Cute Machines

Your plastic pal who's FUN to be with!

"I have no idea what they're saying. But I love 'em! Look how cute you are!"

— Jinmay (meeting the Super Robot Monkeys for the first time), Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

Sometimes, a robotic character, despite its composition of hard circuits and cold metal, completely melts your heart. Often just as lovable as their flesh and blood counterparts, these little guys/gals steal the show and the audience's affection. Non-robotic machines such as vehicles and appliances can also qualify for this trope, provided they come off as recognizable "cute" to human eyes.

The name of this trope comes from a song by Scars On Broadway.

Sometimes overlaps with Robot Kid, Robot Buddy, Funny Robot, Robot Dog, Amusing Alien, Fem Bot, and Robot Girl. Fun Size also helps. If they're Mecha-Mooks, they're also Adorable Evil Minions. If they can kick ass regardless of their cuteness, they're also Killer Rabbits and Badass Adorables.

Contrast Uncanny Valley, where the machine fails to be cute despite trying, and Mechanical Monster as well as Unnecessarily Creepy Robot, who don't even bother trying. Starfish Robots can be this trope if done right.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Some of the robots in Astro Boy and Pluto. Even the more overtly robotic ones, like Anton can be adorable.
• Chobits: Along with the full-size Persocoms, there are smaller, cheaper models like Shinbo's overly perky Sumomo. Kotoko is a snarkier example.
• I.R. from Corrector Yui is this because his Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises, sassy voice and personality, general appearance, and small frame in comparison to the rest of the main characters make him very adorable.
• More than one supporting character from Doraemon movies, barring the titular character himself of course:
  • Pippo from the remake of Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops, who hatched from a sentient robotic bowling ball into an adorable little baby chick. And repeatedly cuddles with Nobita after becoming friends with the gang.
  • Mikujin from Doraemon: Nobita's Dorabian Nights is a robot-genie (hired by Doraemon to facilitate their adventure into the world of Arabian Nights) the size and appearance of a puppy, and has Cute Little Fangs to boot. He's also the film's Plucky Comic Relief character who spends much of his time bumbling around the gang.
  • The conductor of the titular express from Doraemon: Nobita and the Galaxy Super-express, depending if he's truly a robot instead of an alien (something the movie doesn't really make clear). Who stood up to the waists of the human characters and have a Smiley Face for a head.
  • Log from Doraemon: Nobita's Drifts in the Universe, the Token Robot of the Space Knights which Doraemon, Nobita and the gang befriends, who can best be described as a "cubby robotic soccer ball with googly eyes".
  • Doraemon: Nobita and the Robot Kingdom, inevitably, have one in the form of Poko the little android child, who looks exactly like a human boy save for having a Robot Antennae ear. And is the film's emotional center.
  • Doraemon: Nobita and The Space Heroes has the Burger Director, a robot shaped like a hamburger with Googly eyes.
  • Doraemon: Nobita's Treasure Island has Flock's sentient robot Pirate Parrot, Quiz, who can alternate between parrot form and as a robotic sphere. And The Gadfly who likes messing with Doraemon and gang when his master Flock isn't around, including Copycat Mockery like a real-life parrot would.
• EDENS ZERO:
  • E.M. Pino is just the most adorable anti-bot android you've ever seen. Her design actually gets cuter and rounder from her initial appearance until she practically looks like a toddler instead of a doll. Add to that fact that she wants to be human and Pino is a character that you just want to give a big hug and protect.
  • While E.M. Pino is an android, there are also the non-android (and presumably non-sentient) clothes-making machines in the Dress Factory of Edens Zero, with cartoony faces and cartoony hands.
• Waprō from Genji Tsuushin Agedama. His appearance and Cross-Dressing Voice makes him this.
• The Tachikomas from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex are the cutest Spider Tanks ever. They're also designated Badass Adorable, given that they're capable of taking down opponents several times their size — without weapons. With them, they're essentially an urban Act of God.
• Gundam:
  • The saga starts right off the bat with the Haro from Mobile Suit Gundam, a ball-shaped Robot Buddy with flapping ear-like hatches owned by protagonist Amuro Ray. Haros can move by rolling, deploy retractable arms and legs, and even propel itself in microgravity. Haros appear throughout the mainline Universal Century series', and even in the Cosmic Era, Advanced Generation, and Anno Domni timelines. Not to mention less serious spin-offs.
  • The red Haro in Gundam 00 is also quite the Badass Adorable, being able to stop an attempt to steal the O-Raiser by hiding in the cockpit and initiating the Transformation Sequence in the middle of the villain's escape.
  • HARO-BE (usually called Nobell) from Gundam: Reconguista in G is as cute as its Haro cousins, of course. However, the G-Self is also much cuter than your typical Gundam, with its wide eyes, slightly larger head, and "bunny" ears. It was sent to find and guard a pair of lost children on Earth, so that might be deliberate.
  • The original MSM-04 Acguy from Mobile Suit Gundam. With its stubby limbs, oversized head, and tiny claws, gives the impression of being small and cute despite the fact that it's the second tallest Marine Mobile Suit. Acguys sometimes even rival Haros for position as a mascot, with the best examples being the Bearguys(like the Beargguy III and Beargguy F from Gundam Build Fighters and Gundam Build Fighters Try), Acguy models with redesigned heads to resemble teddy bears.
  • Then you have the Super-Deformed(SD) Gundams, which is basically if every Mobile Suit were built with the proportions of an Acguy. SD Mobile Suits actually are tiny, usually shown to be smaller than even humans when seen together.
• The small cockroach-exterminating robot dolls from Ichigeki Sacchu!! Hoihoi-san are made adorable, with childlike proportions, to help them sell better.
• Aside from the Viewer Gender Confusion, almost all of the doji from Karakuridouji Ultimo are very cute.
• Reg from Made in Abyss could easily be mistaken for a human boy if not for his mechanical arms. Adding to his charms is that he tends towards dirky-cute and is easily flustered, specially when it comes to Riko. Though when it comes to dangerous situations, he's quite the Badass Adorable as well.
• Nano Shinonome from Nichijou would be a Ridiculously Human Robot if not for the giant wind-up key in her back, which was only added on because of cuteness. Nano's creator, an eight-year-old Child Prodigy, gave Nano all kinds of robotic quirks (for example, having a cake come out of her arm) to up her moe factor, much to her chagrin.
• Eneru's cover story in One Piece has the Spaceys, little robot creatures that live on the moon.
• Space☆Dandy has QT, Dandy's yellow vacuum cleaner and Robot Buddy who serves as a foil of his.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
  • The anime has Sho's Vehicroid monsters which feature various vehicles from tricycles to bullet trains. All of which are adorable...and badass.
  • In the card game, there is the Gadgets and, while not Machine-type, Wind-Ups are certainly mechanical in appearance.

Asian Animation

• In Happy Heroes, the heroes are all adorable-looking, chibiesque Ridiculously Human Robots. Their Transforming Mecha, the Car Knights, look somewhat cute as well with their Waddling Head designs.
• Tobot Galaxy Detectives: Episode 9 of the series introduces RO-B, a tiny little robot on treads with a boxy body, and a head like R.O.B. the Robot's, with much bigger eyes.

Comic Books

• Inventor Gyro Gearloose in the Donald Duck comics had Helper, a tiny robot with a lightbulb for a head.
• The Fantastic Four have H.E.R.B.I.E which is a floating white robot with an often smiling electronic screen for a face. H.E.R.B.I.E resembles a less feminine, less iPod-like version of EVE from WALL•E.
• Marvel Adventures: When Doc Ock gets separated from his artificially intelligent tentacle harness, the device is left wandering around, sort of at loose ends. Spidey adopts it as a pet. When Doc returns for it, it suffers a brief crisis of loyalty; after all, Spidey has been so nice to it.
• Money Shot: Little Shot is a small floating robot that is basically an eyeball that can record the team's actions and livestream it from distant planets to Earth in realtime. It is also has a built in translator that can learn and translate a language after a short time hearing it using micro-expressions in speech.
• The adorable Tailgate from The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye is a little over half the size of most other characters. His small size combined with his expressiveness and cheerful enthusiasm, big "eyes", and a tendency to cry in a stylized manner makes him one of the cutest members of the cast.

Fan Works

• Played with in the Dragon Ball Z Abridged version of "The World's Strongest". The original designs Dr. Wheelo had for the Bio Warriors were meant for them to be cute and cuddly with their purpose to aid the elderly. However, Kochin redesigns them to be more monstrous fighting robots designed to fight the elderly.
• In the Abridged Series Friendship is Witchcraft a significant portion of the population are apparently robots, who upon discovering their true nature, will go on a horrible rampage. Before hand, however, they're basically indistinguishable from regular ponies (if one ignores their monotone voices, tendency to spark and glitch out). Somehow, Sweetie-Bot manages to be even more adorable than her canon counterpart.
• In Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race, Servbots and Metools are regarded as adorable even in-universe.
• In Mega Man Reawakened, there's Servbots, Birdbots, and Metools.
• Mark VII in the Captain America: The Winter Soldier fanfic re: I'm keeping him. is a little beeping box on wheels with the personality of a border collie. It functions like a robotic psychiatric service dog.

Films — Animation

• The cast of 9. Go ahead, just try and say◊ they aren't cute.
• In Big Hero 6, Baymax is a huge inflatable robot designed to function as a nurse and probably the best example since WALL•E's protagonist bots. His appearance and behavior are intended to make him as gentle and non-threatening as possible, to the point of being completely incapable of hurting anyone without significant modifications. His exterior sits comfortably on the high point before the uncanny valley, being loosely humanoid with only some simple black eyes to hint at a face on his marshmallow head. His personality and voice are as kind and friendly as can be before turning annoying.
• Several of the appliances in The Brave Little Toaster, most notably Toaster, Blanky, and Lampy.
• LaRousse City's block robots from Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys. Not so cute when they malfunction and start flooding the city.
• The Bubble-Bots from Ron's Gone Wrong are toddler-sized robots designed to be a person's "Best friend out of the box" and connect them to the social media world. Ron is one of these models, and his malfunctioning nature has the side effect of making him more endearing and human-like in personality.
• WALL•E is probably the Trope Codifier. Pictured above, WALL•E is a trash-collecting robot who essentially has permanent Puppy-Dog Eyes, while EVE is a floating white egg-shaped robot with two eyes on a screen. The two protagonists of the movie are two robots who learn to love each other, so this was bound to happen.

Films — Live-Action

• *batteries not included. Two Cute Machines spawn three more.
• JF Sebastian's "friends" in Blade Runner are children's toys dressed in little military uniforms and retrofitted into cheerful robot buddies.
• Chappie, it's kinda hard to watch a robot that acts like a child, has moral values, and walks around in bling and not find it adorable.
• Weebo, from Flubber, a small, hovering droid with a flip-up screen that shows pictures and video clips when she's snarking. After her death at the hands of Hoenicker's henchmen, her "daughter," Weebette, proves to be even cuter.
• In the film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), they've given Marvin rounded proportions and an oversized head, making him deceptively cuddly-looking.
• The 2010 Spike Jonze film Im Here revolves around Sheldon and Francesca, a pair of adorable humanoid robots with big eyes and no noses. Sheldon in particular was a shy, lonely robot until he met the lively and free-spirited Francesca.
• Iron Man: Dummy, the robot that assists Tony in creating his suit, is adorable. This is an interesting case in that the machine has almost no human qualities except for bolts that look like eyes, but it is made cute by its behavior.
• Johnny Five from Short Circuit. Johnny Five is a small harmless-looking, military robot with a powerful laser and it looks like the live-action ancestor of WALL•E.
• Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams: R.A.L.P.H. (Robotic Arachnid Lithium Photo Helper), an adorable Literal Surveillance Bug employed by Carmen and Juni, and later squished by Gary (although the credits show him put back together, albeit using a crutch).
• Star Wars:
  • R2-D2 is the Trope Maker and the series' main Kid-Appeal Character, appearing in all nine of the main films^noteHe makes a quick cameo in Rogue One and is completely absent from Solo. He is a small astromech droid whose vast array of tools get the heroes out of most situations. His high-pitched beeping, as well as his role of providing comic relief with his counterpart droid C-3PO make him especially cute.
  • BB-8 from the sequel trilogy is another example of this. He is even smaller than R2-D2, being essentially a small rolling ball with a balancing disk for a head. He serves a similar role to R2-D2.
  • The Battle Droids from the prequel trilogy and Star Wars: The Clone Wars could qualify as Ugly Cute. Sure, they fight for the Separatists, but are Affably Evil at worst and are extremely silly, with most of their antics being Played for Laughs.
• Bumblebee in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen got accused in-universe of invoking this intentionally. This is even more prevalent in Bumblebee's eponymous film, considering it plays up his curiosity and Cute Mute tendencies even more than the previous films.

Literature

• Ani-droids in Argo are designed to look like animals so they can be cute instead of threatening to humans who would otherwise be uncomfortable with them. The expanded novel Ani-Droids shows multiple classes of ani-droid that are various degrees of cute, with the Opera classes designed as personal assistants being the most adorable while Custodes (police and other emergency responders) and Labors have cuteness as a lower priority but still have the soft and fuzzy synthskin. Centurions don't bother.
• Even in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy, Marvin's so adorably tragic you can't help but want to give him a hug.
• The "Christmas Bush" in Robert L. Forward and family's Rocheworld is made up of tiny modules that talk to each other with color-coded lights, making it look like, well, a bush decorated for christmas. Various AI probes are adorably enthusiastic about their jobs as well.

Live-Action TV

• Leo and Ike, the probes from the Speculative Documentary Alien Planet, have cute undersized heads and plump balloon-bodies. The narrator describes their AI as comparable to that of a four-year-old child, which makes them even more cuddly.
• Andor: B2EMO can pull off Puppy-Dog Eyes with his large photoreceptor and in general his expressive demeanor is cute and endearing.
• Doctor Who:
  • Vicki finds the little Rill robots in "Galaxy 4" very cute, hence why she gives them the decidedly cute nickname of "Chumblies". Thanks to the soothing, quizzical sounds they make, they really are, and it's the first hint that they aren't as sinister as the Drahvin insist, although Vicki's opinion on cuteness is not always supposed to be agreed with.
  • The Quarks in "The Dominators". They were designed to be a potential future Mascot Mook and were played by child actors in the suits (and an adult woman voice actress doing a childlike voice) to give them a Psychopathic Manchild vibe. They potter around on their big feet and make hugging motions with their arms in order to kill things and talk like Victorian schoolchildren and are far more adorable than they are frightening.
  • The K-1, a Humongous Mecha attempting to start a nuclear war in "Robot", is mostly portrayed by the story as rather cute and sympathetic.
  • K-9, the Robot Dog companion belonging to the Fourth Doctor.
  • Kamelion was quite cute. Probably because of the slightly dopey look he had on his face.
• The DRDs from Farscape. They're little round yellow droids with cute antenna-headlights, they're super-helpful, and one of them can play the 1812 Overture. What's not to love?
• Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981). More than anything, you can't help but want to hug him.
• Several of the more recent Kamen Rider series feature small Robot Buddies that certainly qualify, including Kamen Rider Fourze's Foodroids, Kamen Rider Wizard's Plamonsters, and maybe a few of Kamen Rider OOO's Candroids and Kamen Rider Double's Memory Gadgets.
• Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers:
  • All the zords in Power Rangers RPM are highly toylike animal-vehicle hybrids with "big googly anime eyes" because they were designed by a child — Doctor K herself.
  • Some of the monsters in Power Rangers Zeo (such as Robocupid, Puppetman and Somnibot) and in Power Rangers RPM (such as Oil Bot and Lightning Bot) fall under this category.
• Tom Servo, Crow, and Gypsy from Mystery Science Theater 3000 combine deadpan snarking with colorful No Budget designs (Crow's face is amazingly expressive for a bowling pin and two ping-pong balls!). It also helps that the human hosts (especially Joel) usually treat them like surrogate children.
• Our Miss Brooks: Mr. Muunsee's robot in "Transition Show", built to resemble a mechanical man. Miss Brooks is favourably impressed, although all the machine does is sharpen pencils.
• The Machine in Person of Interest doesn't even need a body to be cute, at least once it starts getting humanized beyond its AI Big Brother status. Highlights include playing The Matchmaker to its creator, casually shipping members of its team, and taking the voice and personality of Root for itself after her death.
• Naturally also appears in Power Rangers' source series Super Sentai.
  • Engine Sentai Go-onger's Engines (the basis for RPM's zords), who even have chibi cartoon forms. Also Go-Ongers' bunny-themed Robot Buddy Bomper.
  • TAC, the robot owl from Mirai Sentai Timeranger, and Navi, the robot parrot from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger.
  • DaiGoyo from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, little robot paper lantern. Even the Goseigers thought he was adorable when they encountered him (much to his embarrassment).
  • Datas from Tensou Sentai Goseiger, an arcade machine with arms, legs, and a friendly face on his screen.

Music

• The robots of Steam Powered Giraffe are quite the cuties, what with Rabbit's love of puns, The Spine's attempts to act as the straight man, and Hatchworth's general cluelessness.

Radio

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978): The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation (who according to the Guide in an edition flung into the future was "a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the Revolution came") had developed robots with "people personality" traits and defined a robot as "your plastic pal who's fun to be with." Marvin, a Sirius Cybernetics prototype, subverts this as he loathes his lot in life.

Tabletop Games

• Battletech has the UrbanMech, a slow machine with a short-ranged(but powerful) weapon that is almost helpless outside of the environment that its name suggests. Nonetheless it's pretty popular with the fanbase, probably because it looks like a three-story-tall R2-D2 with guns bolted on.
• Most Myr in Magic: The Gathering. Alloy Myr, Perilous Myr and Brass Squire in particular.
• Pathfinder:
  • Arbiter inevitables are little ball-shaped semi-robotic Lawful Neutral outsiders that can serve as familiars.
  • The Clockwork Spy. Why anyone would WANT them to explode is a mystery.
• Some of the illustrations of modrons in Planescape are ridiculously cute, particularly the monodrone flipbook hidden in the corner of one. (Of course, modrons who evolve into the higher levels of the hierarchy aren't cute at all.)

Toys

• The Busou Shinki and their successors, the Frame Arms Girls and Megami Device Mecha Musume, are all small, close-to-1/12 scale robot girls, and all of them are wonderfully endearing. One of the Shinki designers, BLADE, went on to work for Mega House and created the Desktop Army, a series of even tinier and more adorable mecha musume.

Video Games

• Ascent Crash Landing: Bluu's Robot Buddy, Blip, looks like this.
• Beacon, a sentient desk lamp and the protagonist of Beacon of Hope is one of these.
• In BioShock, those little helicopter droids that fly around making farty noises as they go by are kinda smile-inducing when they aren't shooting you.
• The funky, cross-eyed title character B.O.B.
• Bomberman:
  • The titular robots, including the default White Bomber who can also be Badass Adorable given that they naturally weaponize and produce bombs. White Bomber has a cute little computer monitor face that makes an "(n n)" expression when he's happy.
  • There is also the Hige Hige Bandits who do look pretty cute as well.
• Borderlands:
  • The Claptrap robots. Sure, some may find them rather annoying due to them talking too much but some others find them cute, especially with their humorous voice.
  • Spin-off game Tales from the Borderlands has Gortys, who is delightfully chipper and somewhat of a Morality Pet, depending on your choices.
• Chibi-Robos are appropriately-named tiny Robot Maids that help people and Living Toys with their problems to earn Happy Points. The Robot Buddies they come with usually count as well.
• Chrono Trigger:
  • Robo, although mostly because of his personality.
  • Atropos XR also qualifies due to basically being a pink and female Robo.
• C21 and its sequel Cosmic Break are filled with examples. Running the full spectrum from this trope up to Ridiculously Human Robots.
• Scavenger 'bots from Dead Space 3 are turtlish little robots that scamper around making beepy noises while looking for scrap to bring you. If you're lucky, you can see them zipping into the nearest Bench. If really lucky, you won't be fighting for your life when it happens.
• Doki-Doki Universe features a number of cute robots, though the most obvious is the main character QT3.
• Both Codsworth and Curie from Fallout 4 are the three-armed, three-eyed Mister Handy utility robots, and they are possible companions for the player. They're also both dorky in character, with Codsworth being "loyal British butler" adorable and Curie being "cute French scientist" adorable. Even better, the two robots can meet and interact, and they're both adorably polite and friendly to each other. Plus, with the way Codsworth's "eyes" widen when he sees Curie it's implied he has something of a crush on her.
• The Lonesome Road DLC for Fallout: New Vegas has ED-E. Unlike its counterpart in the main game, this eyebot has a personality. It communicates with electronic beeps that the Courier is somehow able to understand, it displays emotions like happiness, sadness and fear simply by how it shakes, and it has a taste for old world TV shows.
• Gizmo has you playing a robot that looks like this.
• Haiku, the Robot: The titular characer is rather adorable, with their round body, feet that resemble sneakers, and a face with a perpetual Luminescent Blush.
• Half-Life 2:
  • Dog is a hulking great mechanical brute, but cute in his behaviour. He provides much of the game's comedic relief.
  • Dog's head comes from the Combine's scanner robots, who are also somewhat cute looking. Just don't let one take your picture, unless you'd like a healthy serving of Civil Protection.
• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity features the Diminutive Guardian, a small egg-shaped Guardian that takes the entire book from R2-D2 and BB-8. It even makes whistling sounds that sound akin to their trademark beep language with similar pipes across its body to help it play Zelda's Lullaby.
• Though he technically isn't a machine, the eponymous protagonist of Knack is still this in his default (small) form.
• The titular robot from the game Light-Bot. He's even more cute in the (as of writing in alpha) remake.
• Little Wheel: All the robots are depicted as rounded rectangular silhouettes with claw arms, wheeled legs, and white circular eyes, most of asymmetrical size.
• Live A Live has Cube, the protagonist of the Distant Future chapter who is a newly-created droid who looks like a large baseball on roller skates with slots for a face who communicates via beeping. He's treated as a Robot Buddy by all those aboard the spaceship save for the resident gruff military man (who is a survivor of a Robot War and even he ends up coming around) and his chapter is all about proving how a mechanical being such as him is capable of displaying the best traits of humanity.
• Mega Man (Classic):
  • Mega Man and especially Roll, though their cuteness probably fits them into just plain Moe. Some of the enemies as well, such as the Mets.
  • Most of the robot masters qualify to an extent, especially the shorter ones (such as Ice Man and Heat Man).
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots features the Metal Gear Mk. II (eventually replaced by the similar Mk. III), a ridiculously cute miniature version of the titular battle tank that serves as Snake's Robot Buddy, piloted by Otacon. It's also directly based on the Metal Gear Mk. II from Snatcher, which looks exactly like it, and serves a similar role to that game's protagonist, Gillian Seed.
• The eponymous tanks from Metal Slug. They have intricate mechanical details that are meticulously animated, but their general body language and movements are given a certain flair of cuteness - their entire body rocks back with the recoil of their snub-nosed cannon firing, their turrets droop to the side when they take damage (and their coaxial machine gun goes flying cartoonishly when they've taken enough damage), their treads flex and curl inwards when they jump, and they drop forward like a cat about to pounce when they crouch.
• Neopets: Every single Robot Neopet has a robot skin, and most of them fit this trope.
• Pipo from Over Blood. He's a little robotic hand on a floating tripod who accompanies the Player Character on his journey.
• Overwatch has Snowball, Mei's weather modification drone and Robot Buddy. There's also the Omnic Orisa, given her very emotive eyes and dorky yet cute personality.
• Phoning Home stars two adorable robots named ION (the Player Character) and ANI. ION looks like WALL•E, and ANI is a ball with big eyes and arms.
• The AR Bots in the pre-loaded PS4 augmented reality game, The PlayRoom. They seem inspired by EVE, mentioned above.
• Pokémon:
  • There are a wide array of machine-like beings for the players to use, although some of them are based on inanimate objects and other myths instead of outright robots. Specific examples include (and not limited to) Magnemite, Aron, Beldum, Klink and Klefki.
  • Scarlet and Violet finally plays this trope straight while pairing it with Killer Rabbit with Iron Bundle, the robotic Paradox form of Delibird. While it is labeled as extremely dangerous along with the other Paradox Pokémon and has the stats to justify why, it's still a Delibird.
• Portal's robotic gun turrets, as well as GLaDOS' curiosity core.
• Portal 2:
  • The personality cores such as Wheatley, and Atlas and P-body from the new co-op mode (adapted from a core and turret, respectively). Atlas and P-Body may not be as small and adorable as the others, but make up for it with their mannerisms.
  • The 'different' turret at the beginning of the game fits this trope especially well.
  • So do the remarkably pathetic frankenturrets: they're basically a pair of turrets hastily fused to a cube. They can't stand or talk but crawl along feebly with their two wonky forelimbs, and they'll shiver and retreat into their cube/shell when you pick them up. These things basically behave like scared hermit crabs, and are strangely, sadly adorable for it.
• Ratchet & Clank:
  • Clank. Lampshaded by Drek as part of the reason why he got rid of Clank since he was looking for large and destructive machines for his army, not small and adorable ones.
  • As of Rift Apart, we can now add in his Distaff Counterpart, Kit, to the mix.
• Most ROMs in Read Only Memories are this, which makes sense given they are mainly consumer products.
• The "Cheoptronic" door-opening robot from The Riddle Of The Sphinx is cute, if only because it's dinky-little and so prone to getting hung up on rough surfaces that it's kinda pathetic.
• Nintendo's Robotic Operating Buddy is a charming little unit, even if his actual games leave something to be desired, and he frequently cameos in more modern game productions.
• In Rodina, you eventually get the ability to turn all those automaton parts you collect into little bug-eyed robots that follow you eagerly into your ship, where they wander around like curious kittens, making beeping noises akin to R2-D2 every now and then. Makes you wonder why people of the future hold such fanatical contempt towards robots.
• The depressed/scared looking, little RC robot in Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf.
• The Clockwork Tower in Shovel Knight is populated by tiny wound-up rat robots whose attempts at attacking Shovel Knight end with them tripping and short-circuiting before getting up again. Terrifyingly, the epilogue of Specter of Torment shows these bots are actually cyborgs made from actual rats.
• While many of the robots in Soma can be utterly terrifying, the little mini-sub bot that you rescue early on in the game is definitely this. You quickly fall in love with its adorable little beeps and clicks, and it helps you on numerous occasions.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Many of Dr. Eggman's earliest robots had whimsical, animal-themed designs. Over the years, the designs got gradually less cutesy and more threatening before settling on a mix of both as of Sonic Unleashed.
  • Sonic Lost World brought back several robots from the classic games and gave them more cartoony designs resembling their original concept arts. Even Egg Pawns, who were already cute to begin with, recieved a redesign!
  • Unrelated to Eggman, we have Q-N-C from Sonic Boom, despite the possible gonk elements of its design by Lyric.
• Protoss Probes from StarCraft, like Heroes of the Storm's Probius, can be quite cute.
• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has Cal's droid buddy, BD-1, being absolutely adorable with his WALL·E-like big eyes and diminutive legs it walks around with.
• Subnautica: Below Zero features the Spy Penglings, which are basically their flesh-and-blood counterparts made into a remote-control scouting robot that can easily be rebranded as a toy.
• The Gearmos from Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2. They're squat little robots with a giant gear above their head, hence their name.
• Team Fortress 2:
  • The small, stage one turret gun (if you happen to be the engineer who built it). It's about waist high, rounded and pleasantly industrial in construction, team-colored, and makes the most adorable high-pitched beeps.
  • The Gunslinger unlockable weapon replaces the normal upgradeable sentry with an even smaller Mini Sentry- a tinier level 1 sentry that's no more than knee high, has a flashing hazard light taped to the top, and checkerboard paint on its drum magazine. Its beeps are even higher pitched, and its machinegun proportionally smaller and faster-firing. Everything about it is just adorable, which is impressive for a completely non-humanoid tripod gun without any sort of voice.
• TimeSplitters Future Perfect has the Sweet Suck PPT Cleaning Robot in the "Breaking and Entering" level (skip to 4:30). Its a chatty little bastard too! Just imagine it saying this in a C3-PO-esque voice ~ "I am the Sweet Suck PPT cleaning robot, I am ideal for both office and domestic use, no job is too small. I love filth, and my full range of accessories ensure no crevice is left untouched. I bring a smile to any owner's lips". It scoots across the floor with a little street sweeping brush on its fanny!
• Train Your Minibot: You play as a tiny robot with big blue eyes◊.
• Twin Robots: The robots in question are a pair of little square-headed smiling robots who need to escape being scrapped.
• Tyler: Model 005 has you playing as a tiny robot that looks like this◊.
• In Void Bastards, the PuppyBots and KittyBots manufactured by the Otori Corporation and sold as robot pets. And because Void Bastards takes place in a Crapsack World, the bots are of course constantly listening in and reporting back to Otori.
• Warframe has Moas, robot proxy used by the Corpus, which are essentially robotic chickens with lasers. They even make chicken noises. People we're so enamoured by them that DE even made customizable companions out of them, equipped with their own variants in body types, powers, weapons and emotes.
• World of Tanks. Yes, even Tanks can be cute.
  • The Panzerspahwagen II Luchs features stubby proportions and incredible agility that earn the nicknames Puppy Tank and Murderkitten. And it's 30mm autocannon has good enough penetration to be a terror if gets a free run on the enemies' flank. The M24 Chaffee has similar cute credentials but does not contest the nickname.
  • The hulking T29 American heavy tank boasts basically impenetrable frontal turret armour, a powerful gun and decent mobility that make it a potent, versatile threat. And two little 'ears' (coincidence rangefinders) on the side of the large turret that earn it some cute credentials for many fans.
  • The AMX 40 is a tier 4 light tank with armour that would be good on a tier 5 heavy and bears a resemblance to a rubber duck, which is it's nickname.

Visual Novels

• In Murder by Numbers (2020), SCOUT is an adorable robot who loves books and movies, and is especially cute when happy or excited. His Assault Mode form, not so much.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies has two robot characters in the fifth case, Ponco and Clonco. Both are short, eager to please, happy to make friends, and get upset if they can't help you. The Judge finds Ponco positively adorable and wants to adopt her as a grandchild. Clonco gets slightly less cute when Aura takes him over. Their personalities were designed by their creator, Metis, who thought that when astronauts go to space, the robots will go with them, and having them as emotional companions will help the astronauts psychologically.

Web Animation

• DSBT InsaniT: Robo is a little robot with big eyes and giant wheels.
• Dreamscape: The little Black Bead Eyes mech critter that appears in a flashback in "The Mystery of Melinda".
• Red vs. Blue has Sheila, a tank and later ship AI for the Blue Team. Though she is deadly as a tank, she somehow manages to pack lunches for the protagonists and gets involved in a crazy love triangle.
• From RWBY, Penny. Despite the fact she possesses enough firepower to scythe gunships out of the air and enough strength to stop a speeding truck with her bare hands, she's mostly just a shy, awkward robotic girl who wants to make friends and please people. For evidence of her cuteness, watch her dancing by herself◊ in Volume 2, Episode 7.

Webcomics

• Despite having terrible attitudes, there's no denying that the MOUSE units from Commander Kitty look like cute pet toys. Then there's the Alpha Droids and even Zenith herself in "Safe Mode".
• Several robots in Freefall, including Sawtooth Rivergrinder — heavy terraformer and amateur percussionist (as in "Orbital bombardment in D minor"). Helix is the one with the most screentime, however, and his childlike demeanour, collection of soft toys and frequent "^_^" expression make him more adorable than a bowling ball with limbs should be.
• Agatha Heterodyne's little clanks ("dingbots") in Girl Genius.
• Gunnerkrigg Court has several: Robox (awesome!), Boxbot (terrible!) and one of the main cast — though now that S13 practice parkour and proselytising in the new body, "he" is just cool. And then there's weather station bot, because Tom managed to draw cuddly sharp-clawed metal mantis.
• In Hue Are You Many of the Grey Side bots look cute, although Jump Bot with it's small face and happy, bouncy nature is seen as cute and harmless.
• The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: because of his hulking design, Roofus can be scary,'' but usually he's just childlike and lovable.
• BIP in Little Robot, Big Scary World is an adorable, square-headed robot with big eyes and little spheres for hands and feet.
• Most AnthroPCs in Questionable Content fall into this category. Pintsize, Winslow, Momo prior to her upgrade, and even non-humanoid models like Gordon the ArachnoPC.
• Carnby's gearbits (from The Rifters) count - they are crosseyed clockwork helpers. (Good example on the second page http://www.indoorempire.com/3-and-if-he-had-a-thousand-of-those )
• Rock And Tin by Tom Dell'Aringa is all about cute machines (and a cute golem befriending one).

Web Original

• Ask Brainy Twilight: Brainy Twilight's daughter Sparks almost definitely qualifies for this trope, as does Brainy herself. The almost comes in when you consider one's a Brain in a Jar and the other's an Artificial Intelligence mounted in a pony body, so neither is exactly a machine.
• New Life SMP: The Copper Golem, which lost the 2021 Minecraft Live mob vote to the allay, has been added into the game through the series' mod-pack. They have been subjected to much Cuteness Proximity by the players. By extension, players who hold the Copper Golem origin apply as well, as they are only one block tall and are often regarded as adorable because of their small size.
• SCP-1370, aka "Pesterbot," is an unusual example. It wants to be a Killer Robot, but its small size, clumsiness, perpetual friendly grin, ^note due to having an upside-down voltmeter for a head over-the-top hamminess, and complete ineptitude at physical violence ^note Pesterbot canonically lost a fight with a potted philodendron are weirdly endearing, in a comedic sort of way.
• In Starsnatcher's first chapter, a nameless old lady has an adorable pet robot. It crosses into being mildly creepy, however, as she attached a picture of her grandson's face to its monitor which is supposed to show her loneliness.
• In the world of Thomas Fay Syndicate, any and all robots designed by CUTE qualify as these.

Western Animation

• Rivet from The Adventures of Figaro Pho is Figaro's tiny, playful, and kindhearted Robot Dog.
• Bobert from The Amazing World of Gumball is smaller than the title character and has a big head with a large, expressive eye. In earlier episodes, he also wanted to Become a Real Boy, which was also adorably sad. The trope is downplayed a little because at times his personality can sometimes fluctuate between adorableness, insufferable smugness and psychopathic killing machine.
• Bump in the Night featured a minor character named Little Robot, who was a toy transforming robot from Japan. She may look intimidating in her transformed state, but otherwise she is a rather adorable little automaton.
• Even though he's one of Hacker's henchmen, Delete from Cyberchase absolutely qualifies as this.
• HERBIE^note (stands for Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics. And he's not actually humanoid) from The Fantastic Four (1978) wasn't seen this way initially, as he was a none-too-badass Replacement Scrappy for the Human Torch. However, time passed, and he's been homaged - and every new version of HERBIE is so freaking adorable, most recently the The Super Hero Squad Show incarnation.
• Tinny Tim, the Tiny Tim robot expy from Futurama. His British accent and Woobie characterization help out a lot.
• In the He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special, Skeletor's heart is melted by a cute robotic puppy.
• GIR, the defective SIR unit from Invader Zim. He's more likely to shout Non Sequiturs than melt your heart, though.
• Rosie from The Jetsons, who is basically a sweet old maid in robot form.
• Markov from Miraculous Ladybug, which is helped by his innocent personality.
• My Life as a Teenage Robot:
  • Jenny XJ-9, who is built to defend the world, but has the appearance and personality of a bubbly teenage girl.
  • Killgore is a wind-up toy robot who believes himself to be a powerful and menacing villain. However, nobody takes him seriously because of his cute design, and despite his claims of being dangerous, he's not actually a threat.
• Ready Jet Go!: Beep and Boop, the twin rover sisters, are adorable, hilarious, and intelligent.
• Boo from Remy & Boo, a soft and huggable (in the vein of Baymax) robot with a playful and friendly personality in the form of a little pink critter who is the best friend of a 6-year-old girl.
• The title character of Robotboy and his Distaff Counterpart Robotgirl.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars has rabbit droids, and feminine girl droids .
• Thomas & Friends: A very large number of the vehicle characters are absolutely adorable, including the titular main character.
• Ro-Bear Berbils from ThunderCats (1985) and Thunder Cats 2011 are rainbow-hued robotic teddy-bears who love to build and repair things.
• Depending on the design, Toonami's mascot TOM. Even with his more detailed designs, he has a dorky personality to make him always seem cute.
• Toon Bops: Given it's a musical series for pre-schoolers, expect the robots in this show to look cute.
• Subverted by the Scraplets in Transformers: Prime. Sure, they look all adorable and tiny when the first one shows up, but once their true nature as ravenous, metal-hungry (in terms of Cybertronians, man-eating) parasites is shown, they become downright horrifying.
• The titular main character Robot Jones from Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?, who is a curious and somewhat naive robot with the voice of a small boy.

Real Life

• The Cessna A-37 Dragonfly is a jet trainer modified into a Badass Adorable baby A-10 Warthog.
• Tweenbots, little smiling cardboard robots that can only roll in a straight line, with a flag with its destination written on it. They were created for a social experiment to see whether or not people in busy cities would help the little robots get to their destination. They do.
• Keepon, the dancing robot.
  • Naturally, it's now a toy.
• Boxie is a cardboard robot built at MIT. Boxie uses its cute appearance and infantile voice to get people to talk about themselves and take it places. The footage it recorded was made into a short film.
• PaPeRo functions as the user's companion. Its cuteness is important as it helps ease the user.
• Pepper, a robot from French company Aldebaran Robotics and Japanese company SoftBank.
• NAO, a robot from the aforementioned companies.
• MEDi, a robot from the University of Calgary, not only looks cute, but is also meant to soothe and interact with children getting vaccines. Also, tai chi.
• Say hello to T8 the 3D-printed Octoped robot. It's a Cyber Cyclops Giant Spider which is only too happy to dance for you. Even some of those who believe Spiders Are Scary have said that they don't feel threatened by T8, possibly because its very first action after walking into view is eagerly shimmying its abdomen like a dog its wagging its tail.
• The Roomba. Dutiful little plastic oreo with a penchant for getting trapped and frequently thought of by owners as something of a pet.
• In some stores, you will find a little robot you can buy known as Vector. He can tell the weather, play blackjack, and even take picture. Not only that, but his design is very cute.
• Robi, an adorable little multipurpose robot from Japan. He's basically a humanoid SmartPhone who takes voice commands and sounds vaguely like Pikachu.
• Japan is at it again with the Int-Ball, a small, floating sphere that helps document the astronauts' activities. It also looks like a simple doodle of a smiley face and quietly moves about the ISS, taking pictures of everything.
• Paro is a therapeutic robot based on a baby harp seal. Hard to get cuter than that.
• Attempted with Marty, a robot deployed to several American grocery store chains to monitor floors for spills and tripping hazards. Unfortunately, Marty is just as likely to provoke annoyance.
• The Starr Bumble Bees were a pair of single-seater planes created just to get the title of world's smallest airplane. They literally looked like great big preschool toys.
• The Kiwibot is a little lunchbox on wheels that is designed to carry out food deliveries in Californian cities as well as certain college campuses. They have adorably beady and expressive eyes on a little screen.

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