--> Bunny Girl - Japanese with Anime
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Sunday, May 31, 2020

Bunny Girl

In Japanese, "bunny girl," katakanized banii gaaru バニーガール, refers to a girl wearing a "bunny suit," which is a well-known and very specific sort of sexy outfit featuring bunny ears.

Often, the Japanese term "bunny girl" refers to the act of cosplaying as a bunny girl, rather than referring to the girl herself.

The words banii-san バニーさん and usagi-san ウサギさん, both literally "bunny-san," are sometimes used to refer to the girl.

Sakurajima Mai 桜島麻衣, example of "bunny girl," banii gaaru バニーガール.
Character: Sakurajima Mai 桜島麻衣
Anime: Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai, 青春ブタ野郎はバニーガール先輩の夢を見ない (Episode 1)


The well-known design of the bunny girl costume originates in the outfit worn by a Playboy Bunny, which is the term for a waitress at a Playboy Club, which is nightclub owned by, well, Playboy, which was originally a magazine featuring nude models.

The bunny suit isn't directly based on bunnies, but, instead, on the Playboy logo, which is a bunny wearing a tuxedo, or rather, just the head of the bunny with just a bowtie.

The logo was designed by Art Paul, and chosen by Playboy's founder, Hugh Hefner, for the "humorous sexual connotation" that rabbits have in American culture, and for its image of being "frisky and playful."[Playboy - wikipedia.org, accessed 2020-05-31]

Real-life playboy bunnies.
  • Playboy Bunnies at the Playboy Mansion, Los Angeles, CA on July 23, 2011.[wikimedia.org, accessed 2020-05-31]


The various parts of a bunny suit:

  • usamimi
    Bunny ears.
    • usagi
    • mimi

  • shippo
    • ponpon
  • What's worn around the torso is a strapless corset teddy.
    • tedhi
      Teddy. Camiknicker. (a garment that covers torso and crotch.)
    • korusetto
      Corset. (a garment worn around the waist.)
    • reotaado
      Leotard. (a sort of close-fitting one-piece garment.)
    • hairegu
      High leg [cut]. (in the sense it doesn't cover the hips, the highest parts of the leg.)
  • tsuke-eri
    Attachment collar. (literally.)
    Detachable collar.
    • eri

      Collar [of a shirt]. (this is the part of the shirt that goes around your neck.)
      • kubiwa
        "Neck ring." Collar. (like a collar you put on a dog.)
  • chou-nekutai
    "Butterfly necktie."
  • tsuke-sode
    Detachable sleeves.
    • cafusu
  • panthi-sutonkkingu
    "Panty-stocking." (literally.)
    Pantyhose. (American English.)
    Tights. (British English.)
    • pansuto
    • ami-taitsu
      "Fishnet tights." Fishnet pantyhose.
  • hai-hiiru


The bunny suit is a fetishized outfit, and may show up sometimes as fanservice.

Example of fanservice, bunny girl.
Left: Yunyun ゆんゆん
Right: Megumin めぐみん
Anime: Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! この素晴らしい世界に祝福を！ (Episode 11, OVA, Stitch)
  • Two completely random outfits that honestly should never be seen in the same scene, but are seen here due to fanservice: the bunny suit and a:
  • taisougi
    Gym uniform.
Fujioka Haruhi 藤岡ハルヒ, example of "bunny girl," banii gaaru バニーガール.
Character: Fujioka Haruhi 藤岡ハルヒ
Anime: Ouran High School Host Club, Ouran Koukou Hosuto-Bu 桜蘭高校ホスト部 (Episode 12, Stitch, Altered)


A "casino," kajino カジノ, is a common place where bunny girls show up in anime. Not because there are a lot of bunny girls in casinos in real life, but mostly because it's the only place it would make some sense for a girl to show up in a bunny suit, so nobody's missing the opportunity of adding bunny girls to casinos in anime.

Kouzuki Kallen 紅月カレン, example of "bunny girl," banii gaaru バニーガール, in a casino.
Character: Kouzuki Kallen 紅月カレン
Anime: Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch R2, コードギアス 反逆のルルーシュＲ２ (Episode 1)
Example of "bunny girl," banii gaaru バニーガール.
Character: unnamed
Anime: Space Cobra, スペースコブラ (Episode 13)
  • Context: space pirates attacked a spaceship called Venus that was leaving Earth with a lot of gold, and stole the gold. The space pirates' base of operations is in a casino in a space station called Las Vegas Station.
  • This is an anime from 1982. None of this makes sense. But the important thing is:
  • Space bunny girls is JUSTICE.

In RPGs, it's common to include luck-based mini-games like black jack and slot machines. In Uncharted Waters, for example, you could earn money (or lose) by playing cards in pubs in seaports around the world. Some RPGs, like Stardew Valley, place all such mini-games in a same area.

In the classic Japanese franchise Dragon Quest, the casino is a recurring area containing such mini-games. Sure enough, the franchise does feature bunny girls in the casinos. Since some isekai anime are based on such RPGs, you may see this parodied sometimes.

Example of casino "bunny girl," banii gaaru バニーガール.
Anime: Shinchou Yuusha 慎重勇者 (Episode 10)

In the Mondaiji series, the world isn't based on RPGs, but on gambling in general. Nobody wears a bunny suit, but one of the heroines is a bunny girl in the sense that she literally has bunny ears instead of human ears.

Kuro-Usagi 黒ウサギ, Kasukabe You 春日部耀, example of "bunny ears," usamimi うさみみ.
Left: "Black Rabbit," Kuro-Usagi 黒ウサギ
Right: Kasukabe You 春日部耀
Anime: Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo? 問題児たちが異世界から来るそうですよ？ (Episode 1)

Daicon IV

The Nihon Esu-Efu Taikai 日本ＳＦ大会, "Japanese Science Fiction Convention," is nicknamed Tо̄kon トーコン when held in Tо̄kyo 東京 and Daikon ダイコン when held in О̄saka 大阪.[日本SF大会 - wdic.org, accessed 2020-05-31]

The word daikon 大根 also refers to a variety of "radish" in Japanese. Another romaji for this same word is daicon, with a c.

The 20th convention, held in 1981, was the 3rd held in О̄saka, and thus was nicknamed Daicon III. A group of amateur animators created a fan "opening animation" for this convention, featuring copyrighted characters of various well-known works.

Later, in 1983, the same group created the Daicon IV Opening Animation, which is more well-known worldwide than the SF convention itself.

The 6 minutes long animation featured, among countless other things, a bunny girl surfing through space on a sword (the Stormbringer, 1961), after dueling Darth Vader with a light saber (1977), having an encounter with Alien (1979), and fighting characters from Ultraman (1966), Macross (1982), Gundam (1979), and so on.

A bunny girl fighting Darth Vader with a light saber.
Left: a stormtrooper
Middle: Darth Vader
Right: unnamed bunny girl
Anime: Daicon IV Opening Animation

Needless to say, you may see parodies of this classic around in other anime.

For instance, the animators' group, known as Daicon Film, would later form studio Gainax and create FLCL, an anime that featured a character in a bunny suit shouting "Daicon V" while surfing on a guitar in obvious reference to Daicon IV.

A bunny girl surfing on a sword.
Character: unnamed
Anime: Daicon IV Opening Animation
Haruhara Haruko ハルハラ・ハル子, cosplaying as a "bunny girl," banii gaaru バニーガール, surfing on a guitar in reference to Daicon IV Opening Animation.
Character: Haruhara Haruko ハルハラ・ハル子
Anime: FLCL, "Fooly Cooly," Furi Kuri フリクリ (Episode 5)

School Club Pamphleting

In Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱, Haruhi made a new school club and decided to recruit members by pamplheting wearing a bunny suit, because why not? That's a great idea.

Suzumiya Haruhi 涼宮ハルヒ, Asahina Mikuru 朝比奈みくる, example of "bunny girl" cosplay, banii-gaaru バニーガール.
Left: Suzumiya Haruhi 涼宮ハルヒ
Right: Asahina Mikuru 朝比奈みくる
Anime: Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 (Episode 2)

Since this anime is rather well-known, this strange scenario may get parodied or referenced in other anime.

Kamiigusa Arisu 上井草有栖, Asagaya Minoa 阿佐ヶ谷未乃愛, example of "bunny girl," banii gaaru バニーガール.
Left: Kamiigusa Arisu 上井草有栖
Right: Asagaya Minoa 阿佐ヶ谷未乃愛
Anime: Animegataris, アニメガタリズ (Episode 2, Stitch)

Bunny Boy

The term bunny girl implies the existence of a male counterpart: the "bunny boy," or banii-booi バニーボーイ in Japanese.

But if a guy wore a bunny suit would he wear it like this:

Kiryuu Keiki 桐生慧輝, example of "bunny boy," banii-booi バニーボーイ.
Character: Kiryuu Keiki 桐生慧輝
Anime: Kawaikereba Hentai demo Suki ni Natte Kuremasu ka? 可愛ければ変態でも好きになってくれますか？ (Episode 8, Stitch)
  • josou
    "Female clothes." (literally.)
    Crossdressing. (guys wearing clothes made for girls.)

Or like this:

Usagi 憂城, example of "bunny boy," banii-booi バニーボーイ.
Character: Usagi 憂城
Anime: Juuni Taisen 十二大戦 (Official artwork)
  • I wish we could go back to the good old days when space pirates looting literal bars of gold was all we had to be puzzled about.
  • By the way, if you've watched this anime, see Juuni Taisen Taglines for translations of each character's tagline.

Reverse Bunny Girl

A "reverse bunny girl," gyaku-banii gaaru 逆バニーガール, abbreviated gyaku-banii 逆バニー, "reverse bunny," is a modified bunny suit outfit featuring full frontal nudity, or something dangerously close to full front nudity.

Basically, instead of having a corset teddy covering the torso and crotch, but leaving the shoulders and arms bare, the reverse occurs: the shoulders and arms are covered, but the torso and crotch are are exposed.

The difference between reverse bunny and someone wearing just stockings is that reverse bunny features sleeves covering the arms, a design that can't be interpreted as anything but someone making mockery of the very concept of clothes and their function in covering people's privates.

  • "Adam and Eve got it all wrong."
    —Person who invented the reverse bunny, probably.

Naturally, it's NSFW. The most SFW examples one would find are these:


  1. バニーガール - dic.nicovideo.jp, accessed 2020-05-30.
  2. バニーガール - dic.pixiv.net, accessed 2020-05-30.

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