Moogle

Moogles are creatures that appear in each of the  games, always running one of the game's shops. They generally operate their omnipresent stores through holograms, instead of in person, as they hate getting their pom-poms ruffled. In , Kingdom Hearts II, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Kingdom Hearts coded, they run synthesis shops where Sora or Roxas can synthesize items to make new weapons and armor; the Moogle Shop in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is even available in Mission Mode, in the main menu. In Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, they sell various cards to Sora in Moogle Rooms, and in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, they sell Deck Commands that can be purchased in holographic versions of their shops. To date, moogles are the only characters hailing from the Final Fantasy series to have appeared in all released Kingdom Hearts games.

Appearance
Moogles generally share a uniform appearance. They are small, white creatures resembling plush toys, with large, spherical heads, small ears sprouting out of the sides of their heads, and stubby hand and feet that lack distinct digits. Their eyes are constantly narrowed into brown slits, giving the appearance of being closed despite having open eyes in the Final Fantasy series, and their noses are bulbous and pink. Moogles also sport tiny, purple wings like those of a bat on their backs and, perhaps their most distinctive traits, large, red, spherical "pom-poms" on attached to the tops of their heads by a thin, brown antenna.

In Kingdom Hearts II, the hologram for Mogtaro, the Timeless River moogle, appears in monochrome like everything else in that world, making him one of the few moogles to be visually distinctive.

In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, the only moogle to appear dresses in its own black cloak. Its ears are visible poking through the hood, as is its pom-pom. Its hood covers its eyes, and it seems to wear black gloves over its hands.

Story

 * For further information regarding Moogle Shops in the stories of various games, please see Moogle Shop.

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
Moogles run Command Shops on all but two worlds, and use holograms for each of them except the Radiant Garden shop, which is run in person. At the Mirage Arena, the resident moogle instead runs a "Medal Shop", where the Medals earned from the world's mini-games can be used to buy rare items and commands.

Kingdom Hearts
Moogles appear only in Traverse Town, refugees from the destruction of their respective home worlds. After Sora uses Trinity Ladder in the Accessory Shop, he opens a path to the moogles' Item Workshop, where the moogles will accept his synthesis items in order to craft various recovery items, accessories, and weapons.

According to a moogle in the First District, Pinocchio enjoys ruffling the moogles' pom-poms.

Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories
Memory-based moogles appear in special "Moogle Rooms", which are generated by the Map Card of the same name. These moogles sell Sora various packs of cards in exchange for the Moogle Points he finds throughout the castle.

On their way out of the Neverland floor, Donald Duck is struck by a falling moogle.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
A moogle wearing a black coat has a business relationship with Organization XIII. However, it holds no loyalty to them, and ends up following his best customer, Roxas, when the latter flees from The World That Never Was to Twilight Town.

Kingdom Hearts II
By the time Sora awakes from his slumber, moogles are once again running shops on most worlds, using holograms everywhere but Radiant Garden and Twilight Town. Each moogle names their shop after themselves:
 * Twilight Town: Elmina's Moogle Shop
 * Radiant Garden: Mog's Workshop
 * The Land of Dragons: Kupo's Moogle Shop
 * Beast's Castle: Monty's Moogle Shop
 * Olympus Coliseum: Mosh's Moogle Shop
 * Disney Castle: Mogjiro's Moogle Shop
 * Timeless River: Mogtaro's Moogle Shop
 * Port Royal: Morlock's Moogle Shop
 * Halloween Town: Gumo's Moogle Shop
 * Agrabah: Mojito's Moogle Shop
 * Pride Lands: Kumop's Moogle Shop
 * Space Paranoids: Artemicion's Moogle Shop
 * The World That Never Was: Stiltzkin's Moogle Shop

Kingdom Hearts coded
Data-based moogles appear throughout the datascape to run most of the realm's Shops. They sell various command, accessory, and finisher chips.

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
Several moogles can be found in the Fourth District of Traverse Town running the Coliseum, as well as several shops.

Kingdom Hearts III
The moogles once again run the Moogle Shop in Kingdom Hearts III.

Kingdom Hearts II
Selphie's purse has a moogle clip attached to it. There is also a special Gummi ship modeled after a moogle.

Dissidia Final Fantasy
In the Dissidia Final Fantasy sub-franchise, the moogles' appearance is based upon those depicted in Kingdom Hearts, albeit with a comically disproportionate nose, pom-pom and body, and seemingly absent wings, though it still floats. In Dissidia Final Fantasy NT and Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia, the moogles' design is modified to resemble their Kingdom Hearts appearance more closely.

Dissidia Final Fantasy


In Dissidia Final Fantasy, the Moogle appears as a summon. The moogle appears in a cutscene upon acquiring its summon during the "Inward Chaos" storyline. If the summon is acquired while playing as Terra Branford, she runs towards the moogle and cuddles him, along with the moogle telling Terra to stop ruffling his pom-pom.

Moogles also show up to send letters to the player through the Mognet. These letters often reward the player with prizes.

Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy
In Dissidia 012, it is stated that the moogles are the only species in the world aside from manikins, though even the characters do not know how they exist. They operate shops around the world, trading "KP" for equipment with the player's character. In the game's bonus storyline, "Confessions of the Creator", the player rescues a "mured moogle" trapped in the Cavern of the Rotting Land, who then directs them to the Lands of Discord to destroy Feral Chaos, the game's superboss. Along the way, the moogle begins to recover its lost memories, and eventually reveals itself as Cid of the Lufaine, the mastermind and overseer of the cycles of war, shapeshifted into the form of a moogle.

Like in the first Dissidia installment, moogles send letters to the player through the Mognet and offer rewards to the player.

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT
In Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, a moogle act as the in-game tutor, appearing in the battle menu screens and acting as the announcer for the combat system.

In the game's storyline, the moogles serve as guides to Terra and Zidane Tribal in their quest to gather summons to learn more about the new gods, Materia and Spiritus, who reign over the revitalized World B. After Kuja arrives to save Terra and Zidane from Emperor Mateus and Sephiroth, Terra and a moogle persuade Kuja to join their party to find the summons. Once Materia's and Spiritus's champions defeated Shinryu, the moogles give a crystal to each of the warriors to host their memories to create doppelgängers of themselves to serve the gods in the new cycles of wars, while the real warriors are returned to their homeworlds.

Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia
In Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia, a moogle named Mog appears as a non-playable character in the game's storyline. He is described to be an "ancient moogle" who acts as the guardian spirit of the world Materia and Spiritus created to allow their champions to rest after their battles in World B. One day, dimensional distortions known as Torsions appear, threatening the world's equilibrium and unleashing hordes of monsters across the lands. In order to restore the world's stability, Mog volunteers to recruit warriors who bear the light to close the Torsions before the world is destroyed. Initially appearing as a subordinate to Materia, it is later revealed that Mog is secretly working alongside Spiritus for unknown reasons. Over time, the warriors begin to question Mog's motives, sensing that they are being manipulated by him for some unknown agenda.

Final Fantasy XIII-2
Mog, a main character in Final Fantasy XIII-2, is based on the moogle's Kingdom Hearts design, albeit with a crystal "pom-pom", a smaller nose, and a bigger head. He carries a staff with a clock design, and can transform into Serah Farron's bowsword. He was given by Lightning via Noel as "a good-luck charm".

Mario franchise
A Moogle also appears as a playable character in Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and Mario Sports Mix, both of which were made by Square Enix.

Origin
The Moogles are a race of small creatures that was spawned from and primarily appears in the Final Fantasy franchise. They first appeared in Final Fantasy III, and have shown up in nearly every franchise entry afterward. The Japanese name is a portmanteau of the Japanese words mogura (mole) and kōmori (bat), animals that the moogles display physical traits of. Moogles are known for ending many of their sentences with "kupo."

Each of the Kingdom Hearts II moogles is named after a notable Final Fantasy moogle. Most of them are named after moogles from the Mognet in Final Fantasy IX.

Notes and references
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