to kemonomimi 獣耳 characters.
Types
There are various types of cat girls that can be found in anime.
Natural
Normally, "cat girl" refers to a character who was born with cat-like body parts, or that transforms into a cat girl, such that the cat parts are physically attached to her body.
Race
In fantasy and isekai 異世界 anime, cat girls often manifest as some sort of fantasy race that's basically human, but happens to have ears of a cat and maybe tail, just like elves in anime are just humans with long ears and a long lifespan.
Right: Rem Galeu レム・ガレウ
Anime: Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo no Dorei Majutsu 異世界魔王と召喚少女の奴隷魔術 (Episode 1)
- Canonically, Rem is part of the hyoujinzoku 豹人族, "leopard-people race."
Alien
Among natural cat girls, some of them are aliens.
- Eris (Asobi ni Iku Yo!)
An alien cat girl from planet Earth, but not our Earth, a different planet, also called Earth, in which a race of cat girls exist.
Anime: Gintama 銀魂 (Episode 12)
Anthropomorphized
Some anime cat girls are actually moe anthropomorphizations of real cats. In other words, they're seen and treated as actual cats by the world, but drawn as cute anime girls. See also: moe-gijinka 萌え擬人化.
Right: same character
Anime: Uchi Tama?! Uchi no Tama Shirimasen ka? うちタマ？！～うちのタマ知りませんか？～ (Episode 1, OP)
- In Uchi Tama, cat and dog characters are drawn as animals when interacting with humans, but drawn anthropomorphized when interacting with each other.
- In Nekopara ネコぱら, cats are cute anime girls.
Cosplay
There are also characters who aren't natural cat girls, but are simply cosplaying as a cat girl, wearing a hairband with cat ears and a tail attached to their clothes.
Anime: New Game!! (Season 2) (Episode 2)
Pseudo
Some cat girls look like cat girls, but aren't actually "cat" girls, because that would make no sense—cat girls don't really exist, don't be silly—and things that don't make sense don't belong in anime.
Instead, they just happen to look like cat girls for some reason. For example:
Anime: Onigiri 鬼斬 (Episode 3)
- Those two things that look exactly like cat ears on top of her head are, canonically, her horns, because she's half oni 鬼.
Incomplete
Some characters that look like cat girls aren't really complete cat girls: they're lacking something.
Generally speaking, a cat girl has both cat ears and a cat tail, so lacking either of those features creates something that's arguably a cat girl, but every time you say it's a cat girl someone shows up on the internet to correct you saying she's not really a cat girl.
Anime: K (Episode 4)
- Despite being a cat, Neko ネコ doesn't have cat ears in her human form.
Monster Girl
Generally speaking, cat girls, and kemonomimi characters in general, don't have fur on their bodies. All they have are animal ears and tails practically glued on the design of the character, and that's it. However, there are exceptions.
A juujin 獣人, "beast-person," character is half-person half-beast. In anime, this term refers to characters that do have fur, or scales, feathers, and so on, on their bodies. A cat girl of this type counts as a monster girl.
Anime: Vampire Hunter (1997) (Episode 3, OVA)
Anime: Ishuzoku Reviewers, 異種族レビュアーズ (Episode 1, Stitch)
Transformed
Some cat girls are actually human girls who physically transform into cat girls for some reason.
Anime: Tokyo Mew Mew, 東京ミュウミュウ (Episode 2)
- Context: a magical girl whose transformation is the cat girl Mew Mew Strawberry.
Anime: Akame ga Kill!, アカメが斬る！ (Episode 6)
- Leone transforms into a lion girl to become stronger in battle.
Furry
Some cat girls are more cat than girl. These, who have muzzles and faces covered in fur, are said to be furry characters, kemono ケモノ, rather than said to be cat girls.
Anime: Beastars (Episode 6)
- Context: in a world where carnivores and herbivores are people.
- mimei no shokusatsu jiken, han'nin tousouchuu
未明の喰殺事件、犯人逃走中
Early morning [devouring] incident, perpetrator on the run.- shokusatsu
喰殺
To kill by eating. To devour.
- shokusatsu
Tropes
For the sake of reference, some common tropes surrounding cat girls.
Nyaa
Cat girl characters, like other feline characters, sometimes end their sentences with nyaa にゃー, which means "meow" in Japanese.
In Japanese, it's common for peculiar characters to add some random phrase at the end of the sentences that doesn't mean anything. The term for this is gobi 語尾, by the way. If it was a dog girl, she would end the sentences with wan ワン, which means "woof."
- Context: Nakano Azusa 中野梓, a new club member, puts on "cat ears," nekomimi 猫耳.
- nyaa tte itte-mite, nyaa tte
ニャーッて言ってみて ニャーッて
Try saying "meow," [say] "meow." - ni... nya~~...?
に･･･にゃ～～･･･？
M... meow~~...? - ha'! tsui!!
はっ！！つい！！
Ah!! [I did it without thinking]!! (in the sense of not intending to say it, but getting carried away.) - ada-na wa Azunyan de kettei da ne!!
あだ名はあずにゃんで決定だね！！
[It] is decided: [your] nickname will be Azunyan!! (Azusa plus "meow.")
Master
Cat girl characters often have a character whom they call "master," goshujinsama ご主人さま.
This term is extremely problematic because it has various meanings, including: your "husband," a pet's "owner," a maid, servant or slave's "master," and even the "summoner" of a genie or other magical creature, among other meanings.
Maid
A high number of cat girl characters are maids. As mentioned previously, goshujinsama is the word to refer to the owner of an animal and also to refer to the master of a servant like a maid.
Café
In Japan, maid cafés are establishments where the staff is dressed up as french maids. Although they're technically uniforms, the whole idea is basically cosplay. It's not unusual to see a maid café with a cat girl cosplay event, turning into a maid cat girl café.
Collar
In Japanese, "collar" is kubiwa 首輪, literally "neck-ring."
Cat Bell
Some cat girls wear cat bells, often attached to their collars. The term for the small, ball-shaped bells is suzu 鈴. Another word that translates to "bell" is kane 鐘, but this refers to those large bells found in churches, not to small, wearable bells.
Inspection
Natural cat girls are sometimes inspected by skeptical characters who don't believe that cat girls are real and there's one in front of them.
Petting
Sometimes, cat girls are treated like cats, and end up getting petted.
Right: Misha ミーシャ (cat girl)
Anime: Hataage! Kemono Michi 旗揚!！けものみち (Episode 10, Stitch)
- atama no naderu
頭を撫でる
To caress [someone's] head.
- See also: head pats.
- atama ponpon
頭ポンポン
Head patting.
Heterochromia
Many cat girls have eyes of different colors. In particular, cats (and cat girls) tend to feature a yellow and a gray or blue eye, which is known by the term of kin-me gin-me 金目銀目, "golden eye, silver eye."
Anime: Nekopara ネコぱら (Episode 1)
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