Pawbert Lynxley and Kitty Cat chosen as furry characters of the year (kind of)

Members of the furry fandom on the social media site Twitter (or X if you're feeling mean) have chosen Pawbert Lynxley of Zootopia 2 as the recipient of the 2025 Furry of the Year Award. However, the choice has not been without some contreversy, as there is a strong contingent of fans of the bat character Sonar from the episodic video game Dispatch are also claiming the prize.

Meanwhile, other Twitter furries, noting a lack of a similar "award" for female characters, have offered up their take on the last nine years for the other gender. Though the 2025 pick, Kitty Kat of The Bad Guys 2, is much less contreversial than the male pick, there has been much less agreement on who the previous years' recipients should be.

Now, let's back up a minute, and point out that there is no such thing as the Furry of the Year Award. The male version started out as sort of joke response to the popularity of the character Nick Wilde from the original Zootopia, but didn't really take off until two years later, when the character of Haida from the anime Aggretsuko became popular enough that even the American dub's voice actor for the character, Ben Diskin, took notice. Since then, various people have offered up their choice for "furry of the year", and eventually a consensus has been more or less reached, despite no vote taking place or jury meeting to decide.

Furry of the Year-Male

The usually agreed upon "winners" of the award, after Nick, include the fox Gregg Lee from the video game Night in the Woods for 2017, giving foxes the first two years of the "award". With the following year going to the hyena Haida, that streak would end, but a new streak from a single species would soon begin. Some have mistakenly claimed that, whether the consensus finally settles on Pawbert or Sonar, they will be the first non-canid to "win", though that status actually belongs to Haida, as hyenas are not canids.

Wolves would claim the consensus pick for the next six years, starting with Legoshi from the anime Beastars. The manga it was adapted from was from 2016, but Legoshi is still seen as the 2019 pick, as that was when the anime began (and there are much worse qualifying year shenanigans coming up). Anime remained popular in 2020, with Shirou Ogami of BNA: Brand New Animal making the cut. 2021 is the beginning of the real shenanigans with dates, as 2022 saw two very popular DreamWorks Animation movies released, with two very popular wolf characters; Mr. Wolf from The Bad Guys and Death from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Mr. Wolf in the early in the year movie was given 2021, while Death's late in the movie year was given over to 2023, while 2022's actual choice went to video game Elden Ring's Blaidd the Half-Wolf taking the dark horse win. Finally, in 2024, the consensus landed on Von Lycaon of the video game Zenless Zone Zero.

Furry of the Year-Female

The consensus has not yet settled on the female version of the list, mostly because, as previously pointed out, it hasn't existed even in the unofficial, just-for-fun, yeah-that-makes-sense sort of way the male list has. Ironically, this year's consensus pick seems pretty uncontreversial, as Kitty Cat is a popular pick, and her main competition, Doom the crow, is from her own movie. If Pawbert has become the consensus choice when Twitter (and Reddit!) begin arguing over next year's pick, that will mean 2025 was taken by two cats from big American animated movies (they also share another trait, but Zootopia 2 has just released, and that's a spoiler!).

As there are no real rules, and even the basic guidelines such as "represent the year a character was introduced" have been fudged, in theory anything goes, but a few obvious consensus picks have developed. Judy Hopps, the rabbit protagonist of Zootopia, is the obvious pick for 2016, as that movie is why the male list starts at 2016 in the first place, and she is a very popular character, arguably more popular than her male fox partner. However, despite being the seemingly obvious choice, one of the first viral posts with a proposed female roster actually had the Pokémon Salazzle in the starting position, so everything really is up in the air, after all.

Other more obvious picks include 2019, the year of the pilot episode of the web animation Helluva Boss introduced us to the hellhound Loona, and 2022, which gave us vixen governor of California and ex-thief Diane Foxington from The Bad Guys, in her actual year of introduction. Less obvious choices, but still with a modicum of consensus, include Mae Borowski the cat and actual protagonist and player character of Night in the Woods for 2017, Queen Bee-lzebub the fennec fox/bee fly/lava lamp hybrid demon also from Helluva Boss but not introduced until 2023, and Zhen the corsac fox thief from Kung Fu Panda 4 for last year.

Going into years with a bit more debate, we have 2018, which could have Chilli Heeler (pictured above) from the animated television show Bluey, though if you prefer your animation targeted at a bit older audience, Retsuko the red panda and titular character of Aggretsuko could be a two-hander with Haida, or even her fennec fox co-worker, Fenneko, has been suggested. 2020 could see Audie the red wolf villager (pictured above) from the popular Animal Crossing series of games, or possibly, in another two-hander, Haru the rabbit from Beastars, in a bit of qualifying year shenanigans to not compete with uber-popular Loona (2020 is when the Beastars anime officially reached America). A bit of a heartbreaker year comes in 2021, with two very popular wolf characters introduced with Roxanne Wolf (pictured above) from the popular Five Nights at Freddy's series of horror games and Porsha Crystal from the animated movie Sing 2 (though some idiot on Twitter did suggest Sisu from Raya and the Last Dragon).

All in all, the female list is a bit more diverse than the male list, with only two years definitely belonging to wolves (if you count Loona as a wolf, which most people do), though foxes do take up at least three spots (though three species are represented, with red, fennec and corsac foxes accounted for) and canids still predominating. You could even say there is a rare furry insect inclusion with Bee, though that may be stretching the point.

It should be reiterated this is just for fun, and if your favorite character, of either gender, is not picked, well, this is all made up, anyway. Still, the fact that furry fandom has its own version of People's "Sexiest Man Alive" that is both widely agreed upon and also widely disagreed upon, is worth noting. It should be noted that popular mainstream furry characters obviously existed before 2016, and perhaps there should be an equivalent of an Honorary Oscar Award. I nominate Bugs Bunny.

For both lists, of course.

See also: The "Cutest Vixen Award" Tag