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Bunnies for Cuteness

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"BUNNYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!"
Behemoth upon seeing the Easter Bunny, The Nightmare Before Christmas

With their long ears, twitchy noses, and rounded fluffy bodies, bunnies are often used in media to invoke feelings of sweetness, innocence, childishness and general cuteness. Real rabbits can be used for this, but so can stuffed rabbits or other types of toy rabbits or rabbit related accessories. Characters meant to be viewed as cute might have a rabbit-related Animal Motif. Very energetic personalities and Nice Guy (or Nice Girl) personalities are often common with these characters.

Stuffed bunnies might also be used to invoke the concept of children caught in a horrific situation if used in an Empathy Doll Shot. Contrast Hair-Raising Hare and Killer Rabbit, and compare Playboy Bunny.

See also Cute Kitten, Precious Puppy, and Ridiculously Cute Critter.

Not to be confused with Bridge Bunnies.


Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 

    Asian Animation 
  • Netflix cartoon Harry and Bunnie Has the titualur Bunnie as something of a subversion. Bunnie is nice enough normally, but he stole Harry's magic wand in the first place causing the whole conflict in the first place.
  • Pleasant Goat Fun Class: Miss Earth, the rabbit who guides the goats around the amusement park rides in the season The Earth Carnival, is a pretty adorable and nice little rabbit.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 
  • In the sequel to The Emperor's New Groove called Kronk's New Groove, near the end of Kronk's story about the citizens getting tricked by Yzma for lying about the potion turning them young. Near the end of the chase between her and the angry old people, she turns herself into a cute pink bunny which makes the elders gush and start forgiving her until she gets grabbed by a bird and is later seen inside a bird's nest near the end of the film.
  • In Rise of the Guardians there is Bunnymund, which is reverted to the size of an adorable little rabbit, once children all over the world stopped believing in the Easter Bunny.
    Jamie: What happened to him? He used to be huge and cool, and now he's cute!
  • Deconstructed in Zootopia. In Zootopia, this is the widely acknowledged stereotype of bunnies, though only other bunnies can call bunnies cute, and Judy gives the Innocently Insensitive Clawhauser a friendly reminder of this. Fans speculate that non-bunnies calling bunnies cute means their personal merits, their intelligence in particular, aren't being valued.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Jokes 
  • Defied in this one which borders on Black Comedy: a little girl walks into a pet store full of bunnies and asks the clerk in a sweet, kiddy voice, "Exc-kuse me, mither, can I have have a widdle bunny?"
    The clerk, seeing a Cheerful Child in his shop, decides to entertain her. "Yes, sweetie, of course. Would you like a cutie bwown bunny, or a little fuwwy white wabby, or maybe a bushy gwey wabby with a cute widdle pinkie nosey?"
    At which point the little girl replies, "I don't fink my pet pyfon gives a thit."

    Live-Action TV 
  • On Psych, Gus attempts to use bunnies to break the news to Shawn that he has a secret girlfriend. It doesn't work. Then it does.
  • In M*A*S*H, the resident Country Mouse owns a bunny named Fluffy. Said Country Mouse is one of the most innocent people in the series.
  • The live-action edutainment show geared towards infants called Harry The Bunny stars a cute young bunny named Harry.
  • Schitt's Creek has an In-Universe example when Alexis sets up a bunny cam in Kindly Vet Ted's office to help adopt out the animals. However, Ted ends up giving some accidental Fanservice to the bunny cam viewers by getting undressed in front of the camera after his run.

    Literature 
  • Beatrix Potter used this trope many times in her children's books, like The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies. The bunnies were always presented as cute and adorable.
  • The little-known Emily the Rabbit books by Claire Masurel and Susan Calitri has the adorable-beyond-words titular character. No relations to D.W.'s classmate who shares the same name and species.
  • Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt—which most people have at least read once in their childhood.
  • Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram—another childhood classic.
  • Abigail from Hallmark's line of Interactive Story Buddies toy and book series.
  • Okies has a rather adorable artistic main character that's as cute as a button. It helps she has a twin sister who shares similar traits.
  • Rosemary Wells is fond of bunny characters in her books. Max and Ruby, Bunny Planet, and Read To Your Bunny are great examples.
  • The covers of some editions of Watership Down may have vaguely implied this. The actual story, on the other hand...
  • The Velveteen Rabbit is a stuffed rabbit, but still evokes this.

    Music 
  • Doctor Steel flirted with adorkableness once; after visiting a music website whose anime-inspired animation seemed to consist of "Tiny Little Bunnies Eating Hamburgers", he wrote a song about it.
  • In the video for Ladytron's Ghosts, many rabbits add cuteness to imagery that would otherwise be quite dark. It's in context a Shout-Out to Watership Down, as one of the lyrics alludes to "prince of a thousand enemies".
  • Snuggle Bunny (Schnuffel) is one of Jamba!'s more well-known mascots. He's a cute little gray and white lop eared rabbit who sings adorable, Chipmunks-eqsue songs, many of which are very catchy.
    • A few years later, Jamster created a second bunny character named Snuggelina (Schnuffelienchen) who is Snuggle's girlfriend and both really love each other. There are two songs by Snuggelina that mainly focuses on her relationship with Snuggle both in German and English while one is her singing about a Butterfly.
  • K-pop girl group NewJeans apparently LOVES this trope so much that there's a huge metric ton of rabbit imagery in their albums, music videos, and merchandise. Now, where to begin...
    • Their bunny mascot (shown on four of the album covers) is possibly the most famous of the subject. If we want to described it, it's a rabbit drawn in a 90s-style cartoon roller-skating, complete with a heart symbol in each of her eyes. Made even cuter when there's now an animated picture of the same bunny happily hopping up and down, and its two hands were holding what was now the said girl group's official lightstick.
      • But wait, there's more! Now there's also this image, featuring the same bunny, cutely blowing up a candle of a cake, smiling as the flame on top of it went out.
      • And apparently, the bunny mascot has 5 other colored versions of the mascot, with each of them representing each of the members. The yellow bunny represents Minji, the pink bunny represents Hanni, the green bunny represents Danielle, the blue bunny represents Hyein, and the generic white represents Haerin. It's worth noting that the aforementioned colored bunnies were present in each of the members' individual "New Jeans Bluebook" albums.
      • The 5 bunnies also first appear in a teaser of the said group debuting soon at that time, as shown in this GIF.
      • And guess what! They also finally got a short animation of them, entitled "Let's Make A Cake Together". And be warned, this video contains TONS of cuteness. It starts off with the green rabbit holding a giant strawberry, followed by the white rabbit carrying stars (and what was speculated to be sprinkles). It later cuts to the pink rabbit.....who was actually not helping at all and is busy eating the cream. Then there's a blue rabbit, who effortlessly manages to bring a giant candle, while the top is still flaming, and the yellow bunny is also shown cheering her friends. And near the end of the short, it reveals a super adorable cake resembling a giant bunny. The rabbits celebrated the hard work as they circled around the cake, except for the pink rabbit, who was still busy eating and didn't care about the whole situation that was happening surrounding her.
    • The bunny caps that were worn by the group members in the "OMG" music video. Enough said.
      • Speaking of the "OMG" music video, the girl group collaborated with a popular cafe named Nudake, to promote the new single released around December (and for a limited time). In this collaboration, Nudake released 5-colored rabbit-shaped mini cakes, complete with a red heart in the middle of the heads that was certainly too cute to eat. At that event, they also released many Christmas-themed items, and it also features their bunny mascot (again), but this time, wearing a scarf and can be seen riding on Santa's sleigh on one of their items.
      • Also related to the latest album above, the official website of the girl group used to have a feature where it shows a house in the middle of a snowy landscape, and in front of it shows a realistic baby rabbit (and it also moves), which is adorable enough. One of the cutest parts of the website features a bunny snowman, in the middle of the card, which also has writing at the bottom that says "Winter Comes". As the card was clicked, it shows an interactive DIY card that lets you decorate a digital replica of the aforementioned Nudake bunny cake, which you can choose in 5 different colors and put cake toppers on. As you finish your card, it starts displaying your finished cake while a snippet of "Ditto" is played in the background.
      • The website also used to have an interactive camera where it lets you take a picture of yourself, and decorate your photo with adorable, yet realistic bunny silhouettes and of course, the five-colored bunny mascots.
    • Around the time the girl group released their latest album "Get Up", Line Friends started a collaboration with them and released what was possibly one of their most adorable creations. Ladies and gents, say hello to the "Buninis"!
    • In Coca-Cola's music video "Be Who You Are (Real Magic)", the girls are seen piloting a super adorable humongous rabbit mecha, and also seen accompanied with rabbit-eared camera bots, which was also pretty cute.

    Pinball 

    Puppet Shows 

    Toys 

    Video Games 
  • Jumping Flash!: Robbit himself. Because why else would you be a robotic space rabbit?
  • Doom: Used for humorous effect in the episode "Thy Flesh Consumed". The finale of the original campaign saw Doomguy heading home to earth to find it overrun by demons. As if the invasion itself wasn't bad enough, they even killed his pet rabbit Daisy and stuck her head on a spike. And if you thought Doomguy was mad at the demons before...
  • In the Touhou Project series, we have the Spin-Off Yonkoma manga Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth, which is filled with cute bunnies. This page is just one of the many examples.
  • The Pokémon Buneary, Azumarill, Bunnelby, Scorbunny and Lopunny to an extent. Averted with Diggersby.
  • In True Love Junai Monogatari, one of the items in the Hidden Shop is a rabbit pendant. You should buy it if you want to romance Remi Himekawa, who will ask for it if she sees it.
  • Power Pete: The Fuzzy Bunnies, which escaped from a cage in the Stuffed Animal Zoo (which is in the Doll Department of the Toy Mart) and scattered throughout the store, prompting the title character to escape from his packaging and set off to round them back up and return them to their proper place.
  • Reader Rabbit: Especially the late 90s redesign.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog: Cream the Rabbit. Polite, shy and kind, it's no wonder that she has a Broken Base in the Sonic fandom — one faction loves her for her Moe qualities, while the other doesn't like how she ranks the cutesy factor off the charts.
  • The Legendary Starfy: There's an entire SPECIES of them on Planet Bunnera. They even have magical shapeshifting powers!
  • In Ensemble Stars!, this is naturally the theme of the unit Ra*bits, which has a cute, sailor-suited, youthful look. Nazuna in particular is associated with bunnies - the kanji in his surname means 'two rabbits' (he even draws them as bunnies in his signature) and he has pet rabbits at home - and he is often called cute by the other characters, much to his irritation given that he is a third year and would rather be treated as a Big Brother Mentor.
  • The Mascot Mook for the World of Mana is a small, yellow, limbless lagomorph known as a Rabite. While adorable beyond measure, they are usually newbie fodder and don't pose much of a threat... so long as their fur isn't colored black.
  • Snuggle: There's Snuggle himself, the rabbit with big eyes who always makes cutesy facial expressions.
  • A bunny mask serves to help indicate Neon Violet from Neon White as a cutesy, upbeat, childish girl, in contrast to Neon White's demonic mask.
  • The Galaxy Angel gameverse has space rabbits aboard the Elsior, which Vanilla often plays with. She even adopts one for herself though it sadly dies of old age, leaving her heartbroken.
  • Bianca from the Spyro the Dragon series is a rabbit mage who is considered quite cute by the other characters. In her first appearance in Spyro: Year of the Dragon, she does try to present herself as a Hair Riasing Hare, but instead comes off as Endearing Dorky, thanks to her status as a Minion with an F in Evil. Particularly noticable is halfway through the Evening Lake worlds, where she undergoes a Heel–Face Turn with accompanying Good Costume Switch, part of the change being taking down her hood to show off her rabbit ears, presumably to make her look cuter to the viewers.

    Webcomics 
  • In AntiBunny at least 90% of the cast are bunnies.
  • Blade Bunny - The title character has bunny ears. Why? It makes her look cute. And her name is Bunny.
  • In Penny and Aggie, when Sara gushes over how "cuuuuute" she finds the title characters as a couple, dancing bunny faces appear around her head.
  • A rare dramatic example in El Goonish Shive. At one point late into a story arc Susan angsts majorly and begins to awaken magical powers, which are about to go haywire. Jerry the Immortal manages to cast serenity magic to calm her down, which manifests itself as cute, fluffy animals surrounding her, two of which are bunnies.
  • The whole point of Scenes from a Multiverse's Bunnies Planet, in the Zones of Adorable.
  • In Unfamiliar, Planchette has a cute bunny familiar named Winston, who’s as adorable as he is a Deadpan Snarker.
  • Some xkcd characters prefer to call them "buns". This comic has Cueball applying for a grant to introduce the pygmy rabbit to the eastern US — but not for any practical reason, just because they're adorable.

    Web Original 
  • Subverted in the Fuwa Fuwa Foof OP video. We're initially introduced to an almost ridiculously cute, Animesque bunny named Foof going through a montage of cutesy things. Then as the "show title" pops up with Foof jumping in front of it, the video instantly whiplashes into how she used to be a vicious criminal gang leader.
  • Hadriex has a baby bunny named Odin-ear as his "co-star" during Let's Plays. The little fellow got his name because he was born with only one ear.
  • Happy Tree Friends has Cuddles, who is one of the sweetest characters in the series, if only quite impulsive and mischievous.
  • Help Hotline's Roz is an adorable bunny rabbit with a simple, Algebralien-esque design. It really shows that simplicity in characters' designs can be endearing sometimes.
  • New Life SMP: In his third life, while holding the Hare origin, Sausage takes on a more nature-esque cozy aesthetic in his builds and repeatedly points out how adorable he looks in his bunny Minecraft skin.
  • Oolong the rabbit, AIA Pancake Bunny, is perhaps an earlier example of this trope. Tears were shed when he passed away in 2003.
  • The 2016 animated short "Petals" by Krale Zero. Focuses on an unnamed yellow female bunny who tries to bring a flower petal to a park (where most of the trees and flowers had burned due to a forest fire) to start new life.
  • RWBY: Velvet Scarlatina is a rabbit Faunus girl with long bunny ears, large dark brown doe eyes that are animated differently from other characters, and a gentle and good-natured Nice Girl personality. She is very adorable, and she is also The Heart of Team CVFY — even her emblem is a stitched-together heart.
  • Doki and a few other rabbits from There she is!!.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series:
    • Comes up when Mokuba is upset that his brother Seto won't get him a pet rabbit. Seto would rather get him a tarantula.
    • In another episode, Mokuba goes through Japanese puberty, making him think he's a Pokémon. One of those Pokémon is Buneary.

    Western Animation 
  • The Noops of The Dreamstone are basically green anthropomorphic rabbits, and the almost sickly sweet residents of the Land Of Dreams.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Fluttershy, to emphasize her shy cuteness, has a pet rabbit (named Angel, no less), although he doesn't always act cute and cuddly. She also mentions "cute bunnies" in one of her songs.
  • Subverted (in a non-Hair-Raising Hare way) in the South Park episode "Pip" (parodying Great Expectations). Pip tries to prove to Estella that she is not an unfeeling monster, because an unfeeling monster wouldn't hurt a cute little bunny rabbit (which Pip pulls from Hammerspace).
    ESTELLA: I told you, Pip. I have no heart.
    PIP: But you do! And I shall prove it to you once and for all! Look at this adorable little bunny.
    ESTELLA: Oh my. 'E's very cute.
    PIP: You see that? A heartless person wouldn't care at all about this bunny. They'd just as soon break its neck. Estella breaks its neck ...Oh. But look at this bunny. There. You see that? You have too big a heart to kill two baby bunnies.Estella kills bunny #2...Right...
    • Estella ends up stopping at 25 baby bunnies. Not because she felt bad, mind you, but because she got bored... and Pip takes that as evidence that she's got a heart.
  • Winx Club: Bloom's kawaii pet rabbit Kiko is an example.
  • The ChalkZone episode "Chocolate Brunch" has Snap finding some Easter eggs he was going to eat with Blocky, and chocolate bunnies end up hatching from the eggs. While Snap still wants to eat them, Blocky refuses as the bunnies are too cute. Eventually, Snap gives in due to their cuteness.
  • Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot and spinoff Care Bears & Cousins has Wonderheart bear, who is already as cute as is. But her cuteness is enhanced by Floppy Bunny, her Companion Cube plush rabbit.
  • Daffodil from Clifford's Puppy Days is Emily Elizabeth's first pet and serves a mother figure to Clifford.
  • Disney's Bambi gives us Thumper and his little sisters and later the cream-colored bunny Thumper falls in love with who is named Miss Bunny.
  • Beehonie from Kissyfur is a female bunny who appears to have a crush on Kissyfur.
  • The 2016 VR and "Interactive" short "Invasion!" directed by Dreamworks and PDI veteran Eric Darnell features bunnies pitting against aliens.
  • As noted under Literature, subverted by Watership Down. While rightfully considered a classic of animated film, it has traumatized no small number of children since it's release in 1978 because of misinformed parents sitting them down to watch the movie about the cute, adorable bun—OOOOOHMYGOOOOD!
  • One of the characters in the 1980's version of Strawberry Shortcake was an adorable bunny named Hopsalot.
  • The 1991 direct-to-video film Timmy's Gift by Precious Moments stars a young angel named Timmy, who's following a light from Heaven. Throughout the film, he encounters various talking animals. One animal that he befriends is a timid white rabbit who becomes Timmy's travel companion. By the end of the film, Timmy and his animal friends encounter Mary and Joseph after Jesus' birth.
  • Molly of Denali: Molly and Trini spend most of "Butterflies and Bunny Babies" gushing over the adorable young hares in Trini's garden.

    Other 

 
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Video Example(s):

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Lynn fixes Mr. Bunny

The previous day, Lynn and Mary had gotten into a scuffle over the toy, with both girls pulling at it until Mary ripped off his ear. Lynn spends the afternoon stitching him back together.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (3 votes)

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Main / GirlsLoveStuffedAnimals

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