Kara Dennison
January 8, 2024 
Anime has given us some of the cutest animal friends ever to grace our screens. (Ein from Cowboy Bebop is still our favorite space good boy, even after all these years.) The new winter season is looking to do much the same, with adorable animals everywhere you look. But we can’t help noticing that many of this season’s cutest anime pets are also weirdly powerful… like more than usual. And in an art form where there are multiple franchises dedicated to adorable battling monsters, that’s saying something.
Meet a small selection of the utterly adorable, utterly overpowered animal friends joining the latest season of anime!
Peeps
Sasaki’s been doing that office worker grind for a while now, and he figures it’s time he got an adorable pet. But when he takes home a Java sparrow which he names Peeps, his whole world is turned upside-down. That’s the kickoff for this season’s Sasaki and Peeps, in which one very important birb turns out to be one of the most OP anime pets we’ve seen in a long while.
Peeps is actually Piercarlo, a sage from an alternate dimension, and he’s decided to share some of his powers with Sasaki. Now the two are doing a decent interdimensional import/export business, and Sasaki is even learning ice magic. But by the end of the premiere episode, things have gotten complicated. How will this unlikely duo fare? Start watching now and find out!
Komugi
The Precure franchise doesn’t have anime pets so much as mascots… usually. But in this season’s Wonderful Precure!, that’s all about to change. The 21st installment in Toei’s long-running magical girl series will be themed around pets. And in a Precure first, the lead Cure is a transformed animal — a pup named Komugi who becomes Cure Wonderful to protect her owner.
At the moment, it looks like the four Cures will be a pair of pet-and-owner duos, with Komugi’s owner Iroha becoming Cure Friendy. A cat, who transforms into Cure Nyammy, will also be part of the team. (A cat becoming a Precure is nothing new, but we love that for her anyway.)
Lars… among others
It seems disingenuous to pick just one animal from Fluffy Paradise, a show whose cast is like 90% anime pets. We just happen to like the heck out of Lars, a magical sky tiger befriended by isekai‘d protagonist Neema. The child, formerly an overworked office worker, just happens to have a special power: all animals love her. (God may also be using her to resolve some political issues, but that’s not important right now.)
While Neema’s main goal is to pet all the soft and fluffy creatures, this initial meeting with Lars shows that her animal friendship ability has many advantages. For example, some animals are seriously magical, amongst them the giant dragon Neema’s sister summoned to close out the first episode. We can’t wait to see the menagerie she builds up around herself as the series continues!
Looking for something a little scalier? Kick off the Year of the Dragon with these draconic anime friends!
