Your island in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream holds up to 70 Miis, and filling all those apartments takes more imagination than most players expect. The Mii creator is genuinely flexible, the Face Paint feature lets you push designs far beyond the presets, and the game's chaotic relationship system means even the strangest character pairings produce genuinely funny moments. Whether you want a themed island or just a beautifully weird collection of strangers, here are the best Mii ideas to get you started.
Mii creator options screen
Video game characters: where to start
Video game characters are the most popular category for a reason. The Mii creator's cartoony proportions suit them well, and you already know their personalities, which makes setting up Expressions and Phrases feel intentional rather than random.
Nintendo characters are the obvious first pick
Mario, Princess Peach, Link, and Princess Zelda are all well-documented starting points. They are recognizable enough that other players will immediately know who they are, and Nintendo's own promotional material for the game used characters like Hugh Morris and Bubbles to show exactly what the Mii aesthetic can achieve. If you want a thematic island, a full Super Mario Bros. roster, including Luigi, Princess Daisy, Princess Rosalina, and Bowser, is completely achievable.
Give Link a custom Expression using one of his classic exclamations. Having him shout "HAAAA!" at random island events is funnier than it has any right to be.
Resident Evil and action game characters
Leon Kennedy (specifically the Resident Evil 4 version) is one of the most recreated Miis in the community. Pair him with Ada Wong and Chris Redfield and you have a ready-made drama triangle. Chris particularly benefits from a Karate 101 or similar DVD gift, since watching him practice martial arts outside fits his boulder-punching reputation perfectly. You could extend this into a full Raccoon City setup with Albert Wesker, Claire Redfield, and Jill Valentine.
Other strong picks from the action genre include Lara Croft, Agent 47 (a bald man in a suit with a Perfectionist personality assignment works immediately), Bayonetta, and Phoenix Wright, who can shout "Objection!" at every minor island inconvenience via Expressions.
RPG and indie game characters
Joker from Persona 5, Kiryu Kazuma from the Yakuza series, Karlach from Baldur's Gate 3, and Johnny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 2077 all translate surprisingly well. From indie games, Sans from Undertale, Susie from Deltarune, and Krobus from Stardew Valley are popular choices. Krobus in particular makes a fitting roommate, which ties into the game's shared apartment mechanics.
GLaDOS from Portal is a more ambitious build that requires Face Paint work, but the payoff of having her interact with other island residents is worth the effort.
Pokemon characters
The Pokemon category splits into two directions. You can make human trainers like Cynthia, Ash Ketchum, Marnie, Misty, and Brock, or you can go the weirder route and make humanoid versions of the Pokemon themselves. Human Ditto is a community favourite, and players have successfully made Pikachu, Gardevoir, Incineroar, Leafeon, Umbreon, Vaporeon, Sylveon, and more. With 70 slots, you could theoretically run a personal Pokedex of fan-favourites.
The Face Paint feature in Artist Mode gives you access to layers and a flip tool. Characters like Shadow the Hedgehog and Pikmin variants require this level of detail to look right.
Face Paint artist mode tools
What are the best pop culture and TV Mii ideas?
The game's cartoony proportions work particularly well for animated and stylized characters. Cartoon and 2D characters often look better as Miis than realistic ones do, which makes this category especially rewarding.
Anime characters
Satoru Gojo and Yuji Itadori from Jujutsu Kaisen are among the most requested anime builds. Jotaro Kujo and Johnny Joestar from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Zoro from One Piece, Denji and Aki from Chainsaw Man, and Jinx from League of Legends: Arcane are all achievable with some Face Paint work. The community has also produced strong versions of Yor Forger, Anya Forger, characters from Neon Genesis Evangelion including Shinji and Asuka, and Frieren from Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.
Hatsune Miku deserves a special mention. She is one of the most recreated Miis across the entire community, and giving her a high-pitched voice with her most recognizable lyrics set as Phrases makes her an island highlight. Kasane Teto from UTAU is a natural companion build.
TV show characters
Walter White and Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad are a natural pairing. The dynamic between them in the game's relationship system tends to produce results that mirror their on-screen chemistry more than you would expect. Dr. Gregory House and Dr. James Wilson from House M.D. are another strong duo: their friendship in the show is already so chaotic that Tomodachi Life's relationship engine handles them perfectly.
Mark Scout and Helly R. from Severance, Finn the Human and Jake the Dog from Adventure Time (alongside Princess Bubblegum and Marceline), and Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender are all well-documented builds. The Adventure Time cast works especially well because the show's character designs are simple enough to translate cleanly.
Peter Griffin and Omni-Man from Invincible round out the TV category nicely. The contrast between the two on the same island produces genuinely absurd interactions.
Real-life people: the most personal Mii category
Tomodachi Life actively encourages real-life Miis. Friends, family, coworkers, musicians, athletes, and historical figures all work. The game's Mii News system even airs reports when Miis you have flagged as real-world partners get married in-game, which adds a layer of personal investment that fictional characters cannot replicate.
Barack Obama has been a Tomodachi Life staple since the original 3DS game. Jack Black, Taylor Swift, Zendaya, Sabrina Carpenter, Tom Holland, and Timothée Chalamet are all popular current builds. For athletes, LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lionel Messi give you a ready-made sports island. For historical figures, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, and William Shakespeare are documented community builds that produce reliably strange island interactions.
Content creators and streamers also fit naturally here. Their existing online personas make it easy to assign fitting Expressions and Phrases, and watching them interact with fictional characters produces the kind of chaos the game thrives on.
Recreating real people accurately requires more Face Paint work than most fictional characters. A cartoony approximation often reads better than an overly detailed attempt, since the Mii aesthetic naturally softens features.
How to make your Miis look better
The preset options are a starting point, not a ceiling. Resizing and repositioning individual facial features produces hairstyles and eye shapes that do not exist as presets. Enlarging the upper eyelids and shrinking the pupils creates anime-style eyes. Adjusting bangs and back hair separately gives you more hairstyle variety than the combined presets suggest.
Switching to Artist Mode in the Face Paint feature is the single biggest upgrade for complex characters. The layer system lets you build up detail without losing earlier work, and the flip tool saves significant time on symmetrical elements. Characters like Shadow the Hedgehog, Shrek, Coraline, and any Pikmin variant require this approach.
For clothing, the Where & Wear shop rotates stock, so completing a character look sometimes requires patience. Agent 47 needs a suit, Professor Layton needs a tophat, and Hugh Morris needs a clown outfit: all of these depend on what the shop offers at any given time. Check the Mii customization guide for a full breakdown of how to set up pronouns, dating preferences, and personalities to match your characters.
Personality slider settings
Themed island ideas worth trying
Rather than filling your island at random, a theme gives the relationship system more interesting material to work with. Here are the setups that tend to produce the best results:
- Raccoon City: Leon Kennedy, Ada Wong, Chris Redfield, Albert Wesker, Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine
- Nintendo All-Stars: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Link, Zelda, Kirby, Princess Daisy
- Breaking Bad house: Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, and supporting cast with chemistry lab-themed interiors
- Jujutsu Kaisen school: Satoru Gojo, Yuji Itadori, Yuta Okkotsu, and the wider cast
- Personal roster: Friends, family, coworkers, and a few wildcard celebrities
- Pokemon trainer gym: Cynthia, Ash, Misty, Brock, Marnie alongside humanoid Pokemon builds
Mixing a hero and villain from the same universe is particularly worth doing. The game's relationship system does not know or care about canonical dynamics, so watching Batman and the Joker become best friends, or Leon Kennedy and Albert Wesker develop a rivalry, produces moments that are genuinely hard to predict.
For everything from importing existing Miis to managing relationships once your island is full, the Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream guides collection covers every mechanic in detail.