WHAT IS OS-TAN?

informative carrd about my page and the general synopsis of Os-Tan

OS-TAN ORIGINS

"The OS-tan is an Internet meme that originated within the Japanese Futaba Channel in the early 2000's. The OS-tan are the moe anthropomorphism/personification of several operating systems by heterogeneous amateur Japanese artists." (Wikipedia)

Os-Tan has existed for a very long time, however a fanbase is popping up again as of recent, I have created this page to archive art, figures, and anything pertaining to the peculiar world of Os-Tan.

It is important to note there is no set canon in the Os-Tan world, these characters are simply internet memes with no true one owner or one set canon world. However since I refuse to post anything nsfw or controversial I will mostly refrain from posting certain characters who have not aged well in modern time. (XP Home and Homeo) Unless it is my own personal interpretation of them.

CHARACTERS

Me-tan: the personification of Windows Me, is very much in line with the Japanese concept of kawaii or cuteness. Her design has changed little from the artist's original designs and is depicted with green hair in long pigtails wearing a maid outfit with a "!" badge on the front reminiscent of the Windows Me Active Desktop Recovery screen, often shown after rebooting from a system crash in Me. She is a hard worker and always wants to help, but predictably fails at everything she tries to do, often literally crashing and irritating the other Os-Tan's. When she is not frozen or out of control, she tends to do things showing a lack of common sense or knowledge. But even after failure after failure, she still remains cheerful, friendly and optimistic.

The most popular and recognizable Os-Tan character, also credited with being the first Os-Tan character created.

Created by a Futaba channel artist under the pen name of "Toshiaki" on August 6th, 2003. She was created with the intent of personifying the Windows Me operating system to be a cute but troublesome girl.

XP-tan: XP-tan is a dark-haired girl with ribbons in her hair and an "XP" hair ornament typically worn on the left side. Early depictions of her describe her as essentially a "bimbo". However this interpretation cause some backlash and controversy. XP-Tan in more recent times is portrayed as dense and a big eater, she's now more likely to be seen as more reliable, dependable and practical than she ever was before.

2K-tan: The personification for Windows 2000 was one of the first characters created alongside Me-Tan. A few variants exist, but the most common is 2k-tan, the personification for Windows 2000 Professional. She is typically drawn as an intelligent, professional, reserved looking woman with short blue hair, glasses, and hairclips that resemble cat ears flanking a small white bonnet or ruffle, similar to maid's hairclip that shows the windows logo. The cat ear-shaped hairclips are a pun: "2K" in Japanese is "Ni-Ke", the meowing sound in Japanese is "nya", so she is also known as "Nya-ke".

Windows 2000 is the most stable, dependable, and balanced system. She often acts like the older sister or dependable woman among the Windows-tans and is one of the domain controllers for this reason. In addition, because of the greater stability of Win2K compared with WinME (which was released around the same time), 2K-tan is often described as a guardian of ME-tan.

95-tan: 95-tan is depicted as a traditional lady from the early modern era of Japan. This is much due to her status as an older version of modern Windows. She is a gentle-looking brown haired woman in a kimono, with a hair ribbon showing the four Windows colors. The pattern of her kimono is based on the file hana256.bmp, which was used as a desktop wallpaper pattern in the Japanese version of Windows. Her costume is a traditional kimono and a hakama of Japan, and she wears thick sandals, geta on her feet. These are women's college student's typical clothes as seen in the earliest period during the course of the modernization in Japan (from the Meiji period to the Taisho period), and the cultural background for the comparison of the modernization of Windows to modernization of Japan is seen there.

95-tan's most common activities are drinking tea, serving meals or doing other housework. One recurring theme is her unfamiliarity with newer, post Win-95 technologies, such as USB devices and broadband internet connections. While appearing to be one of the more stable OS-tans, she is also often depicted wielding a katana in an aggressive manner, usually toward the Mac-tans, but also when disciplining troublemakers within her own family. This symbolizes the fact that it was her generation of operating systems that Microsoft finally achieved full dominance of the personal computer market.

NT-tan and InuT-tan: There are two mainstream personifications of Windows NT. NT-tan and InuT-tan. Both represent Windows NT. The first NT-tan is depicted as a young woman (though her age range varies from child to adult depending on the artist) with purple hair (ranging from lilac to very dark) and blue or purple eyes. Most commonly her outfit is a simple pink dress, sometimes with a long-sleeved shirt under it, and an apron over it.

She mainly represents NT 3.x, and is the mother of 2K-tan, Inu-T and the other NT releases. When an NT-tan is being referred to, it's usually this design; the other accepted NT design is now almost always known as "Inu-T".

Although usually seen as loving, sweet and motherly, a few artists' depictions show NT-tan as a bold, and sometimes crazed warrior, shown with a bladed weapon. One such depiction shows her alongside a similarly-armed Windows 95-tan, they are thought to have trained together. Her weapon is a western-style sword, usually either a rapier or a broadsword; this contrasts with 95-tan, who wields an eastern blade.

InuT-tan is the other interpretation of NT, described as a young girl, with an endearing dog-like attitude, with carefree, sweet and spunky traits, even if she is a bit simple-minded. She is often shown as being daughterly and close with NT-tan.

Despite both being Windows NT both characters are accepted within the fandom, ultimately its up to viewers to decide who is the canon, or both could exist simultaneously. In modern days it seems InuT-tan is the more popularized characterization of NT.

98-tan and 98SE tan: Many variations exist; however, the most common is a pair of young girls. The First Edition of 98 has a white and blue uniform, a navy blue hair with a clip shaped like 98, and has a windows logo as part of a necktie. The 98 Second Edition mascot normally has grey-blue hair and a green sailor school uniform with the letters SE on the front.

Two early versions that continue to be used alongside the girls are a pair of stick-limbed snack-boxes with a face and version number drawn in crayon, based on the Vulcan 300 toy that appeared in the anime series Konjiki no Gash Bell!!

98-tan is represented as a shy and small pre-teen girl. She is usually seen with her sister 98SE-tan, is sometimes depicted as a intersex / transgender person) and is said to fancy Homeo.

98SE-tan is also shy, but unlike her sister she is prone to aggression, is more stubborn, is not intersex / transgender and has an unusual hatred towards male genetalia (and maybe men in general).

(Admin Notes here: the original phrases used for these characters bio's were old and offensive terms used to describe intersex people and a harmful word for transwomen, as a way to keep this page safe for everyone and to keep up with modern termonoligy I have replaced the original words)

MODERN OS TAN'S + OFFICIAL OS TAN'S

Though initially appearing only in fan work's and online forum boards, the OS-tan idea proved popular enough that Microsoft branches in Singapore and Taiwan used the OS-tan concept as the basis for ad campaigns for Internet Explorer and Microsoft Silverlight, respectively.

Japanese version of Windows 7 Ultimate DSP Edition includes the unofficial Nanami Madobe mascot. This inspired Microsoft Taiwan to launch an official mascot for Microsoft Silverlight, Hikaru.

A special package of the Japanese Windows 7 Ultimate DSP Edition, called the Touch Mouse Artist Edition or Touch Mouse Limited Edition Artist Series, came with an animated tutorial Windows theme (with custom sounds and three desktop backgrounds) featuring Madobe Nanami.

Microsoft Japan has it's own mascots for Windows 8, which first appeared in an article about the two mascots for Windows 8 on October 11th, 2012. They also own an official intrepritation of Windows 10.

Windows 10 / Nanami Madobe: Nanami Madobe is depicted as a 15 or so year old girl and is the unofficial mascot representing the Windows 7 operating system made by Microsoft. Although it was largely believed that Nanami was official, it was revealed later on that she was designed by artist Wakaba and made by Windows 7 Mania (owned by Techno Alliance Corp). However, her creation led to the first official Microsoft OS-tans, Hikaru Aizawa and the Bing girls. Nanami was a part of a theme complete with images and audio voiced by singer and voice actress, Mizuki Nana, and was released with the first 7777 copies of Windows 7 Ultimate in Japan.

Though Nanami is the generally accepted representation of Windows 7, there are other 7-tans out there, mostly made by the Futaba community. Similar to Vista's release, there seemed to be a bit of a boss-rush of -tans competing for canonism.

Windows 8 / Yu & Ai Madobe: Yu & Ai are the Microsoft Japan mascots for Windows 8, which first appeared in an article about the two mascots for Windows 8 on October 11th, 2012. Before this article, one can see the silhouette of Yu Madobe at the end of a music video entitled Through The Window by MasatakaP and Electrocutica, that was the opener for Microsoft Developer Days in japan, and which stars Claudia Madobe,with a quick appearance by Nanami Madobe at the end shortly before the silhouette is seen.
Not much about these -tans are known, such as personality, or height, etc.

There are theories by fan that state Yu represents Windows RT while Ai represents Windows 8. Reason this is possible is because Ai being older than Yu, combined with the similar appearances, and Yu's more moe poses and appearance compared to Ai's more professional and serious poses, could be a reference to Windows RT and Windows 8, with 8 Being the oldest and more professional

Windows 10 / Madobe Touko: Windows 10 is the current release of the Windows operating system making Touko the most reccent OS-tan, she is also official.

She works part time in Akihabara doing street publicity
She is from "100 years in the future"
She is 17-years of age
She is a fan of online games, and enjoys playing them in her spare time
She is voiced by Ai Nonaka (of Puella Magi fame as Kyouko Sakura). She did not originally have a confirmed name when she made her public debut, and a contest was held on June 19, 2015 to determine what it would be, with participants eligible to win a number of gifts, including 5 grand prizes autographed by Ai Nonaka herself. Her name was revealed to be Madobe Touko in July 2015.

There is plenty more to know and learn about the vast, and zainy world of OS-Tan. I made this Carrd as moreso an introduction... You yourself can now understand the basics of OS-tan! Including things such as, Browser-tans, Hardware-tans, File-tans, Console-tans, and etc. Be mindful that certain material from OS is not always SFW or appropriate to modern day standards, OS-tan has existed for many many years, and with that means outdated jokes and tropes that are no longer funny these days. The wonderful thing about OS tan is that it is all community made, which means you too can have your own interpretations of these characters and nothing would be out of canon since a true canon does not exist.

Thank you for reading, sources will be listed on the next page! <3

https://www.ostan-collections.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS-tan

and my general knowledge! <3

CLICK ON RUNNING ME TAN TO RETURN TO BEGINNING!