What do you treat as an animate and inanimate object when counting?

Question

In Japanese animate and inanimate objects are treated differently.

For people:

• the verb exist いる is used

• the generic counter (一{ひと}つ, 二{ふた}つ, 三{みっ}つ, ...) cannot be used

• the specific counter (一{ひと}人{り}, 二{ふた}人{り}, 三{さん}人{にん}, ...) must be used

For animals:

• the verb exist いる is used

• there is a specific counter (一{いっ}匹{ぴき}, 二{に}匹{ひき}, 三{さん}匹{びき}, ...)

For inanimate objects:

• the verb exist ある is used

• there are specific counters but the generic counter (一{ひと}つ, 二{ふた}つ, 三{みっ}つ, ...) can be used

I understand that it is offensive to refer to people as inanimate objects but I wonder if there are exceptions to referring to “inanimate” objects as “animate”. Does Japanese have “personification” or “anthropomorphism” where inanimate objects (or animals) are treated as people?

Can animals be treated with the generic counter? There are many counters in Japanese and I find that it is otherwise acceptable to use generic counters as Japanese learners are not expected to know them all.

What is the boundary for treating something as if it were a person? For example, can company/city/team mascots, children’s toys, fictional non-human characters, robots be treated as humans with いる and counters? Does this work similarly to the use of “he/she/they” vs. “it” in English or it is different? Is it considered playful/childish or outright offensive (e.g., racist) to imply that a group people are animals or other objects in Japanese?

Answer 1

First question: Yes, it's treated that way once personified.

Second question: No. For example, ２つのラクダ means "a camel with 2 humps". However, you could say ラクダ２つ if camels are commodity and you recognize them as a kind of vehicles. Counter for animals is enough with 匹.

Third question: Yes, and as for robots, you would use 体 as long as you recognize them as something close to dead bodies.