Forum - View topic

ANNCast - Moe Money, Moe Problems

Outside Japan, the term is less common and most often refers to a genre of manga and anime wherein childlike female characters are depicted in an erotic manner.

Moe is a Japanese term used in connection with manga or anime to describe something precious, usually (but not always) the ideal of youthful and innocent femininity. Written with the kanji for "to bud or sprout" (萌), the concept covers a range of ideal behaviour for youthful female characters in manga or anime. To be moe, a character can be eager or perky, not overly independent, and call forth a desire in the viewer to protect them and nurture them. The term is also used to describe any preciously cute item; there is an animal mascot character store in Tokyo called Moe.

There is a lot of debate over the crossover between moe fandom and lolicon. While the crossover exists among fans and products the two genres are not synonymous

EDIT: MP3 showing up now but still not showing up in iTunes or the RSS feed.

Personally, I lump Moonphase into lolicon because the relationship between 12 (?)-year-old Hazuki and adult Kohei has many of the hallmarks of a romantic relationship as opposed to strictly a bratty younger sister / long-suffering older brother one.

To clarify: when I think of something as moe, it means I think it's adorable. Strawberry Marshmallow, as well as being gently funny and well-observed, is moe to me. The girls in GG are just pathetic, broken down husks. I don't find emotionally damaged, brainwashed girl assassins cute, ergo they're not moe by my personal understanding of the term.

Blood- wrote:

Personally, I lump Moonphase into lolicon because the relationship between 12 (?)-year-old Hazuki and adult Kohei has many of the hallmarks of a romantic relationship as opposed to strictly a bratty younger sister / long-suffering older brother one.

She was 14, he was 27. Thankfully, the romance was pretty chaste (only a kiss on the forehead as far as I remember) but I still remember feeling kinda skeeved out at the time.

What's moe to you is not moe to other people.

Personally, I too will never understand the sickly/broken girl moe. The ultimate example of this would be NGE.

I can't seem to download the podcast and it doesn't even show up in the RSS feed. Help?

And the whole 'sickly-girl' thing just seems to suggest a position of power for the other person; this little kid is totally dependent on others, I have her life in my hands, etc. Urk. Although I'd like to hear others' take on that.

Then Zac comes and says basically Moe degrades anime and admits he hasn't even watched really any...great.

Then Zac comes and says basically Moe degrades anime and admits he hasn't even watched really any...great.

I don't think you really need to watch dedicated moe shows to be able to see how it's affected Japan's creative output. It's the proliferation of moe elements into so many shows, even if it doesn't really belong, that's the problem. That should be obvious to anyone who's been watching anime at all for the last five years.