A small internet phenomenon on Futaba Channel, the OS-tan (OS for Operating System, and -tan as an overly cute Japanese honorific for a person, specifically a child slurring '-chan') or simply OS Girls are the personification of several OSes, most famously Windows, by various amateur Japanese artists. A pure fan creation, the appearance of each character is generally consistent among artists. OSes are almost always portrayed as women, the Windows girls usually as sisters, despite sometimes seeming the same age.
History
The concept is reported to have begun as a personification of the common perception of Windows Me as unstable and prone to frequent crashes. Discussions on Futaba Channel likened this to the stereotype of a fickle, troublesome girl. The personification became expanded, with the creation of Me-tan (dated to August 6 2003) followed by the other characters. Another version of the OS-tan history claims that they were inspired by a cute girl mascot for Gigabyte Technology hardware.
A large collection of these images can be found here. Some of the comics have been translated by readers on 4chan and idlechan. They have been archived at Trouble Windows Translations, along with the japanese counterparts. There are still many raw comics left and new translations or corrections of previous ones are always welcome.
A collection of avatar images based on the OS-tan characters has been created by members of the Megatokyo forums, which is available here.
There also exists a Macromedia Flash Animation showing a possible intro to a hypothetical, but highly unlikely, anime show, Troubled Windows. The music is Sakuranbo Kiss, by KOTOKO. An ending theme also exists Troubled Windows ED. The music is Our Xenopittan, from the Xenosaga Freaks Reservation Privilege CD.
A Ghost in the Shell crossover has also been made.
OSX, Linux, and Lindows girls have also shown up on the internet, although some non-OS male characters exist for programs and hardware. Norton Antivirus is usually portrayed as a creepy looking, possibly lecherous old doctor.
The OS girls
ME
The more cutesy personification of the much maligned and infamously unreliable Windows ME OS, ME-tan appearance rarely varies and was likely the first created (by who?). She is instantly recognizable; she has green hair in long pigtails and wears a maid outfit with a ! badge on the front in the spirit of the Windows yellow error icon. ME-tan is a hard worker and always wants to help her master, but predictably fails at everything she tries to do, and often literally crashing and irritating her sisters. In spite of, or perhaps due to, her pitiful plight, the clumsy ME-tan is one of the most beloved OS girls.
XP
XP is a sexy, dark-haired girl wearing the XP logo as a hair ribbon. As XP is sometimes criticized for bloating a system and being very pretty without equally as useful, XP-san wears very little and has large breasts. A rare variant that represents XP Professional features a more reserved look, akin to 2K Pro-tan. She has XP shaped earphones/hairclips instead of a ribbon, and tends to wear her hair up in a short ponytail. An even rarer variant, for XP Media Center Edition, has short hair and small earrings in the style of XP Professional's hairclip.
2k
A few variants exist, but the most common is Win2K Professional. She is typically an intelligent, professional, reserved looking woman with short blue hair, glasses, and odd hairclips (often mistaken for cat ears, but apparently they're speakers) flanking a small white bonnet or ruffle that shows the windows logo. Her outfit resembles a swimsuit suggesting the windows logo colors, and she wears a long coat. This is thought to reflect the opinion that Windows 2000 is the most stable, dependable, and balanced system. Because of high stability of Win2K compared with WinME, which was released near 2K, 2K-tan is often described as a guardian of ME-tan.
98 and 98SE
Many variants exist; however, the most common is a box with sticks for arms and legs, and a face and dial drawn on the front in crayon—blue for plain vanilla 98, green for 98 Second Edition (98SE). Sometimes the box is open with the lid resembling a crayon box, and a small girl peeking out. Some variants are the small girl from inside the box. The First Edition of 98 has a white and blue uniform, navy blue hair with a clip shaped like "98" and has a windows logo as part of a necktie. The 98 Second Edition normally has grey-blue hair a green sailor school uniform with the letters SE on the front. She sometimes carries a green 98SE box around as a doll. While both are fairly shy girls, 98SE is seen hiding in her box a lot more often. The box sizes can vary, ranging from doll-like to taller than an adult.
95
95 often appears as a gentle looking brown haired woman in a kimono, with a hair ribbon showing the four Windows colors. Her most common activities are drinking tea, serving meals or doing other housework. She is also occasionally depicted wielding a sword in an aggressive manner, suggesting a dual personality. One comic strip shows her talking to other OS-tans about beating up the Mac girls. Perhaps she is the old warrior-maiden, who defeated all other operating systems and finally solidified Microsoft's market share...!
CE
Being an OS designed for small devices, CE is drawn as a tiny fairy, carrying a staff with a USB plug on the end.
3.1
Sometimes Windows 3.1 is a white box with stick arms and legs, and other times a robot suit piloted by a girl, possibly DOS/V.
MS-DOS
A rarer character, MS-DOS is a cute but very shy little girl carrying around a keyboard and usually peeking around corners. The implication is that, like MS-DOS itself on most pre-XP versions of Windows, she is always lurking somewhere in the background, just out of sight.
DOS/V
DOS/V is a variant of MS-DOS designed with Japanese language support. She is about the same size as DOS but has long grey-blue hair and a dark bodysuit. She is also a lot less shy.
Mac OS 9
Mac OS 9 is the most common Mac OS girl. She is blonde, and wears a ribbon shaped like a 9 and a "platinum white" bodysuit. She usually carries a large apple on her head, or
a bomb from the standard Macintosh error dialog. Other common accessories
are a white dress with the Mac face logo on the skirt with a slit
up the front that follows the nose/profile line, and showing some of her hair
like the "detached leaf" as used by the multi-coloured Apple Corp. logo. Usually
friendly and demure, OS 9 has been known to fly into insane rages when angered -
perhaps reflecting the oft-held adage that Macintosh computers may not crash as
often as their PC-based cousins, but when they do crash, they crash hard.
Mac OS X
The Mac OS X girl is often portrayed as cat-eared, in following with the Apple "wild cat" naming tradition (every MacOS X release has a codename like "Jaguar", "Panther" and so on). Otherwise, she is shown as an older variation of the Mac OS 9 girl, wearing a platinum white coat and a wireless AirPort device fashioned as a hat.
Longhorn
This character doesn't have many pictures as she's based on the new Microsoft Operating System Windows Longhorn, one picture shows her as a girl with dark blue hair and two horns extending from the back of her head to the front, her clothing is all white except across the shoulders where its black and there is the letters L and H on her chest.
2003 Server (Saba)
2003 Server is often portrayed as being half-girl, half-fish, with an ethernet hub as a bonnet on her head. Other versions show her as a girl with a short white skirt and a vest-style top with a long tail in the back (usually with a bow) and Windows four-square logo pins in the bow at her neck and on the tail. In some forms, she has a belt made from ethernet cable wrapped around her waist. Saba is a pun, as it is both the literal sound of "Server" in Japanese, and the word for mackerel, as well.
Other operating systems
File:Lindows-jpb.jpg File:Linux-jpb.jpg File:Nt-jpb.jpg
Characters from Left to Right: Lindows, Linux and Windows NT
Other Characters
Norton Antivirus
Doctor Norton, an unspeakably nice and horny old doctor, personifies the Symantec Norton Antivirus software. While an ingenious physician, he is infamously known to request (and attempt) the total undressing of an OS-tan for a full physical inspection, even when they're completely healthy. The doctor's lust has no bounds, and his morality is void.
Toshiaki
A personification of typical anonymous users that visit the image boards (i.e. Nijiura). Sometimes portrayed as the OS-tans' "master" - representing computer users in general. He is as perverted as Norton, if not moreso. There is a short series of comics where he tries to take advantage of the OS-tans by getting them drunk, but gets beaten up each time.
"Toshiaki" is the default name used when posting at some bulletin boards, it does not mean "anonymous" in Japanese. It originates from Futaba (2chan); a user calling himself "toshiaki" posted all sorts of messages that he thought were "intelligent" (of which the others thought differently), so everyone on the board started using his name to post stupid things. Eventually this was so common that the site keeper changed the default "anonymous" name to "toshiaki".
Other References
Leeks
Often the Windows girls are seen carrying a leek. This is a pun: a popular Japanese firewall program (NEGiES) sounds like their word for "leek" (negi) so the OS-tan carry leeks around as shields or weapons.
See Also
External Links
- Futaba Channel
- Other OS and hardware inspired CG artwork (all by Satoshi ("Toy") Igarashi; his homepage):
- iCandies, a frequently used image among various websites and messageboards, especially among computer enthusiasts and gamers. Based on the iMac.
- Generation 3 Concept Drawing of a girl with PC hardware specifications. Based on the manga "D4 Princess."
- Spirit of Sega Saturn Based on the Sega videogame system.
- Spirit of Playstation Based on the Sony videogame system.