Inori Aizawa Is Microsoft’s Official Anime Character Representing Internet Explorer

November 10 11:58 2013 by Alexei Rivera Print This Article

Most Windows users already have it, but a decent percentage don’t actually use it. We’re talking about the pre-installed internet browser on our Microsoft OS machines called the Internet Explorer. Of course, historically that was because third party browsers offered more security, webpage compatibility, and customizable with plugins, skins, and the like. These days though, Microsoft’s browser is more secure, and based on what we hear should be able to hang with the best of them. Now it just needs a marketing campaign. Enter the anime character Inori Aizawa – the official character representative of Internet Explorer from Microsoft Singapore. There’s even a short anime video of her fighting robotic malware, it seems. (You can watch it below.)

There have been other Microsoft OS-tan mascots before, and some have actually become official, but technically Inori is not an OS-tan, she’s a browser-tan. (There’s a Chrome-tan, Safari-tan, Firefox-tan too.) Anyway, they’re typically fan-made characters that don’t get official approval – Inori Aizawa is one that did. While it may not sway the old dogs of the computer industry, new users (and some who are looking into something new) might just check IE out because of this campaign. The anime-clip (watch it below) with a bit of Malware-killing reference (we hope that’s what it means) might just put consumers at ease too.

Pretty fancy moves there. Anyway, the video ends by pointing you to a website InternetExplorerTan.com which leads to the character’s Facebook fan page here. (You can download wallpapers and such from the links on there.) Or with a bit of digging you can go to InternetExplorerTan.com/home which leads you to a site where she’s crying cause you’re not using IE. So we guess you should stop making a girl cry by installing Internet Explorer now.

However cute and fancy this new IE-tan is though, we still like the official Windows 7-tan. You can check out a video of her below for a quick comparison, we guess.