OS-tan

FAN is the Futaba / Nijiura internet. CORP is later regional marketing that borrowed the idea. Those are not the same folder. This wiki keeps the stamp on every page.

What an OS-tan is

An OS-tan is a character whose personality is a reading of a piece of software. Me-tan crashes. 2K-tan is the stable older sister. XP-tan eats memory. 95-tan won the PC war and still does not understand USB. The joke only works if you already know the operating system.

The Japanese suffix -tan is a child's slip of -chan. It is an honorific, not a word that means mascot. English coverage often treats OS-tan as a franchise name. On Futaba, people also said OS Girl (OS娘). Later artists used -chan, -san, or no suffix at all — Seven-chan and 11-chan are the modern Nijiura names, not 'Seven-tan'.

There is no single canon bible. A 2004 line from the artist Shinjuku, preserved via Cool.ne.jp and quoted across later wikis, is still the honest rule: there are as many OS-tan worlds as there are artists. What English fans call Canon is a popularity contest: designs that other artists kept drawing.

It can be said that there are as many OS-tan worlds as there are artists.Shinjuku, via Cool.ne.jp, 2004

How it started

Windows Me shipped in 2000 and earned a reputation for instability. On Futaba's Nijiura board, that reputation became a girl. Me-tan was posted on 6 August 2003. By early autumn the OS-tan Vault (ＯＳたん保管庫) was collecting drawings. An October 2003 archive of the Vault already lists DOS, 98, NT, Me, 2K, XP, and Dr. Norton.

A shared comic setting appeared around a PC owner nicknamed Toshiaki — Futaba's default username. The Windows girls live in his house as sisters and maids. The premise was never explained. Artists copied it anyway. Trouble Windows, a Flash 'opening' for an anime that did not exist, left Japan in April 2004 through Misfile and later YouTube. That clip is still how most English speakers first saw the joke.

Full history of OS-tan, a year-by-year Timeline, and the later +Nijiura+ split are separate articles. Short version: Futaba kept drawing. +Nijiura+ split Mac OS X and Vista into edition-specific girls. English boards translated strips. OS-Tan Collections became the English wiki. Microsoft partners later built a different family.

Fan canon is not a Microsoft campaign

From 2009 to about 2017, Techno-Alliance (Windows 7 Mania / Windows Navi+) and Microsoft's Asian subsidiaries ran moe mascots for DSP Windows boxes, Azure, Internet Explorer, and Silverlight. Nanami Madobe was bundled with Japanese Windows 7 Ultimate DSP. Inori Aizawa was a Microsoft Singapore IE campaign. Those characters have voice actresses, Twitter accounts, and retail SKUs. They are labeled CORP on this wiki.

They are not the Futaba sisters. Futaba has its own Windows 7 girl (Seven-chan, Shimuro, 2009) and its own Windows 11 girl (11-chan, Shimuro, 2022). Wikipedia often folds both folders into one page. That is the most common error in English coverage, and it is why this encyclopedia exists as more than a mirror.

CORP pages cite journalism and Japanese Wikipedia. Some English blogs call every Madobe 'Microsoft's official OS-tan.' Cross-check: Claudia is a recognized Azure character; Tōko is a partner DSP mascot that Japanese Wikipedia does not treat as Microsoft-official.

The usual lineup

English memory of OS-tan is a Windows family. That is historically fair — the first batch was 3.1, NT, 95, 98, 98SE, Me, 2000, XP, CE, and Server 2003 — but Linux, Mac, antivirus, and browsers were in the Vault by 2004.

See All OS TAN for every face on this wiki, the annotated list, the narrower OSC canon list, corporate mascots, and why Vista never settled.

What this wiki is

OS-TAN Wiki is the public encyclopedia of the culture, hosted at wiki.os-tan.com so a search for 'OS TAN wiki' can land on a page that was written in 2026 instead of a MediaWiki dump last seriously edited in the 2000s. It is an addition to WIKI.EXE inside OS TAN, which still holds the OS-Tan Collections archive for sitting at the desk.

• Original English, cited. We do not paste OSC wikitext.
• FAN / CORP / CANON / OURS on every character.
• Modern Futaba (Seven-chan, Battenichi-chan, Ten-chan, 11-chan) next to 2003 canon.
• Madobe and Aizawa in their own folder, with the Microsoft-vs-partner distinction English Wikipedia blurs.
• OS TAN labeled OURS. She is not a Futaba girl and not a DSP mascot.
• No wholesale fan-art hosting. Most OS-tan drawings are not free.

If you want the old English wiki, it still exists: OS-Tan Collections. If you want to sit down at the culture, boot OS TAN.

See also

History of OS-tanFrom Me-tan on Futaba in August 2003 through Trouble Windows, English spread, DSP Madobe campaigns, and the 2020s Futaba girls.FAN vs CORPThe rule of this encyclopedia: Futaba fan designs, later corporate moe campaigns, OSC 'canon' popularity, and OS TAN are four stamps, not one franchise.CanonOS-tan 'canon' means a design other artists reused, especially the OSC list. It is not a license and not Microsoft.Me-tanMe-tan is the first OS-tan: a clumsy Windows Me maid posted on Futaba Channel on 6 August 2003.All OS TANEvery OS-tan on this wiki. Click a face for that article.List of OS-tansIndex of OS-tans and related mascots on OS-TAN Wiki, grouped by stamp and family.Madobe familyThe Madobe family are Japanese DSP moe mascots from Techno-Alliance / Windows Navi+, 2009–circa 2020. Not Futaba OS-tans.OS TANOS TAN is the face of OS TAN: periwinkle hair, stacked blue clips, white and cobalt suit. Not a Futaba character and not a Microsoft mascot.Other OS-tan wikisHow Wikipedia, OS-Tan Collections, Moeverse, Know Your Meme, TV Tropes, and Fandom differ — and what this encyclopedia adds.