Oh boi what a time to come back to this thread :3
Slight thing I noticed in the article is that this sentence is weirdly placed and seems incomplete... can anyone figure out how moe actually started, because I'm actually curious now.
Moé began with adult men consuming cartoons and comics designed by toy companies and marketed to young girls, then forming fan communities and saying publicly “This is meaningful to me too.”
I have a feeling this is a bit of a broad stroke, but whatever...
Regardless, I think there are some big takeaways from the article on moe (for me, at least):
1:
Yeah, we are definitely in a moe over-flux and we really need more diversity in anime character design as well as more diverse emotion/ scenario design.
I have no real issue with moe in and of itself, but the fact its so prevalent and so... samey is annoying and weird. There are ways to have characters act adult or at least their age and still have ways to fit that weird market of moe. People just don't wanna make the creative effort i guess.
2:
Yeah, even I roll my eyes at those shitty moe tropes.
Women and teenage girls acting like children or (worse yet) over sexualized children is grating and often times messes with any episode pacing or structure the series might have. Its a mess of tropes that don't belong. If you're making a titillating anime like Highschool DxD or something then that's whatever, but otherwise why even bother?
3:
For all my complaining on the design side of things, iterating on the same few moe tropes CAN be alienating; and its OKAY to not be okay with that.
Ever watch a specific genre where you want to like it but a good majority of the movies in that genre do something that just bumps you the wrong way and you can never get into it even if you think you could otherwise? Maybe the constantly messed up structure of Hollywood rom-coms? Maybe Greengrass' shakycam? Imagine that but for a whole meta-genre. If you're response to this kind of critique is "then just don't watch it" then you miss the whole point. Critiquing a media you enjoy is a way to better it. You know the saying "communication is good in a relationship"... yeah that!
4:
Subtext in this article will be missed and no one will bother to try noticing it. The real issue is artificiality (which is a result of scenario design, character design, etc and the tropes they have) which moe very well may be a part of.
The big problem is that we have these character running like clockwork at this point. Again and again we see the same damn shit because "wooo its so damn moe, right". Sometimes its fine (still not completely sure why Sweetness and Lightning is used as a picture in the article... regardless) but sometimes we get bra comparison or boob and bath comparison or other utter bullshit that no one ever does. There was one show I watched... a while ago i guess where even the teacher did this shit to students. That's straight up a felony ffs.
5:
Those quote in the article are weird, unless you use context.
I mean, I get what they are saying. Its about why they exist and their point and whatnot. But its definitely a weird set of blanket statements. I enjoy an occasional moe show once in a while, but it sure as hell isn't because I want completely pure characters or something. But when you look at the context, the quotes are about people INTO it not people who occasionally stumble or might even just like those shows and the tropes or whatever. Maybe... i haven't read that book. idk :S The problem in many anime I think is that it uses moe as an excuse for warmth and good-feeling etc when its not hard to actually make those things legit.
Take Usagi Drop for example. It doesn't bother with dumb moe tropes and actually has an interesting art design and character who feel and worry and have depth (even Rin who is a kid who lost her primary father figure, and all that entails) and yet that anime (not the manga and YOU KNOW WHY) is still heartwarming and pleasant and great. Watching Usagi drop, now that I think about it, gave me the same feeling I felt when watching Pixar's Inside Out. Characters act as they should in those instances.
Anime needs to develop better stories or if not, better narratives with better characters and a good first step into doing that is to ditch moe for at least a while.
6.
There are bigger fish to fry, but why not talk about the "smaller" stuff first
If we only ever cared about the big stuff we would all be neutral about everything and only worry about the heat-death of the universe. But instead half of us break into a panic when Hawaiian pizza is mentioned (which I utterly love). If pizza can create such back and forth conversation and intrigue, why can't smaller issues plaguing anime?
I mean if we really want to talk about big fish to fry lets talk about the fetishism of highschool and how many ecchi anime have 15 year old basically just short of a vag hanging out. No, don't wanna? Then lets stop moving the goalposts of "what I think we "should" talk about" when people wanna critique the media you love. No one is taking away your Lance n' Masques or your Upotte!!!'s (even though each should be considered a war crime, but whatever), so don't think of it as an assault. Many people online constantly talk about "moe-shit" or "why is everything so 'moe'" etc, but when someone talks about why moe might ACTUALLY be an issue, idiots get up in arms. Its ridiculous and annoying!
Lets actually read PAST THE TITLE and understand what its ACTUALLY trying to say, okay? Okay!
The article is about the fetishism of the artificial "cuteness" present in MANY anime we watch today; why it can be seen as a problem, and why we may want to grow past it. Discuss.
And if I missed anything of got anything wrong, feel
free to critique me.
:///3
times a thousand. I'm imagining at least a bit of controversy for CR/Funi (or whoever gets it) if it gains any amount of notoriety.
