Girls Love Stuffed Animals



If you want to give a female character an air of youthful femininity, give her some stuffed animals that she keeps in her room or carries around. Dolls simply won't do, it has to be stuffed animals. Anything from Teddy Bears to Plushies will help make it clear that even if this character is a woman, she's young at heart.

Although that also means immature in a lot of cases. In fiction, it's often the most girlie or bratty female that still has them. In Real Life Japan, some women carry them around to try to remain Kawaiiko for fear of becoming a Christmas Cake.

Often the animals are carried around constantly, even to the point of being a Security Blanket. Other times the stuffed toy will get dropped in an Empathy Doll Shot.

'''Note that this trope is Always Female. Guys having stuffed animals past a certain age would fall under other tropes, such as Real Men Wear Pink.'''

Women wanting to act mature, of course, will not have any, unless she's Not So Above It All and has some hidden away.

Not an infrequent feature of works relying on Mars and Venus Gender Contrast.

A Creepy Child will, of course, have a creepy animal or a dangerous one.

Compare All Girls Like Ponies, All Women Love Shoes, Pink Means Feminine.

Advertising

 * The "Love's Baby Soft" ad which once adorned both the Fille Fatale and Sick and Wrong trope pages at TV Tropes before the Fork.

Anime and Manga

 * Kodomo no Jikan's Rin owns a giant, yellow bear. That looks like pedobear, and has a pair of panties with her bear on them.
 * The main character of any Magical Girl show is quite likely to have some in her room more than the other characters. If she has a Mentor Mascot, that character will often be disguised as one.
 * Cerberus of Cardcaptor Sakura
 * Rebecca of Yu-Gi-Oh! has a bear. Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series has it become evil.
 * Note that from her second appearance onward, she's ditched her "cutesy little girl" image, so Teddy is nowhere to be seen. Téa even lampshades the change in the dub.
 * Mayu Miyuki's dad bought into this idea in Ai Yori Aoshi... she didn't (except for the one).
 * Before the Time Skip, Darry from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is never seen without her stuffed rabbit.
 * Sakaki of Azumanga Daioh fits this, given her love of everything cute.
 * Despite being a serious Dark Action Girl who nearly kills the protagonists, Lorelei of the Pokémon Special manga has a room full of cute Pokémon plushies.
 * Every few times you beat her in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, she adds a new plushie to her existing collection at her house on Four Island.
 * Nodoka from Saki keeps a stuffed penguin around as a Security Blanket.
 * Kaede Sakura from Kämpfer fits this trope, even if the stuffed animals she collects appear to have committed suicide. Her dedication to the brand goes well beyond just the stuffed animals, as she also has pajamas and other assorted goodies that bear the disturbing creatures.
 * As one of many break-the-ice gestures, Vita of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha received a bunny plushie from her master Hayate that she treasures quite a bit and whose likeness is emblazoned on her Nice Hat. Vivio, meanwhile, is rarely seen without a bunny plushie (save for her stint as a Damsel in Distress), especially now that one of them serves as her Transformation Trinket.
 * Hayate the Combat Butler Izumi has lots of stuffed animals kept around her room.
 * Chiharu is also shown to have a varied collection
 * In Gunslinger Girl, Triela collects stuffed bears. Plays with the trope because Triela is the most grown-up of the child cyborg assassins (into her teens). At first she is dismissive of them (since they show that her handler really doesn't understand that she's growing up). Later they become something of a touchstone for her.
 * Ouran High School Host Club's Mitsukuni "Honey" Haninozuka is a rare male example. He never goes anywhere without his precious stuffed rabbit Usa-chan, despite the fact he's a high school senior. It adds to his Token Mini-Moe gimmick in the Host Club, but he does genuinely love the plushie. And don't you dare mock Honey or try to hurt his Usa-chan, or he will kick your ass.
 * Another male example is Dr. Ni Jianyi of Saiyuki Reload, who carries around a stuffed rabbit doll at all times
 * Grell Sutcliff of the Black Butler series could also qualify, as he is often depicted in Splash Pages holding a Creepy Doll version of Sebastian. This is taken further in the second season of the anime, wherein Grell is shown holding a Sebastian plush which he kisses before placing among doll versions of Ciel and Alois. He then proceeds to viciously destroy the latter dolls with his chainsaw "scythe."
 * Kamichama Karin's Karasuma Himeka has a stuffed rabbit toy she usually carries around with her. Karin herself has some rather unnerving stuffed.... things lurking at the back of her closet....
 * In Mahou Sensei Negima,  carried a plush rabbit as a little girl. Seen during
 * Nodoka also has a stuffed rabbit thing that serves as her backpack.
 * Kagome in Strawberry Panic! has Percival.
 * In Yotsuba&!, Ena has not only her teddy bears but a couple other plushies in her room, and Fuka has a Chiyo-chichi as well. Since acquiring her first teddy bear, Yotsuba has been carrying Duralumin everywhere.
 * Usagi from Junjou Romantica is a rare adult male example. He collects stuffed bears, and is sometimes shown carrying a large bear called Suzuki around his house. Later we see he has a whole room dedicated to them.
 * Asuka from Otomen is another male example, mainly because despite his being a caricature of the ideal young man to all but his closest friends ("all" would include his mom, and for good reason), he's secretly an "Otomen," a guy who adores cute things.
 * In a few episodes of Sailor Moon, we see Minako's room, and it's covered with stuffed animals.
 * In Freezing, Satellizer may have issues, but she keeps a few plushies in her room.
 * In Hidamari Sketch Yuno has a (realistic) teddy bear which she squeezes at one point.
 * Anju from Karin adorns her whole room with various stuffed dolls running the gambit of many various forms- stuffed animals among them. All of them have some demonic spirit inhabiting them. She never goes anywhere without Boogie, who acts as her familiar. Boogie himself contains the spirit of a psycho serial killer, and separating either one from each other is NOT a good idea.
 * Minnie May Hopkins from Gunsmith Cats has a lot of stuffed animals and sometimes carries them around in public. She's 17 at the start of the manga, but looks and sometimes acts as if she was eight or nine.
 * In Madoka Magica, Kaname Madoka's room is filled with stuffed animals.
 * Gender-Inverted Trope (we think) with China.
 * At the end of Gundam Wing, Heero gives Relena a teddy bear for her birthday. Rather than being an expression of girliness, however, there's a deeper symbolic meaning behind it:
 * Chihiro from Tamayura has a bedroom filled with self-made plushies, and in one particularly heartwarming moment she gives a whole set to Fuu as a parting gift.
 * Chihiro also gives some small plushies to use as phone straps to Fuu's friends when she visits Fuu in Takehara.
 * Never is Aoi from Working!! happier then when she gets a stuffed bear from, calling it "Daisy" and taking it with her everywhere.
 * THE iDOLM@STER - Iori is always with her Stuffed Rabbit and Makoto is specially prone to this trope.
 * Itsuki from Heartcatch Pretty Cure has a good-sized collection of stuffed animals; being the Heir to the Dojo, she hides them away because it would conflict with the cool, boyish image she wants to project.
 * Hitsugi Kirigaya from Akuma no Riddle carries a pink teddy bear everywhere she goes.

Comic Books

 * Monica of Monica's Gang is always carrying her plush bunny (which is her Weapon of Choice against villains anyone). And many other female characters from the same author have plush collections.
 * In Hate, Buddy goes on a Blind Date with a lonely career woman who micromanages every aspect of their date and insists on having her way in all things. When they go back to her apartment, one of the first things Buddy notices is her large stuffed animal collection.
 * Empowered, despite being a superheroine, has Mellow Mr. Monkey, which keeps her bad dreams away.
 * Rick Sheridan's girlfriend Alyssa Conover has a number of dolls and stuffed animals in her apartment. Sleepwalker is confused by them, and wonders if they're religious objects that she worships.

Fan Works

 * Invoked early in Girl's School by Miko2, a Ranma ½ fanfic. In it, Ranma is persuaded by his mother to finish high school as a girl, and to learn what it means to be a girl.  In the first couple days Ranma explicitly chooses to buy a couple of teddy bears "because that's what girls like, right?"  Of course, Ranma being Ranma, one is a teddy bear in a martial arts gi, and the other is an accessory to an elaborate gothloli outfit that Ranma forces herself to buy and wear as a kind of "desensitization" training for wearing (more normal) girls' clothing.  (Let's not even get into the "Dojo Barbie" she managed to find somewhere...)

Film
"IT'S SO FLUFFY!"
 * Sarah of Labyrinth has lots of them, but later realizes It's All Junk.
 * One of the D.E.B.S. has a teddy bear to serve as a gun stand. She is often portrayed as The Ditz.
 * Mandy in Animal House, including one choked and punched by her boyfriend Greg.
 * Gru blew up a carnival game to get one for his adopted daughter in Despicable Me.


 * Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors has a stuffed puppy dog.
 * When Selina Kyle snaps and becomes Catwoman, one of the things she does is putting her collection of childish plush toys down her garbage disposal.
 * A similar scene occurred in Black Swan.
 * The director of Mean Girls declared it a low point of his career, asking the actress playing Regina's nine-year-old sister to move closer to her teddy bear before flashing.

Literature

 * In Good Omens, Madam Tracy kept teddy bears in her bedroom because she believed they "created an intimate, coquettish air."
 * Glenda in the Discworld book Unseen Academicals has a teddy bear named Mr. Wobbles which, due to an early attempt at sewing, has three eyes.
 * Also Agnes Nitt, who, according to Perdita, has two full shelves of these.
 * The titular character of Mike Resnick's Soothsayer trilogy carries a stuffed animal as a tragic reminder of the only person who ever loved her and the one act of human kindness she ever received.

Live Action TV
"(Abby hugs Bert) Tony: (to Ziva) Don't Ask."
 * In NCIS, Lab Rat Abby Sciuto owns a stuffed hippopotamus named Bert...that farts when squeezed.


 * In That '70s Show, Jackie has a collection of stuffed animals. Her favorite is an unicorn that she calls "Fluffycakes".
 * Laverne and Shirley had Shirley's Boo Boo Kitty.
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a stuffed pig named Mr. Gordo.
 * A thirty-something-year-old school teacher in Hoarders appears to have an obsession with stuffed animals; I'm not talking about a few shelves of Beanie Babies, I'm talking about every plush toy she's ever owned on top of shelves of Beanie Babies, in addition to her and her mother's half-dozen cats.
 * Diane Chambers had a whole bedroom full of them in Cheers. Sam Malone is completely nonplussed by this when he discovers them. At the end of the episode (due to a hilarious and frustrating series of events), he chucks them all out the window.
 * Luna in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is a stuffed cat when inactive.
 * Syd from Power Rangers SPD owns a stuffed elephant named "Peanut" that she's had since she was five and still sleeps with him.
 * Liz Powell from The Twilight Zone episode "Room 22" has a rag doll and a leopard plushie that she uses as comfort objects.
 * Parker from Leverage features this in her first flashback where she first becomes a thief when her stepfather takes away her stuffed bunny. It ends with his house blowing up as she hugs her bunny.
 * Claire Bennet from Heroes collects teddy bears and her collection is visibly displayed in her room. Her father brings her new ones from his various "business trips" (actually missions tracking down specials) that she believes he goes on. When she goes off to college, she brings a teddy bear with her.

Tabletop Games

 * Champions Organization Book 3, The Blood and Dr. McQuark. One of the NPCs is a young woman who has a large collection of stuffed animals.

Video Games

 * Ashley gets herself a teddy bear at the end of Trace Memory and has the most adorable picture of her hugging it during the end credits. She still has it in the sequel.
 * Prairie of Mega Man ZX has a stuffed kitty that she keeps in her room. Seems odd for the leader of a task force, but it makes sense given the very likely theory that
 * Iris of Sakura Taisen has a bear named "Jean-Pierre".
 * The World Ends With You has Shiki Misaki constantly carrying around Mr. Mew. Justified because it also functions as her weapon. TWEWY is full of Improbable Weapon Users.
 * Further, when, she tells Neku that she'll have Mr. Mew with her, because.
 * Young Deimos Bededora in Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits carries around a stuffed rabbit which also serves as her attack weapon. It obviously does little damage since her real battle method is that of a Marionette Master.
 * In Dead Rising 2 Chuck can bring back giant stuffed animals for his daughter.
 * Lulu carries one in Final Fantasy X, but she uses it to focus her magic attacks.
 * Not even badass Dark Action Girls who make a business in gunning down the scum of society are immune. As revealed in the Anaksha Female Assassin Mini-Adventures, Anaksha absolutely adores stuffed chimps, and you can find one in every Mini-Adventure. It isn't necessary to finish the game, but it's sure nice for that 100% Completion.
 * A dark example is the Arbalest from Darkest Dungeon. In her comic backstory, she clutches a teddy bear in fright as a lynch mob approaches her house; her father takes it from her and gives her a crossbow before telling her to run, a grim way to illustrate how she had to assume an adult role too early. Later in The Crimson Court DLC, the Childhood Treasure trinket is obviously the same toy; equipping it to the Arbalest lowers her Stress and increases the efficiency of healing magic cast on her.
 * Pokemon examples:
 * Lorelei in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. After you beat her and the rest of the Elite Four, you can access the island where she lives. Her house is full of Pokémon dolls. She will buy new dolls after you defeat the Elite Four many times.
 * There's also Copycat Girl, who appears in many Pokémon games, living in Saffron City. (She inspired the anime character Duplica.) Her room is always full of stuffed Pokémon toys (although one of them proves to be a real Pokémon if the player looks at it closely; either a Doduo, Dudrio, or Banette, depending on the game). In the original games and in Fire Red and Leaf Green she gives the player the TM Mimic if you give her a Clefairy doll. In Pokémon Gold and Silver, she asks the player to find her Clefairy doll in Vermillion City (presumably the same one) and if he does, she gives him a ticket to ride the Magnet Train that travels between Kanto and Johto.

Visual Novels

 * Saber from the Fate Stay Night visual novel gets a stuffed lion from Fujimura-sensei early on in the Fate path. Later, during day fourteen, Shirou takes Saber on a date, where they go visit "the biggest stuffed animal store in town", a place where "no men are allowed" (or at least, that's an unspoken rule according to Shirou).
 * Maria Ushiromiya in Umineko no Naku Koro ni is a dark take on this. If you're wondering why you haven't seen anything like this, it's because This did not end well.
 * However, in the same series there's a more light-hearted take on the trope: while Sakutaro does not appear as a stuffed animal to the Seven Sisters of Purgatory (rather, he has the appearance of a cute little boy with lion ears wearing an oversized shirt), they still adore him and always glomp him every chance they get.

Web Comics / Web Originals

 * In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, Molly, who is younger than she looks, has a teddy bear named Callisto (named for a Greek nymph who got changed into a bear).
 * Kotone of Tsunami Channel fame is quite the addict to collecting plushies, and her favorite is a fox-shaped one. Alex, who is a boy but love stuffed animals just the same.
 * Misty (codename Superchick - she picked it herself) of the Whateley Universe. She's fourteen and away from home for the first time, and she has a collection of unicorns. Tennyo (Billie Wilson) has a stuffed cabbit, but it's weaponized.
 * In Survival of the Fittest v3, Alice Jones for most of the game carries around a plush rabbit, and is mentioned as having a collection of stuffed animals back home. Later on, she starts to hallucinate said rabbit talking to her, and eventually replaces it with.
 * Grace gets a nice-sized squirrel plush in an El Goonish Shive filler panel; it shows up in her arms in the main comic, too.
 * Terezi of Homestuck has many dragon plushies of various colors scattered around her treehive. In her introduction, she is shown pretending to be an Amoral Attorney prosecuting one of her plushies in a Kangaroo Court, and hanging it from her tree. The camera zooms out to reveal at least a dozen other stuffed dragons who shared the same fate.
 * Several others form the backbone of her legal and forensic support team. Which doesn't rule out the suspicion that they squeazled their way onto said team to subvert the investigation from the inside.
 * Jade also has a sizable collection of Squiddles, soft octopus/squid plushies with magnets in them that make them tangle up when put together.
 * Jodie from Loserz still loves her teddy bear. See here.
 * In Freefall, Helix is generally referred to as male, but still loves those stuffed animals, which Florence has borrowed from time to time for herself.
 * Kharla'ggen of Drowtales has loved plushies for years, and they helped calm her down when she was at her most crazy. Unfortunately then things got worse and along with the other plushies, Kharla started making dolls out of living people.
 * The Nostalgia Chick has a shedload of cuddly toys. She's not quite girly, but it shows she's not trying too hard to be adult.
 * Nella still plays with her My Little Pony toys, and Elisa's ready to kill when her Phantom of the Opera plushie is accidentally stabbed through with a dart.

Western Animation

 * Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh Three collects Rainbow Monkey dolls. She is obsessed with them.
 * Kim Possible herself has been mentioned to collect Cuddle Buddies.
 * In Jane and the Dragon, Jane always works very hard to prove she's just as tough as any of the guys, even refusing to wear a dress at a royal function. The opening credits have her singing in a dignified youthful contralto about how she wants to "prove that a girl could be knight, though my friends all laughed at me," as the camera pans around her room at all the evidence of this... and then passes by a child's worn and well-loved tiny stuffed dragon on the bed. The effect is adorable.
 * In Danny Phantom, Jazz has a few stuffed animals in her room. The most significant is Bearbert which plays a plot point in one episode as one of the few ties she has left of her childhood. Because she viewed herself as an adult-stuck-in-a-teen's-body, her younger brother Danny had to childishly destroy the bear in order for her to throw a temper tantrum so she can see the Youngblood, a ghost kid only seen by children.
 * Subverted on Jimmy Two-Shoes. Jimmy and Beezy find out that Heloise has an entire collection of dolls, causing everyone to laugh at her..
 * In Batman the Animated Series, when Commissioner Gordon picked up his daughter Barbara from the airport, he brought Barbara's teddy bear "Woobie" with him. When Bruce Wayne happened to run into the Commissioner and saw him holding the bear, Gordon sheepishly "explained" that Woobie knew the way better than he did.