Arale is a robot built by Senbei Norimaki that looks like a little girl. She is known for her naivety, energetic personality, lack of common sense, and amazingly unbelievable strength. Among her strength she can use abilities that range from the terrain splitting Chikyūwari ( Earth Chop) to the beam-like Nchahou ( N'cha Cannon). She is nearsighted and needs to wear glasses. Senbei Norimaki's mission is to convince the other citizens of Penguin Village that she is just a normal human girl. It seems to work, despite her superhuman athletic ability.

She has long, bluish-purple hair in the original manga and anime series, but has dark-brown hair in the 1997 Dr. Slump anime. Like the name of the other major characters (senbei), Arale is a pun on the name for a bite-sized rice cracker (arare) and with the family name ("Norimaki Arare") it refers to a sort of arare wrapped with nori seaweed.