Forum - View topicWhat do you think of moe?
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rainbowcourage
 Posts: 1216 Location: what is commonly known as "hell week" |
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If you carefully read my original wording, I was not suggesting that there's a connection other than heightened sensitivity to the subject matter i.e. their perception. I've heard people from the generation before mine talk about how the world is changed and how paranoid people have to be now, especially about their children. And the media has certainly made some abductions into circuses. On top of that, the growth of the internet over the past two decades has certainly not harmed child abduction stats.
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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That's the impression I was getting from ikillchicken's discussion with abunai and I why was curious of what specifically hehad an issue with. He didn't give specifics which makes it hard to pin down but his answer seems to support this conclusion. |
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zanarkand princess
 Posts: 1484 |
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I don't think child abdution has anything to do with it after all why are we looking at u.s statistics when moe is made in japan and a lot of it doesn't even come out here. I find that the portayal of women is more of a problem not just because moe girls tend to be incredibly naive and just plain stupid in some cases but the fact that they need to be constantly taken care of. Moe isn't mainstream here so it's not going to take the blame of lowering any american girls self esteem but those that do watch it female anime fans who are already portrayed as unconfident and "strange" or otherwise ignored, It doesn't really help them...us idk.
Personally it doesn't affect me in that kind of way but in the end doesn't it have the same effect as those magazine covers and music videos that femminists hate so much? |
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HitokiriShadow
Posts: 6251 |
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While the seeming abundance of such characters may be a problem, it is not inherently necessary for moe. That character type is just easily exploitable to get the moe reaction out of certain fans. Even so, I don't think that a character simply being like that is necessarily a problem, but it depends on how its done and perhaps what their role in the story is. I think it becomes a problem when all of those characteristics are bundled together for cheap exploitation with little other characterization to back it up. And its especially bad when its the main girl. |
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skyler25
 Posts: 59 |
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I agree with the above post. For me, moe is, as an art form, something that's nice to look at. It's cute, it's fun, it gives a little extra something to character designs. I, personally, like it -gasp-
What I really prefer to pay attention to is the plot of the anime in question and the personalities and development of the characters. If they're moe but shallow, then they are no more interesting than pretty pieces of furniture. As for the helpless-little-girl aspect of moe, that's really a case-to-case thing. Nagisa Furukawa from Clannad is an example. She's pathetically helpless, but so well-developed that I can't help but like her. Mikuru Asahina from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is cute and funny, and really not much else, but I wouldn't want to kill her or anything... The girls from Lucky Star are too fun to hate... Then you get something insipid, like Kamichama Karin Chu. Plot and character development are on the brink of nonexistance, but as long as it's not taking itself too seriously or trying to be something it isn't, I can tolerate it. And I suppose you could use it as reference or something if you were trying to draw moe... |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Yeah, you could put it that way. Maybe a fair compromise would be to say that exploitation of moe is the problem. Anyway, I'm not really trying to place blame. In the end the problem that I see is that a lot of the time by appealing through moe a poor anime can succeed. There are certainly exceptions though where moe is still good. I also agree that moe is far from the only case of this. I dislike harem, ecchi, or fanservice excessive anime for the same reasons. Really, a lot of things and be exploited although these tend to be the worst. I can agree as well that there has always been poor quality junk. Were my concern mainly comes from is the amount we currently see. I don't have any delusions that moe will completely take over anime or any such thing. However, it does seem to be becoming a lot more significant that I'd like to see. Especially with the industry in transition as it struggles to adapt to new consumer demand, new technology and new markets. I think we need quality anime now more than ever.
Well naturally the more prevalent something is, the more of a response it will cause. (good or bad) The backlash is caused by a number of things. Some I think are reasonable and some are just overreactions. A more limited presence of moe would be good. At the very least it would hopefully limit the spill over into otherwise non-moe anime. It's tough to say if less moe would cut it down to only the quality stuff or cut out the quality in favor of cheaper and easier exploitative stuff. Either way, if it were limited it would be of much less significance. I'd hope for the sake of moe fans that it would result in less but higher quality. |
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G-mofactor
 Posts: 797 Location: Atlantis to Interzone |
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Yeah! Thats another way to go at it. A solution that I think could be a long term trial and error, which can be describe as a marketing scheme to what works better. I believe limiting something will also have some end result of limiting other things. I am not saying to achieve a state of equilibrium to please everyone, but consistency. Say that today or now, the hype is that there has been many anime release that has the element moe, some fans are complaining about the sudden change. To think of it, the early 90s was filled with action, and similar elements. Its just change of time, when people notice trends, it just keeps on going until it slows down. Okay, then the industry is going to put out another sub-genre, theme, or idea to work out to please the other fans. However, no matter what, consistency doesn't last too long. Moreover, for the sake of the moe fans, they will get their fair share just like any other fans because Japanese animation has well improved. |
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einhorn303
 Posts: 1180 |
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Possibly not. After all, the appeal of moe is a very personal thing...it's falling in love with a character, with a unique combination of personality and characteristics. The less moe shows there are, the less variety in moe girls there will be, and the less chance of you finding that one optimal configuration you can go all "moe~!!" over. Like, if the only moe show of the season was Haruhi...Haruhi has a high budget and production values, so it's a "good show." And I like Nagato, but Nagato isn't really the ideal for me...something more along my lines would be Rin Tezuka from Disability Girls, who's the "silent, book-reading" type but she has a slightly more joking, more quirky, and more tomboyish personality, as well as the Thalidomide deficiency which adds an interesting and unique fetish. Even though Disability Girls has a much lower budget (I mean, it's a fan produced game made available for free download), it's unique variety of characters is able to hit me more in my moe-glands. So when it comes to moe shows, a variety of lower-budgeted shows can often be better than one high-budget show. |
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Ikari1
 Posts: 531 Location: London |
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Ok fair enough. I can see where my comments might have been misunderstood. I didn't like the way in which my comment was being used to call others foolish was all. I lost my temper slightly so please accept my apologies with regards to the keyboard sword comment. That was a comment too far. |
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rainbowcourage
Posts: 1216 Location: what is commonly known as "hell week" |
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Okay, I'm getting sick of explaining. I am looking at U.S. statistics because I am presuming most of the "flaming" that people on this english-speaking message board have seen come from other english-speaking messageboards. I have no idea how the Japanese feel about moe, but since it's popular enough to be a whole character-type, there can't be too many people ranting about it, can there? Thus, I presume that a lot of the objections to moe come from here, the U.S. And I really do think there is a larger focus in recent times upon child abductions and sexuality especially since the internet boom. But THAT'S ALL I'M SAYING. Not that moe influences child abductions or vice versa! Just that anime-viewers who have grown up during this day and age might be less tolerant of moe. Do I need to explain again or am I going to continue to be misquoted and accused of saying that all child molesters are driven to their actions by watching moe? 
*sorry, rainbow's a little cranky tonight and hates having words put into her mouth as well; bad combo |
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Alestal
 Posts: 605 Location: Dallas, Texas |
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I don't really want to get involved with this discussion, but I can't resist!
I think moe doesn't add anything to a story, the characters are really fake and you can't relate to them. I think the fact that some people can get sexual pleasure from watching moe is very disturbing (they can be small children).I think they could tone down moe a few notches and not blatenly throw it about in some titles, watching moe (with a anime-ignorant viewer) can be very akward and make anime seem very....  .
But everyone is entitled to thier own opinion, and I have to remember that anime is made in Japan. They have very different views on things, and look at anime with a different eye then american viewers. I'm very surprised that there are american viewers that enjoy moe. I was under the impression that it was something we had to deal with, like fanservice. |
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einhorn303
Posts: 1180 |
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There is no "we," man...that is to say, there is no single monolithic group of American anime fans. There's people who love lolicon and DFC, there's people who like Trigun and DBZ, people who like only giant robot shows from the 70's and those who only watch ero anime. The market of American moe fans has grown pretty dramatically since, say, the 90's though...pretty soon we may be seeing OEL moe stuff. I'd sure love to read a Sunshine Sketch or Lucky Star-like 4koma manga that focuses on American school students. |
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zanarkand princess
Posts: 1484 |
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No need to explain again I was simply trying to say that as many things that can go wrong in moe it doesn't seem to cause such ilegal acts in it's home country and it's not main stream enough to cause an issue here. The main problem with moe is that you can create a girl with little to no personality then put a generic "cute" character design on her and make it the centerpiece of the show.
I remember watching tengo tenge with my mom in the room and she was like  but after she saw moe she said "Well at least those girls with the big boobs could fight and had personality these girls are just worthless"she was talking about mizuru actually (once again mizuru becomes the target)
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G-mofactor
Posts: 797 Location: Atlantis to Interzone |
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Its going to be interesting if I live long enough that to even see that happen. I raise my hand for even notice the development of the anime phenomena in the US, which has gown more acknowledgeable of its origins. |
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zanarkand princess
Posts: 1484 |
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The problem I have with OEL is that it tries to incorperate both anime and western comic drawing styles which fails a lot of the time I think they should go one way or the other and simply want to create anime type stories with western type art and they feel that neither anime fans of western comic book fans will like it if borth aren't there. But if an OEL that was as good as lucky star came out I would be extremely happy to see that.
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