Moe (slang)

Moe (萌え, Moe^? /mo'e/, pronounced "mo-eh" literally "budding", as with a plant) is a Japanese slang word originally referring to fetish for or love for characters in video games or anime and manga. For example, 眼鏡っ子萌え, meganekko-moe, "glasses-girl moe", describes a person who is attracted to fictional characters with eyeglasses. The term has come to be used as a general term for a hobby, enthusiasm, or fetish (non-sexual)—鉄道萌え, tetsudou-moe, "train moe", is simply a passionate interest in trains. "Moe!" is also used within anime fandom, and even in some anime itself (such as in Ouran High School Host Club), as an interjection referring to a character the speaker considers to be a moekko. As with most aspects of fandom, manga and anime itself can be critical or supportive of moe otaku depending on a specific writer's opinion. Bishōjo anime and moe are occasionally treated as synonymous "genres", although this usually depends on the perception of how blatant the designed appeal of the show seems. Both the spellings moe and moé are used in English.^[1] Readers of English unfamiliar with Japanese words may be inclined to confuse the standard romanization moe with the name "Moe" and try to pronounce it as one syllable, [moʊ] or [məʊ]. Some writers add an accent mark in an attempt to indicate that the word should be pronounced as two morae, "mo" and "e".

Origins

Clarisse from The Castle of Cagliostro

Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket, is an example of the stereotypical moe style of manga characterized by such features as large, expressive eyes and a small, simple nose.

The term's origin and etymology is unknown. Anime columnist John Oppliger has outlined several popular theories describing how the term would have stemmed from the name of anime heroines (such as Hotaru Tomoe from Sailor Moon or Moe Sagisawa from the 1993 anime Kyoryu Wakusei) [1]. Others believe that it was a wordplay on "to burn" (燃える, moeru^?), figuratively interpreted as "to burn with passion" (in other words, to be madly in love). Some say that the popularity of the concept may have started with Hayao Miyazaki's Clarisse from his film The Castle of Cagliostro in the late 1970s. The concept kept growing and reached its current form with the wave of fanservice-heavy shows in the anime market. These shows are often called moe shows.

Moe features

The most common features include youthfulness as a physical trait (younger age or pigtails) or as an emotional trait (naive or innocent outlook) and some obvious sympathetic weakness the character works hard to correct (extreme clumsiness or a life-threatening disease) but never really succeeds to get rid of. However, most artists define moe not as a reference to a character so much as any personality that elicits a protective or loving response from the audience. For instance, being naive is very often considered as a favoured feature, but characters who have complicated and extremely deep thoughts may also be considered as moe depending on the audience. Appearance aside, the personality of moekko can vary widely; a tomboy or a sarcastic cynic could be considered moe given a specific audience. Some of the more popular moekko actually have a few traits that do not traditionally fit into the label, and others have gained such a following by accident. For example, Kyoko Otonashi, Yomiko Readman, and Mizuho Kazami are in their twenties or older, yet are often technically considered moe although they are not very young girls. In more unusual situations, Guilty Gear's Bridget, Happiness!'s Jun Watarase, and ∀ Gundam's Loran Cehack (who are all very convincing male crossdressers) have famously been accepted by many moe fans as they fulfill many of the typical traits found in moekko. Due to the upraising of female otaku, such as fujoshi, the term may also be applied to male characters as well, commonly in shōjo reverse harem anime such as Kyou Kara Maou and Ouran High School Host Club, where all the hosts are moe types; cool type, loli shota type, twincest or "forbidden brotherly love" type, prince type, silent protective type, etc. Shōjo dating sims and other shōjo games like Animamundi emphasise moe. Although moe is strongly (sometimes negatively) identified with male fandom they can share characteristics of female lead characters in shoujo, especially uncertainty, cuteness, and innocence. Just as yaoi relationships usually feature a more submissive character (Uke) paired with a more dominant character (seme), moekko style girls are typically paired with oneesama in yuri. In addition many series have characters and themes which are remarkably similar to Shōjo, although moe style series are initially aimed squarely at adult males due to most being on television during late broadcast hours. Moe focusing on younger characters is often confused with or even equated with lolicon, and shota but for many fans there is a subtle yet distinct line that separates them. To many moe-loyalists, the point is on supporting and watching rather than to imagine being actively involved with the character, with sexual implications being awkward or distasteful. This is sometimes explained as having a 'big brother complex' (which ironically can also have sexual connotations). More generally, many fans insist moe is implicitly non-sexual but, like most types of manga and anime, is sexualized after the fact by other fans again. Critics complain moe fandom tend to embrace characters who are nonthreatening and cute, or embrace a warped interpretation of some female characters in the form of a self-created idol.

Commercial application

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Further information: moe anthropomorphism

With moe anthropomorphism, moe characteristics are applied to give human elements to non-human objects. For example, the Weighted Companion Cube from Half Life spin-off game Portal. Also, the Gradius video game series features a spaceship in the name of Vic Viper. For a spin-off game, moe is applied to Vic Viper to create Otomedius.^[2] Moe characters have expanded within the Japanese media market. In 2004, the market for moe media such as printed media, video, and games was worth 88 billion yen. This is roughly one-third of the estimated 290 billion yen otaku market in Japan.^[3] Other examples include Operating Systems (OS-tan), Browsers (Opera-tan and Moezilla/Firefox-ko) and even Wikipedia (Wikipe-tan).

Moe tournaments

Internet voting tournaments are set up to determine the "most moe" character of the year.

Saimoe

Since 2002, the Saimoe Tournament (最萌トーナメント, Saimoe Tournament^?) is an annual fan voting single elimination tournament hosted by members of the Japanese forum 2channel.^[4] Moe characters entering within the fiscal year starting July 1 and ending June 30 the following year are eligible. Each tournament has at least 280 moe characters. They must have any of the following qualifications^[5]:

• Anime newly broadcasted in Japan on TV or internet over 5 stories or a half of the full stories in that period
• OVAs (Original Video Animations) newly released in Japan in that period
• Anime films newly screened in Japan in that period

To enter the tournament, the character must be female, though other species or even mechanical objects with female personalities have entered in the past. Jun Watarase from Happiness!, generally a male, was able to enter the tournament on the technicality that he was magically turned into a female for the OVA that fell within the time bracket. Even a horse named Star Bright from Strawberry Panic was in a tournament bracket. During the Saimoe Tournament 2006, Raising Heart, from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is also a competitor, making it the first, and the only one thus far, non-living character to enter Saimoe. The Saimoe Tournament has "free range" voting threads and voting takes places via a code generator and voting thread rather than using a polling system. Vote codes are used to distinguish legitimate votes as opposed to illegitimate votes. This method allows the use of the "fake voting" tactic, where illegitimate votes can be submitted intentionally to offset tentative voting numbers. This tactic is controversial to some voters, who claim that fake voting mislead supporters and other voters of the characters with false numbers. This would also cause the other character's support to boost their efforts and attract more voters. However, tournament organizers accept fake voting as a means to produce unpredictable outcomes. Spin-offs of the Saimoe Tournament include RPG Saimoe, which exclusively features video game characters, and SaiGAR, a competition between the manliest men of anime; despite the participation of Takamachi Nanoha in SaiGAR 2007^[6]. In 2006 and 2007, the Saimoe Tournament became an increasingly international event; 2channel users obliged foreign otaku by putting up an English version of their rules page.^[5] The final 3 rounds of the tournament features the Final Eight of the tournament.

Criticism

Superflat treatment of moe, showing an idealized Miyazaki-style character greatly distorted

Famed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, a feminist, is completely opposed to the often submissive qualities that these idols portray. His idea is to have female protagonists who are cute but who are also portrayed as very strong and resourceful as a response to more traditional gender roles. This view asserts that the otaku tended to assign a more traditional role to women often as a form of wish fulfillment. In response to the otaku fetishization of cute female characters Miyazaki stated:

The difference between the otaku view on cute females and Miyazaki's ideal (which was used as a basis for the otaku ideal) has been examined by some superflat artists, such as Cannabis' "Linda 3" series in Cannabis Works, or according to some theories much of the imagery deconstructing the moe fetish (with Rei Ayanami being the idol in this work) in Hideaki Anno's Evangelion series.

See also

• Figure moe zoku
• Ikki Moebile
• Cuteness in Japanese culture
• Moe anthropomorphism
• Moe drawing
• Moe sangyo
• Moeru Eitango Moetan
• Moe book

References

External links

Anime and Manga Portal

• Towards a Cartography of Japanese Anime: Anno Hideaki's >>Evangelion<< - Through an interview dealing with Evangelion the article sheds light on the origins of the Moe phenomenon
• Superflat Cultural Critic Hiroki Azuma Describes Otaku Aesthetics
• Mondo Japan 2004: New language from OTAKU world "MOE"
• An opinion on Moe by Love Hina author Ken Akamatsu (translation by Matthew Whitehead)