Forum - View topicIf not moe then what?
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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It strikes me as kinda odd when people say they have a dislike of moe girls. When I hear that, one thing pops into my mind is that the person does not like girls in general. It would be safer to say a certain percentage of viewers just don't watch anime for the sake of the pleasing sight of attractive girls, but for other reasons like action, adventure, mecha, or a story. After all those are all legitimate reasons to watch it and no one says a show must have cute characters to be interesting or enjoyable.
But it still makes me wonder what people really mean they don't like moe. If the cute character designs don't appeal to you, you must be watching the show for another reason, and if the character designs are a turn-off to you, then watch other shows for the the purpose of seeing visually pleasing characters. Moe is very subjective so as long as the character designs look attractive to you, doesn't it qualify as moe? I mean if one is claiming that a character looks attractive, be it sexy, cute, pretty or otherwise appealing but you wouldn't qualify as moe, what exactly would that be (give examples)? |
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ShinobiX
 Posts: 889 Location: NY |
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in this situation 3 type of people:
1. I like 2. idc 3. I hate Haters everywhere you go. Haters always want to be known. People like moe. It' just that the people who hate moe bark louder. Most people don't waste their time listening to incoherent arguments produced by most of the haters (compare views to posts). Other half don't care. Also, look up the word moe. It doesn't just refer to the word cute as you make it seem. |
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naninanino
 Posts: 680 |
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When I think of moe girls, I think of deformed and simplistic character models. Usually small in stature as well, suggesting young age. Of course there are also child characters who have more of a reason to look like this. That is if I am to describe my view from just looking at the character model. I could define this as looking cute.
Personally I prefer more detailed desings without much deformation, like Mamiya from Fist of the North Star, or Deedlit from Record of Lodoss War. The design of Hayase Misa from Macross: Do You Remember Love, is a good one too. Likes of these I would say are beautiful or pretty. Then again, being a moe character is more than just looking at the character design. You should take into account the mannerisms, voice acting, dialogue and how they function within the genre they are in. Most typical are slice of life settings, but they've infested other genres as the years have gone by as well. I have no idea why some people insist on defining everything as moe. Are they afraid that we might have more subgenres to define out anime? |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7994 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Moe? Well, he's a member of the classic comedy trio, The 3 Stooges, of course. The other two being Larry and Curly.
Anyway, on a serious note if you hear me say I tend it dislike "moe" in a conversation related to anime. It means I dislike the art style used to draw something like A Little Snow Fairy Sugar or some other show archetype where you're bombarded with pastel colors, massively huge-eyed, pre-pubescent girls, talking animal mascot things, and other cutesy/girlie stuff that adult males, like myself, aren't usually interested in. I'm a lot more tollerant of it then other folks though as I'd be willing to overlook it to a certain degree if the storyline was worth it. Last edited by Kruszer on Fri Apr 15, 2011 11:34 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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jsc315
 Posts: 925 |
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Like what ever you like I honestly could care less but dont try and make it like it the best thing out there. If you want to watch big breasted girls in anime that really do nothing then thats fine by me enjoy that, but to come off and make it out to be like that is the only thing good in anime is just annoying and stupid. I have no problems with it myself its the fans that annoy me.
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egoist
 Posts: 7762 |
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It means that their definition of moe is so narrow that they don't realize they're sounding like hypocrites considering the wide application of the term "moe". In other words, even Tiger & Bunny has moe. Fist of the North Star had moe, otherwise Ken wouldn't be travelling with some useless 10-year-old. Last edited by egoist on Fri Apr 15, 2011 11:27 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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Snow Fairy Sugar character designs I actually like very much, actually anything Koge Donbo I find cute and quite the typical representation of the moe look, with the other "by the book" implications of it too, like innocent looking, inciting the desire to protect, and platonic type of attraction because of not (necessarily) appealing to sexual aesthetics.
I suppose for a person, such as myself, not turned off by moe it's because the character designs I like (and prefer when they are present in a show) happen to line up with generalized, stereotypical assumptions of what moe looks like. I agree mature looking females mentioned, like Misa and Deedlit, are attractive and sexy and incite a feeling in viewers hearts, and because of their mature aspects, personality-wise and appearance-wise are definitely other-than-moe. |
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Genten
 Posts: 71 Location: A Mitten (Michigan) |
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Participated in a yaoi discussion here, might as well step in this one too.
I believe that the people who claim to hate the concept of moe itself (or moe girls) are using a narrow definition they have come up with over their years of watching anime. Through their experiances they have come across certain specifics that strike them as moe and have decided that they dislike these traits. For example, say someone watched a lot of anime and noticed that many of them had girls with pink hair. Now, these girls with pink hair were so prevelant that, to the viewer's mind, they messed with the show. Eventually, the mere presence of pink haired girls in an anime automatically signified to the viewer that it was going to be a bad series. This would be one viewers definition of moe. So, basically, people who claim to hate moe/moe girls only hate a certain set of characteristics they've decided signify moe. It's pretty hard to hate moe as a concept, because the term is very broad, so simplifying it down to 'I dislike little girls/girls with twin tails/pink haired girls/etc and I believe that explains moe' allows for much easier discussion. As for why someone would hate such traits I can only imagine it relates to pure aesthetics or the belief that these traits somehow signify a bad anime because of how prevelant they are. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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Moe is a term that popped up a few years ago that loosely translates to 'any anime I do not like' and is a great scapegoat to use when one does not have any real points to make but wants to voice a poor generalization of something he or she dislikes.
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Calathan
 SubscriberPosts: 9113 |
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My thought is that many people use the term "moe" to mean very different things. While a lot of people seem to now use "moe" to refer to characters they find cute, or characters draw with a certain art style, I'm pretty certain it originally referred to the emotion of wanting to protect and nurture someone, or characters who evoke that emotion. Basically, it referred to the kind of fealings that a father or older brother might have for a daughter/younger sister (thoguh a lot of works trying to be moe are aimed at people who are sexually attracted to characters that evoke such feelings . . . which is one reason why people might say they dislike it, as in that sense it is kind of creepy). When I first heard explanations of the term "moe" several years ago, that was how it was explained.
Incidentally, the first explanation of the term I heard was at a Megatokyo panel at Otakon several years back, where Fred Gallagher for some reason was talking about Moetan (or something very similar to it . . . and this was before it had an anime, buy the way), and gave an explanation about moe. But I think the best explanation I heard of the term was something Ken Akamatsu wrote somewhere (maybe in an early Negima volume . . . either that or just on the web somewhere), where he basically described it how I described it above. So if for some reason you think I'm incorrect about what "moe" originally referred to, blame Fred Gallagher and Ken Akamatsu. But anyway, at some point people started using "moe" to refer to character designs that were used in works that tried to evoke moe feelings in people (such as Kanon and other visual novels of that sort). In my opinion, the character designs in those games/anime were used to make the characters look cute in a specific way that furthers the feelings of needing to protect and nurture the characters. This went along with how the characters acted in a "moe" way, i.e. how the characters in games like Kanon really need the protagonist to help them. However, eventually those character designs became so associated with "moe" that people refered to them as "moe" regardless of how the characters acted or whether the characters actually evoke "moe" feelings (though of course, whether a character evokes moe feelings would differ from viewer to viewer). Anyway, somehow from there, some people have started defining "moe" as just meaning a character you find cute. I personally think that it is incorrect to refer to any character you find cute as being moe, and think that it at least still refers to a specific art style or type of behavior. As for why someone might say they don't like moe, it is possible that they don't like it because they are using the first definition I gave above and find it creepy. It is also possible that they don't like the art style that became associated with "moe", but aren't referring to how the characters act. It also could be that they find the way moe character act to be a turn-off, but don't specifically have anything against the art style. Since works tring to evoke moe feelings need to present their characters as being someone who needs protecting and nurturing, the characters sometimes come off as weak (e.g. in Kanon it seems like some of the characters literally can't live without the protagonist). I could certainly see how having shows where all the female characters are emotionally weak would turn poeple off. Anyway, sorry for this overly long explanation, but basically I think anyone who says they don't like moe does not mean that they don't like characters they find cute (as obviously that doesn't make sense), but instead likely doesn't like it for one of the reasons given above (or some other reason based of another definition of moe besides just meaning cute). |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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I'll answer your original question, "If not moe, then what?"
There's a lot of "what" that I'd like to see more of. Women like Balsa in Moribito, Hiroko in Hataraki Man, Yuuko in Twelve Kingdoms, or Nina Fortner in Monster are good starting points. Since those aren't the kind of women that appeal to the reliable otaku market in Japan, we've come to see fewer and fewer of them as the anime audience has contracted. |
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Generic #757858
 Posts: 1354 |
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Maybe so. That still doesn't mean I have to like something like K-ON!, Clannad or Toradora. I don't watch stuff that I don't like, definitions and justifications be damned. |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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Thank you for the in-depth discussion points Calathan and if I may there's a thought that I'd like to add that I think adds to it. And that is perhaps the disgust some people have, not just the creepy factor, is how an anime might make people feel uncomfortable because it creates an emotion that's in a way invasive to what people normally expect to get out of watching an animated show. Many people simply want to be entertained by seeing action scenes, good special effects and an interesting story but when an anime unexpectedly fosters these other, perhaps unwelcome, feelings that are associated with the intent of moe it creates sort of a flight or fight response in the viewer. If that's a feeling the viewer does not care to feel again he is going to write off any future anime with the visual elements of moe as being stupid. All in order to defend their reasoning, and in the case of guys, their masculinity.
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Hypeathon
Posts: 1176 |
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I just want to say first of all that I have a hard time understanding how moe has to do with a desire to protect someone. Like even if that is true, I have not heard one fan examplify that in such a way where I could relate to it somewhat. I just don't understand how that works when you call a character "moe", like my first thought would never really be, "oohh this girl is soooo moe!! I want to protect her from the world," or something like that.
That being said, I've been wondering about this topic all day and I took the time to listen to that ANNCast episode, "Moe Money, Moe Problems" and after listening to it again, I had a theory about something. I wondered why characters that are considered moe in any way in Japanese animation, comics and video games are only teenagers or younger and why they mainly appeal to nerds or otaku or whatever. One could argue it's to get fans to buy the products of a show that character is associated with and I wouldn't disagree with that. Though I wonder if there's also an additional, psychological reason that I wouldn't say has to do with wanting to protect a character necessarily so much as it's wanting to experience that character as being the ideal best friend, sibling, or girlfriend depending on the traits of that moe character. Now I'm just generalizing because I'm sure this doesn't apply to every anime fan out there. But I would assume many anime fans don't or didn't have a girlfriend or best friend high school or middle school in which they were likeable and you could spend all sorts of fun times with them. And a character that a anime fan would find moe might represent what it would be like if that fan had a best friend or girlfriend like that. I don't know if everyone agrees with me on that, but if say that was actually, then I could certainly understand and appreciate moe more in that sense. I know I liked K-ON enough not exactly because I fantasized about being around these characters but because fantasized about having their recreational, fun, care-free, high school lifestyle. @ Past: I think some people care more about the idea of anime focusing on narrative and plot or having characters with traits that help tell a story than having a cast of characters that appeal to specific people. No matter how I look at it, moe seem to focus on characters exploiting how they behave and how it would definitely appeal to certain people in an audience. It's so much to do with showing traits and character reveals that would be hard to merge that into telling a driven plot without slowing it down. That alone would turn off people that do care for a plot and if moe is to do with cute, young female characters with a cute looking design, cute-sounding voice as a common pattern, then that would turn some people off even more if that's not what they care for. They might want a more diffeerent type of female character like the anime equivalent of wonder woman or something. |
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mascthemoney
 Posts: 6 |
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well imma say something that will make us all realize how much of an anime fan we all are.
we all love moe. no doubt about it. but only if it applies to anime characters. it works only in their world. somebody acting moe in real life comes off as "faking it for attention." could u imagine a grown woman crying/kyaa-ing over thunder? maybe in jcstaff-vision, but not in real life. at least it wouldnt be attractive in real life, unless you're a maniac. or being "clumsy", etc. list goes on. point is, moe only works in our world. in real life, it's more about the attitude a girl has. |
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