Media Notes / Mii

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Miis (or Mii Characters) are Digital Avatars used in Nintendo software, introduced alongside the Wii in 2006. They are multipurpose characters that can be used in a variety of ways, to the point of being playable characters in a range of games produced for Nintendo's systems.

Nintendo had toyed with the idea of an avatar system for their consoles since the 1980s, though the first major implementation of a character creation system for any of their software wouldn't come until Mario Artist: Talent Studio in 2000, which allowed players to create characters and program scenes for them to act out. It was this game, combined with early work on a Yoshio Sakamoto-produced Nintendo DS title which would eventually become Tomodachi Collection, that led to creation of the Mii characters.

Though most prominent on the Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U, the avatars continue to be present on subsequent Nintendo consoles: both as part of the user's account system and as the stars of franchises that continue to revolve around them, such as Wii Sports and the aforementioned Tomodachi series.

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Tropes used:

Note: Due to the nature of Miis and how they're used, tropes may not apply to every place they appear.

• Adaptational Badass:
  • In Super Smash Bros., Miis come in three different varieties (Brawler, Swordfighter, Gunner) and can stand up to even the likes of Bowser, Ganondorf, and other Nintendo heavyhitters. Masahiro Sakurai even states in their introduction video that they were "toughened up" to be ready for Smash, and the franchise they represent isn't the Mii series, but rather Smash itself.
  • In Miitopia, Miis are granted power by a great entity (that is implicitly not the player) which grants them the ability to fight in JRPG styled battles, using a Job System.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: There are special QR Codes for the 3DS that makes the Miis wear gold pants. The QR codes can only be scanned once per system. Most of them are region-specific as well.
• Animesque: Most of the Mii's facial elements, as well as the way their faces change to match each mood.
• Animorphism: This is what happens to Miis in Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers, where a barrel is dropped on them and they turn into an animal (called "Amiimal") upon escaping the barrel.
• Art Evolution:
  • Miis had very few expressions when introduced, mainly "normal", "happy", "sad", "angry" and "sleeping". The first time they "wink" was the 3DS, while the Wii U was the first time they can use a "scared" expression, and elements of these emotions can eventually be combined. Miitomo was the first game to give them more expressions than ever, and this is further extended into Miitopia with the addition of having their pupils actually move or dilate.
  • Datamining has found that NPCs in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild were created with yet another upgraded version of the Mii Maker tool.
  • The Mii Maker was updated much further with Switch, allowing Miis to a wider range of hair and eye colors not seen in past consoles (it was introduced in Tomodachi Life through the use of hair dye). The Switch port of Miitopia takes this even further by allowing them to wear real makeup and newer face elements, and wigs for even more wild hairdos. The wigs in particular now move more naturally unlike a Mii's natural hair.
  • For a game specific example: Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream would further develop the Mii art style, both by going for a Cel Shaded look not present in other Mii focused games but also include the ability to use more diverse hairstyles (particularly curly hair styles) along with being able to change your skin color without the use of hair dye or Miitopia's make up feature. Stranger skin colors even go over any skin not covered by clothing, unlike Miitopia's make up which was generally limited to the face. The player is also free to just draw over the face, including the eyes, nose, and mouth, if desired.
• Art Shift: Because just about every game with Miis in it have been made by different teams within Nintendo or otherwise made with different game genres in mind, the exact design of the Miis varies greatly between game to game, with the only thing they all share being their head shape, face, skin color, and hair.
  • In the "Wii games", era, Miis usually had relatively realistic bodies, but with simple "mitten hands" and feet, and were almost always depicted in a simple shirt (either their favorite color or the player color based on the game) and pants that consume even the leg. Their height and weight are generally not remembered.
  • In the StreetPass Mii Plaza, they are depicted as simple floating bodies with floating spheres for hands that bobbed as they moved like they were walking. Their shirt was always their favorite color, and special Miis (namely those of high-profile Nintendo personnel like Shigeru Miyamoto) had special golden pants to denote them as the real developers. Their height and weight also don't vary.
  • In most other games, they usually had normal bodies, but with proper clothing that may or may not match their favorite color and may or may not have proper hands depending on how relevant it would be. Their height and weight may or may not affect their appearance or stats.
• The Artifact: While consoles following the Wii U still support Miis, they're not as prominent and very rarely used, largely only appearing in ports of Wii, Wii U and 3DS games. Case in point, out of the 90+ games Nintendo has published for the Nintendo Switch, there are only five non-port/remake titles that prominently use Miis: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Super Mario Maker 2, Mario Golf: Super Rush, Nintendo Switch Sports, and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream.^note Technically seven, if one wants to stretch the definition of a "Mii" to include the NPCs in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, which were created using a variant of the Mii editor but that's only a technical use and the player cannot create their own NPC characters anyway. There's also no easy way to transfer large collections of custom Miis from prior consoles to the Switch, only single personal ones either through online accounts or amiibo.
• Artifact Title: They take their name from the Wii, the console they debuted on, but they started appearing on non-Wii consoles as far back as Tomodachi Collection for the DS.
• Author Avatar:
  • Miis of Nintendo employees are commonly seen during game trailers that use Miis.
  • One can make their Mii their user's avatar in different games as well as in Nintendo's various online services.
• The Backwards Я: The Wii allows Greek letters when naming a Mii. Many players use the Greek letters for this trope. For example, a Mii going online for Mario Kart Wii might be named "ρlαγεr" rather than "player". The Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U allow both Greek and Cyrillic letters, though fewer players seem to be using them.
• Balloonacy: On the main page of the My Nintendo site, occasionally your Mii will show up flailing their arms while floating through the air with three balloons tied to them. You have the option to pop the balloons, allowing them to get back down to the ground — and in the rare event that one of the balloons is a Platinum Points balloon, you'll even be rewarded for it
• Black Bead Eyes: One of the options for eyes. However, if you select an eye color other than black, these eyes will still have irises of that color.
• The Cameo:
  • In some games, Miis only serve as background characters.
  • Trauma Team uses a custom Mii to represent the character of Navel when he converses with Dr. Naomi Kimishima during her forensics investigations, in a manner similar to an online chat avatar.
  • The Mario Kart ride at Universal Studios' Super Nintendo World uses Miis as stand-ins for the park guests in its queue line and safety videos.
• Cap: Up to 100 Miis can be stored on most consoles and in most games, with some exceptions. Namely, the Wii U had an enormous cap of 3000, while the game Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream has a limit of 70.
• Characterization Marches On: In the older titles, Miis had no characterization whatsoever. The idea was that they were literally just stand-ins for the player, so they'd only emote at appropriate times (like being happy when the player won or succeeded at something), and most games starring Miis were a case of No Plot? No Problem!, meaning there wasn't much need for Miis having personalities. Even games that were based exclusively around Miis, like Wii Party or Nintendo Land had non-Mii characters to act as hosts, while the Miis stayed silent. Starting in 2009, the popularity of the comedic Tomodachi Collection in Japan resulted in Mii focused games started to become more comedic in tone; this was cemented with the global release of the game's sequel in 2014, and Miis have since been generally being depicted as happy-go-lucky and cartoonishly goofy in nature, and also capable of speech (be it actual language or gibberish).
• Comical Angry Face:
  • When Miis are angry, their mouth will have a dented "M" shape, rather than the zigzag one when sad.
  • Whenever a Miiverse post has an anger emoticon selected, the Mii will stomp its left foot.
• Color-Coded Characters: Miis have differently colored pants depending on who created them: Miis created by the player have grey pants, Miis imported from QR codes or other systems have blue pants, and both the user's personal Mii and those specifically marked as favorites have red pants. There are also the Special Miis that have gold pants.
  • Miis will also have a favorite color assigned to them when being created. This will translate into them wearing or using items in that color when they're used in games. Some games may even give them abilities based on the color in question.
• Couch Gag:
  • On the Wii U, the player's Mii will do a different animation every time the console starts up.
  • On the main page of the My Nintendo site, your account's Mii will engage in many different activities, such as playing assorted video games, fishing, painting pictures, or polishing your My Nintendo Points containers. Some of these are also randomized as well; there are various consoles and games they'll play, different creatures and objects to fish up, assorted pictures they'll paint, and different places for the ladder they climb to polish the containers.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: It is perfectly possible to give male Miis Tertiary Sexual Characteristics typically associated with females, such as long hair, eyelashes, and/or prominent lipstick.
• Eyes Always Shut: One of the options for eyes. Also, a Mii's "happy" expression replaces their eyes with upside-down Us.
• Fake Crossover: Because of how simple yet surprisingly flexible the creation system is and how easy it is to share Miis to other systems, Miis based on characters from multiple different franchises are incredibly common. This is especially apparent in Miitopia, since the game picks Miis from Spotpass to fill town NPC roles. Why yes, that is Toriel at a shopping stall, Vegeta walking up and down the street and Velma Dinkley being lovey-dovey with the Heavy Weapons guy.
• Fingerless Hands: One of those things that depends on the game they appear in.
• Fishing for Sole: On the My Nintendo site, your Mii may go fishing on the main page. Though it's possible for them to pull up Cheep Cheeps and Bloopers, they can also end up reeling in discarded boots and Mario's cap. Rarely, there's a unique variant of the fishing screen where your Mii has a thought bubble with a Platinum Points token in it, and if you click on them when they feel a bite on the line, you can catch a token worth ten of them.
• Floating Limbs: In some games.
• Gag Lips: Some of the mouth options.
• Gag Nose: Most of the nose options.
• Girlish Pigtails: One of the hairstyles. There is a longer version of these starting with Wii U/3DS.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: The player Amiimal (as well as a few NPC Amiimals) in Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers starts off by wearing a yellow bandana and an orange jacket (and depending on the Mii chosen, a pair of glasses and/or a hat) but never wears pants throughout the whole game.
• Helium Speech: In Mario Kart 8, Miis have higher-pitched voices, which depending on your taste, which will make you either be annoyed with or adore them.
• Heroic Mime: For the most part. But depending on the game, it can be Zig-Zagged.
  • The first time a Mii could talk was in Mario Kart Wii, what voice depends on the Mii's gender, height, and weight. They could talk again in Mario Kart 7, except they'll always have the same voice, regardless of the height, weight, gender, etc. Mario Kart 8 gives Miis different voices depending on their favorite color and gender.
  • Miiverse posts can also count as talking, seeing how they move their mouths on Wara Wara Plaza.
  • While in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U the Mii Fighters didn't have voices, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate introduces voice options for them, although one can just ignore those and make them silent instead.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Both played straight and inverted, most games that take the Miis' weight into account usually make them look slimmer or bulkier than they do in the Mii maker, usually only having three base body types of "skinny, average, fat", and may not take height into account at all, likely to make development easier if they only had three models.
• Jack of All Stats: In titles like Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Miis all have 5/10 stars as stats. In some other games, like Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, this is averted, as the Mii's stats depends on its size and weight.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: It is perfectly possible to give female Miis Tertiary Sexual Characteristics typically associated with males, such as short hair, no hair, and even a mustache and/or beard.
• Lilliputians: They're all but stated to be this as shown in Tomodachi Life.
• Lilliputian Warriors: If you take the above as fact, their depictions as combatants in Miitopia and Super Smash Bros. (That series' resizing of characters aside) would definitely count as well.
• Limited Wardrobe: Depends on the game. Some limit Miis to just one default costume, but others offer a selection of hats and/or full costumes to dress Miis up in.
• Little Bit Beastly: This can result if someone tries to create a Mii form of an (usually anthropomorphic) animal.
• Medium Blending: Early on, only the Miis' bodies were 3D, while the bulk of their facial elements sans two of the nose options, were 2D.
• Mini-Me: Miis have a height scale that can change their size and can be duplicated. So, it's possible to have a, well, Mini-Mii alongside a larger one.
• Nigh-Invulnerability:
  • If Pilotwings Resort and Mario Kart are any indications, Miis can survive lava. Let that sink in.
  • In Tomodachi Life, they can also survive being flattened, falling from extreme heights, and being shaken as an infant. These little guys are resilient.
  • And in Miitopia, they can now survive exploding black holes and even the Big Bang itself (albeit on 1 HP). The only thing that can put them down for good is if they cast their own face away, which even then, turns them in a malevolent spirit instead of just killing them, and then get blasted by divine energy to finally destroy their soul. Anything else is, at worst, a Non-Lethal K.O..
• Out of Focus: Initially very prominent characters during the Wii, 3DS, and Wii U-eras, very few games released for subsequent consoles feature Miis outside ports/remakes and new entries of existing Mii-centric franchises.
• Painted-On Pants: They seem to have these in most of their appearances.
• Playful Cat Smile: One of the various mouth options.
• Plucky Comic Relief: A common purpose for Miis, serving as their main personality trait in the Tomodachi Life and Miitopia series.
• Prim and Proper Bun: Some hairstyle options.
• Promoted to Playable: After only serving as Wi-Fi icons in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, they are fully playable fighters in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
• Punny Name: Much like how "Wii" is a pun on "we", the word "Mii" is a pun on "me". Due to their Japanese origin, it can also be seen as the pronoun's Gratuitous English spelling.
• Recurring Location: Wuhu Island, which appears alongside Miis in several games.
• The Rival: To the Xbox 360's own avatar system called.... Avatars.
• Scannable Man: Via QR Codes on the 3DS and Wii U.
• Secret Character: A Mii can be played as in the "Flying Squirrel Ovation" level in New Super Luigi U, using the same method to play as Nabbit in the game's other levels.
• Serial Escalation: In the 3DS/Wii U generation, they have more facial options than they did in the Wii generation:
  • Four more head shapes have been added.
  • The facial features (e.g. makeup and wrinkles) have been split from a single set of twelve to two sets of twelve, allowing 144 possible combinations.
  • Sixty hairstyle options are added.
  • You can now change how big in height your Mii's eyebrows, eyes, and mouth are.
  • Twelve new eye and mouth designs each are now available.
  • Six new noses.
  • Two more lip colors, beards, and mustaches.
  • In the Nintendo Switch generation, Miis can now have custom hair, eyebrow, and eye colors, pleasing those who want to recreate a fictional character with bizarre hair or eye color.
• Sideways Smile: One of the mouth choices.
• Silent Bob: In a majority of the games they were first introduced in, they didn't have a single voice line and didn't speak.
• Skintone Sclerae: Some of the eye options.
• Solid Cartoon Facial Stubble: Miis have the option for a solid gray jawline, resembling stubble. This can overlap with full facial hair.
• Sphere Eyes: A few eye choices.
• Sudden Anatomy:
  • Miis with expression-limiting features will have those features temporarily changed to allow them to make specific expressions. For example, a Mii with Black Bead Eyes will grow irises and sclerae for its "shocked" expression. Also inverted for Miis with lips, as mouth expressions will make them disappear.
  • In some games, such as Mario Kart 7, they have defined hands and fingers in contrast to the ball-hands they usually have.
• Suddenly Speaking: Miis could finally speak complete sentences in the Japan exclusive Tomodachi Collection and could speak in English or one of several other languages in Tomodachi Life via Synthetic Voice Actor. They are incredibly low quality, but this seems to be part of the charm. Played with in Miitopia where they instead make nonsense noises (translated for the player), though the fact they can still speak at all may count as this for some. Most other games outside these two will either make Miis entirely silent or limited to Voice Grunting at best.
• Synthetic Voice Actor: In the Tomodachi Life series, they are depicted as having this. Even in the 2026 game, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream they still have rather low-quality ones despite technology for such becoming better because of its iconic status as the first time they were able to speak.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Female Miis will have a skirt with their bodies by default, unlike males.
  • The two base Miis when you make one from scratch are a man with short hair with spiky bangs and thick eyebrows with a constant "angry" look, and a woman with long hair, eyes with little lashes, and thinner eyebrows in a neutral look.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Some of the hairstyles.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Albeit limited. Though some games have more robust options for them, such as Tomodachi Life.
• Voice Grunting: The most they could ever say before Tomodachi Life, and most of the time, not even that.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: Miis will have these when they're surprised or shocked.

Wii Channels

• Funny Background Event: On the Mii Channel, there are quite a few of these: two Miis might talk to each other, complete with speech bubbles with ellipses in them; a Mii might sneeze; a Mii might fall asleep, before waking up shocked; or when lining Miis up, one might trip.
• Say It with Hearts: In the Check Mii Out Channel when viewing a parade, there's a chance the Miis might blow kisses to the viewer, complete with little hearts floating out from them.

Wii U Browser

• Cartoon Conductor: When the curtains are closed there's a chance that the Mii will twirl a baton.
• Cartoon Juggling: When the curtains are closed, there's a chance that the Mii may juggle three colored balls. At the end, they throw the red ball in the air, spin, and then catch it in their hand. There's also a variation in which they fail doing this.
• Catching Some Z's: When the curtains are closed, there's a chance the Mii will do this, and then wake up and make a bashful expression.
• Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: When the curtains are closed there's a chance that the Mii will pull a dove or a bouquet of flowers out of a hat.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: There's a chance that the Mii will play this with the player when the curtains are closed, albeit using hold up signs with the symbols on them, because of the Fingerless Hands trope.
• Say It with Hearts: When the curtains are closed there's a chance that the Mii will sing, complete with musical notes coming out.

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