uWaterloo Department Anime Girls

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Character
Name: Math, Applied Health Sciences (AHS), Environment, Arts, Science, Engineering
Occupation: Gijinkas of the departments at the real-life University of Waterloo
Relationships: Various
Fandom: University Shipping
Other:
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Summary

The header of r/uWaterloo during the meme event

The uWaterloo Department Anime Girls are a meme that originated on the r/uWaterloo subreddit after the user u/alyssnya began posting gijinkas of the educational departments at the school. Though these were not the first[citation needed] uWaterloo gijinkas uploaded to the subreddit, they rapidly gained popularity with the userbase, and their influence began to spread to other subreddits.

History

WaterlooWorks x Quest

On April 22nd, 2020, a since-deleted user made a request[1] to the r/uWaterloo subreddit, asking for"lewd art" of WaterlooWorks and Quest. The user clarified in the post, "Like if WaterlooWorks and Quest were cute anime girls". WaterlooWorks is an employment recruiting system for uWaterloo students, and Quest is uWaterloo's student information system. On Quest, students pick their courses and enroll in programs, etc.

On April 23, the request was filled by u/uwutulu in a comment [2] with an imgur link. The art depicts WaterlooWorks and Quest as pale women, both nude, with Quest sitting in WW's lap and blushing. This image contains female nudity. Open the link at your own risk.

Waterloo Waifu

On June 3rd, u/idontnowhi posted art of a University of Waterloo gijinka. The post implies that it is a reupload of an older post, and states that the art has been censored from an older version. Waterloo is depicted as a pale woman with long brown hair and bangs, dressed in a Waterloo sweater, a white and yellow mini skirt, and thigh-highs, and is wearing a pair of white cat ears on a headband. The character's nipples are censored by a picture of a goose, the university's unofficial mascot,[3][4] and a picture of Feridun Hamdullahpur's face.

Ideal GF

On June 23rd, u/alyssnya uploaded a meme[5] depicting the "ideal gf" of the uWaterloo student population as an anime girl, contrasted with the "actual gf" as a goose, which was likely the impetus for what followed.[citation needed]

Daily Posts

During the period of June 24-29, alyssnya posted a series of images showing six of the UWaterloo departments as "anime girls."

The original image of Math
The original image of Applied Health Sciences
The original image of Environment
The original image of Arts
The original image of Science
The original image of Engineering

Day 1: Math

On June 24th, alyssnya posted art depicting the department of Math. This post has since gained 958 points on the subreddit at time of writing, indicating a massively positive response by the userbase.

Math is depicted as a pale woman with short black hair and bangs. She has a pair of square-frame glasses on, and is blushing. Her eyes are the same slate-gray colour as her hair. She is wearing a pink uWaterloo hoodie.

Math's hoodie, like all of the other girls, is the colour that it is because of uWaterloo's preexisting colour-coding of the departments. These can be seen on the official uWaterloo website's Faculties Page.

Day 2: Applied Health Sciences

On June 25th, the girl for Applied Health Sciences was posted to the subreddit.

AHS is depicted as an olive-skinned woman with green eyes. She has ash-blonde/light brown hair that is pulled into a ponytail, with wavy bangs that are partially tucked behind one ear. Her hair is tied with a scrunchie that matches the green colour of her uWaterloo sweater.

The top comment on this post is from u/exhaustedsnorlax, who remarked, "Quality content this sub needed". This comment has since gained 103 points.

Day 3: Environment

On June 26th, the girl for Environment was posted.

Environment is a tanned woman with bright green eyes and amber-brown hair. She has short bangs, with the rest of her hair tied into a braid that goes over her shoulder. Her elastic is green, matching her hoodie.

Day 4: Arts

On June 27th, the girl for the Arts department was posted.

Arts is depicted as being a joyful young woman with pink hair and eyes. She is wearing an orange Arts department hoodie.

Of this post, u/alyssnya writes the following:

an update from day 4:

my concept of time is no longer based on the days of the week, it's based on what day of anime girl i am at. yesterday was friday but i thought it was thursday, but i knew it was day 3 anime girl day.

it haunts me in my sleep. i had a dream i posted this and it got a 20% upvote ratio and got banned from the subreddit. putting aside the fact that it would be stupid to ban me for that, it's somehow giving me dream stress. my dream also included going to a liveshow and meeting my old friend from primary school and us getting called for audience participation and not wanting to do it until realizing that you get 5 free meals and a hotel room for 2 nights if you did. that's unrelated to the point but i just wanted to share that as well. i do enjoy rambling.

also science girl is not going well, i cant pick good colours and also im completely redoing the lineart bc it looks stinky,,, but the sketch is so good idk whats going wrong god said im becoming too powerful being able to draw more than 3 days in a row (when before id only draw 1 day for an entire month or two) so he decided to nerf me."[6]

This was the first day of activity from the u/uoftxwaterloo account. They posted on both the r/UofT and r/uWaterloo subreddits with a post titles referencing the ship, [7][8] and posted a meme[9] to both subreddits, offering to make hentai if it gets enough upvotes, though the post on r/UofT was quickly removed by moderators. Their fourth ever post on reddit was a comment on alyssnya's Day 4 art post, reading, "Day 1 for asking uWaterloo x UofT / Upvote if you agree"[10].

This instigated the posting of the first uToronto/uWaterloo ship art[11] showing "uWaterloo Chad" and "uOFT virgin" as anime boys by u/uwutulu, which began the spread of University Shipping in earnest.

Day 5: Science

On June 28th, the girl for the Science department was posted.

Science is depicted as a woman with long, dark blue hair and soft bangs. Her eyes are a slightly lighter blue than her hair, and she wears a pair of square-rimmed glasses similar to Math's. She is wearing a blue hoodie.

Her design is likely a reference to a joke post on r/uWaterloo from 2016, in which a user by the name of u/uwquatt remarks on his confusion following correspondence with a classmate. The post is is formatted as greentext that reads:

> Hello,
> I was unable to attend the last 2 lectures of SCI 206. I was having surgery for a breast augmentation, which is why I couldn't be there. Can someone please send me the notes from the last 2 lectures? I would greatly appreciate it.[12]

Day 6: Engineering

On June 29th, the girl for the Engineering department was posted.

Engineering is depicted as a pale woman with long, dark brown hair and long bangs. Her eyes are also brown, and have dark circles under them, which makes her seem perpetually tired. She is wearing a purple uWaterloo hoodie.

After the art was posted, r/uWaterloo changed their banner to the one seen above.

Fanworks

A number of fanworks have been generated for the uWaterloo Department Anime Girls.

Fan Art

Math

  • I drew fan art of Math-chan.png
  • I made Math-chan Fanart.png
  • Math-chan in DC.png

AHS

Environment

Arts

Science

Engineering

  • Fanart young eng-chan when she still had hopes and dreams.png
  • Next up in the not-so-kawaii series eng-chan fanart.png
  • Eng-chan short circuit.png
  • Eng-chan Ace Pride.png

Group/Shipping

  • When you realize your shirt matches your gf's hair (and you're both faculties).png
  • Anime girl eng x anime math.png
  • They're girlfriends and they're happy (late for Pride because I found out about them today).png

Fan Fiction

Memes

The uWaterloo Department Anime Girls Expanded Universe

Users of the r/uWaterloo subreddit began creating anime girls for other degree programs.

AFM-chan

The gijinka of Accounting and Financial Management, aka AFM-chan, is depicted as being a snake-like woman with green hair, yellow eyes, and fangs, with a large red barrette in the shape of a dollar sign clipped into her hair. Students in AFM are often joked about as being cut-throat due to limited co-op oppourtunities, which is likely where the design gets its flavour--the implication being that AFM students are 'snakes'.

Fanworks of AFM-chan

Other Girls

Other Canadian Universities

University of Toronto

St. George Campus

UofT-chan is a separate entity from University Shipping's UofT, but not by much. Art of her first surfaced on the r/UofT subreddit on June 28th, 2020, in a post titled "Hey since r/uwaterloo is posting waifus and husbandos, here I present a rendition of St. George-chan so you guys don't get left out" by u/idontnowhi. She had a vastly different design to the then-current f!UofT, so distinguishing the two of them was fairly easy. Her design has been used in tandem with the f!UofT design, so there will inevitably be some confusion.

  • Hey since ruwaterloo is posting waifus and husbandos, here I present a rendition of St. George-chan so you guys don't get left out.png
  • UofT-chan slipping on ice while rushing to the exam center for her 9am final.png

Mississauga Campus

Gijinkas for UTM started to hit the subreddit on July 1st, 2020.

A common feature in these works is deer, which are a bit of a meme on the campus. There are often deer-spotting posts made to social media by students who attend UTM, and the UTM website's 404 page includes images of the deer.

  • My rendition of UTM-chan D.png
  • UTM as an anime girl.png
  • UTM-chan must be a deer-girl, right.png

Scarborough Campus

Gijinkas for UTSC began appearing on the campus' subreddit on June 29, 2020.

University of Western Ontario

Western put a horse into the anime girl race on July 1st, 2020, with the post "introducing ivey-chan! the first of many faculty/program waifus 💕". Attached is art of Ivey-chan, a gijinka for Ivey Business School.

Non-Canadian Universities

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne

Following the success of the uWaterloo Department Anime Girls and adjacent works, universities in other countries began to generate gijinka art for their own schools. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne was the first of these schools, with the user u/uiuc-chan posting art of a gijinka for the university on the subreddit r/uiuc on June 30th, 2020. The post, titled "so some of us have been on r/uwaterloo... say hello to uiuc-chan :3", has since gained 574 points, with an upvote ratio of 84%, indicating a largely positive response to the art.

Others on the subreddit followed suit, leading to a number of artistic interpretations of the character.

  • Og uiuc-chan.png
  • As much as I hate to admit it, I also drew a UIUC-Chan.png
  • My attempt at drawing anime Alma,.png
  • Drew a UIUC WiFU OC in my style.png

University of California, Berkeley

A student on the subreddit for UC Berkeley by the name of u/Tac-in-soc posted an image of a Berkeley gijinka on June 30th, 2020. The post is simply titled "Forgive me", with the image of the gijinka attached. The character is a pale brunette woman with bear ears and a bear nose, referencing the school's mascot.

  • Forgive me.png

References

  1. ^ Lewd Art Request: Reddit post asking for Rule 34 art
  2. ^ reddit comment which simply reads "Delivered"
  3. ^ Goose nesting a problem on university campuses, May 29, 2013 article from The Charlatan
  4. ^ The University of Waterloo created a goose-tracking map, because geese are bullies, The Verge article from 2016
  5. ^ r/uwaterloo's ideal gf vs. actual gf post at Reddit
  6. ^ Comment on day 4 of drawing every faculty an anime girl: arts, June 27, 2020
  7. ^ UofT x Waterloo: Tsundere Couple post at Reddit in r/uoftfollowed by a comment linking to Day 3: Environment
  8. ^ UofT x Waterloo: Tsundere Couple, Same post in r/uwaterloo
  9. ^ If this gets 300 upvotes on both subreddits i will make hentai of this, Reddit post
  10. ^ Reddit comment removed, no Wayback available
  11. ^ Reddit post: I did this for us, with fanart
  12. ^ "SCI 206 - Wat", Reddit post Dec 13, 2016
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