About

Bunny Suits are a sexualized form of rabbit costume, typically associated with the Playboy Club, compromised of a corseted teddy, bunny ears and tail, a collar, cuffs, black pantyhose,and high-heeled shoes. In Japan, the costume has become a popular example of a seductive costume, both in real life and with fan artists.

Origin

The Bunny Suit was originally developed for the Playboy Club, a chain of nightclubs run by Playboy Enterprises, where the cocktail waitresses on staff would wear the costume.^[1] The costume, inspired by Playboy's bunny logo, was designed by Zelda Wynn Valdes, and was first unveiled on the television show Playboy's Penthouse in 1959. It was implemented into the clubs soon after in 1960.

Spread

A TV Tropes article on the costume describes the uses of the costume in popular culture.^[2] Both pixiv and danbooru have over 10 thousand images tagged as having the suit.^[3]^[4] It is a common practice for fan artists to draw female fictional characters in the outfit, even if they never appeared as such in their original media. Common characters to portray in the costume include Haruhi Suzumiya from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya and Kallen Kōzuki from Code Geass, as both had popular and official portrayals in their original series.

In Japan

In the West, the costume, though iconic, is not as popular as it is in Japan, due to copyrights on the form of the costume in the United States. In Japan, the costume has much wider spread as the copyright is not enforced, and is a common cosplay; as such, it is portrayed in many popular Japanese media such as anime and manga. This has led to the costume becoming a popular outfit to combine with cosplay. A girl wearing the costume is usually referred to as a bunnygirl (バニーガール, banīgāru).

Example Images

Notable Sub-memes

Bunnygirl Armin / Usamin

Bunnygirl Armin is a fanart trend involving the character Armin Arlert from the series Attack on Titan dressed as a bunnygirl. The joke came about after the creators of the series released a 4koma strip which proposed a joke "what-if" situation where a crate which contained weaponry in the original storyline is instead filled with school play props. The nickname Usamin came about as a combination of the character's name and usagi, the Japanese word for rabbit.^[5]