Where do the 'loli' and 'moé' character archetypes come from?

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TwEE-N-Toast said:
Why would that be common knowledge? Thats some nasty nasty shit.
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I can understand why he would make the assumption although I'm not sure how much people understand literary references these days, even if it's the title of a book. Nabokov is one of the greats in literature. Lolita is a classic, is extremely notorious because of its subject matter, constantly being banned, and Kubrick, a legendary director, has adapted it to the screen, and as previously stated, Lana Del Ray has openly stated she's a fan of the book and has used quotes from the book in her music, albeit the opening lines of the books which I suppose are more obscure than the title of the book.
 
tempest3 said:
Lol yeah. Wondering that too. Maybe OP just wondered based on World of Final Fantasy or something?

Curious which other games would be considered as having this kind of stuff.
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Actually, Dead or Alive. Marie Rose (loli goth) is apparently the most popular character worldwide now:

f3bb37c0_thumbdcpsh.jpg


Old news I guess, but I only just found out.
 
The Technomancer said:
Its a tricky thing. With a term as new as moe the meaning has been evolving rapidly. When I first saw moe being thrown around several years ago it was sort of akin to the idea of a fetish, although without as explicit sexual overtones, it was like "having a thing for girls with glasses". But these days it is specifically centered on cute girls and importantly almost always cute innocent (in affect or in reality) girls, which is where things have gotten progressively skeevier from where I sit. People try to argue that the term still isn't sexual and...I suppose that's true, in that everyone who's into moe stuff isn't into the sexual side of it, but there is something almost universally posessive about what I perceive of it. It reminds me of the darker side of idol culture
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Again very true. I only started noticing a lot of this around the mid 2000s, but it wasn't anywhere near as prominent beforehand even though it existed. The fact of the matter is the Japanese media market became very insular and safe(Not just in anime and manga), and really laser pinpointed maximizing revenue profit streams off of this specific thing, to i think detrimental results to itself.

These types of things have always been around in whatever form, but they have not really been the driving or dominant force in the industry like they have been for years now
 
air jordans for dogs said:
I'm guessing that loli is just another word for child because pedos cant face the truth?
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The evolution, AFAIK, is that it starts with the use of gothic lolita to describe a certain ornate "childlike" fashion style regardless of the age of the person wearing it, which then becomes a descriptor in some circles of explicitly childlike figures in said fashion, which then becomes...well...just the childlike figures :/
 
First time I heard the term moe

nmh_moe.jpg
 
The Technomancer said:
Its a tricky thing. With a term as new as moe the meaning has been evolving rapidly. When I first saw moe being thrown around several years ago it was sort of akin to the idea of a fetish, although without as explicit sexual overtones, it was like "having a thing for girls with glasses". But these days it is specifically centered on cute girls and importantly almost always cute innocent (in affect or in reality) girls, which is where things have gotten progressively skeevier from where I sit. People try to argue that the term still isn't sexual and...I suppose that's true, in that everyone who's into moe stuff isn't into the sexual side of it, but there is something almost universally posessive about what I perceive of it. It reminds me of the darker side of idol culture
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I mean, I sort of like "moe," myself, but not in a possessive way. I like moe characters because I feel like I can sort of relate to them, because I see myself as sort of innocent and goofy in a childish way.
 
L Thammy said:
And then... well, that's actually all that I've read on the subject. Are there are anime historians here that know better?
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In my opinion, the major transition towards "moe" became really noticeable during the late 90s~early 00s. As you mentioned, I think CCS (maybe even CLAMP in general), and by extension the shoujo genre had a lot to do with it. CLAMP almost always includes themes in their works that appeal to a broad audience, and CCS was no exception. There was also the release of Digi Charat around that time, which really seemed like the first otaku-targeted anime/manga series with a shoujo-esque artstyle to reach some level of mainstream popularity in Japan. There were plenty of other franchises created during that era which definitely contributed to it (such as Sister Princess), but the two aforementioned ones stick out the most in my mind.
 
The Technomancer said:
The evolution, AFAIK, is that it starts with the use of gothic lolita to describe a certain ornate "childlike" fashion style regardless of the age of the person wearing it, which then becomes a descriptor in some circles of explicitly childlike figures in said fashion, which then becomes...well...just the childlike figures :/
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I don't think lolita as a style has anything to do with looking child-like. If anything, it was meant to portray the wearer as more dignified and elegant, after all its mimicking the Victorian style. The fashion itself has nothing to do with Nabokov's novel, other than sharing the name. Almost.
 
Not sure though some people consider shows like Serial Experiment Lane to be proto moe.
lain5.jpg

But apart from design similarities it's a very different beast
 
I never really thought of things like Cardcaptor Sakura or Serial Experiments Lain as moe, honestly, though I guess that doesn't preclude them from becoming part of the history. I often get the sense that characters made to satisfy a particular fetish are more limited and unnatural as characters.

Sakura often has a sweet personality, but when you see her interacting with her brother, she does things like stomping on his toes. Not quite as cute. Lain starts off seeming childish and antisocial, but as the show progresses, you see that the personality she displays in the Wired is extremely assertive and aggressive.

Nowadays I feel like there are a lot of characters who have the cute aspect, and then that's really all there is to them.

sheamus said:
Ok real talk what the difference between manga, doujin, hentai. Or are they all the same
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Manga = Japanese comics. May not be porn.

Hentai = Japanese cartoon porn. May or may not be comics.

Doujn = Japanese indie stuff. May or may not be comics, may or may not be porn.
 
sheamus said:
Ok real talk what the difference between manga, doujin, hentai. Or are they all the same
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Manga is just a catch all for Japanese comics, usually serialized in weekly or monthly magazines and collected in volumes. I don't believe it extends to short-form comics though, although someone can correct me. Doujin usually refers to unliscenced work in someone else's property, or sometimes the same creator working without "official" publishing, its like selling fan-fiction (and its often sexual). Hentai just means anything sexually explicit and pornographic

EDIT: Does Doujin mean "indie"? I've only ever seen it in the context of being fanfiction
 
The Technomancer said:
Its a tricky thing. With a term as new as moe the meaning has been evolving rapidly. When I first saw moe being thrown around several years ago it was sort of akin to the idea of a fetish, although without as explicit sexual overtones, it was like "having a thing for girls with glasses". But these days it is specifically centered on cute girls and importantly almost always cute innocent (in affect or in reality) girls, which is where things have gotten progressively skeevier from where I sit. People try to argue that the term still isn't sexual and...I suppose that's true, in that everyone who's into moe stuff isn't into the sexual side of it, but there is something almost universally posessive about what I perceive of it. It reminds me of the darker side of idol culture
Click to expand...

It should be noted that this character is considered moe, and not just by a few people:
J1VZtf0.jpg
 
sheamus said:
Ok real talk what the difference between manga, doujin, hentai. Or are they all the same
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I was always under the impression that Manga were comics from Japan, Doujinshi we're comics featuring characters from established series in non canon stories by different authors and artists that generally fell into the last section, Hentai, which is porn.

I've been into anime and such for 20 years though and even now I feel like someone is going to correct me. Someone will always correct you haha
 
Thelonelykoopa said:
Not sure though some people consider shows like Serial Experiment Lane to be proto moe.
lain5.jpg

But apart from design similarities it's a very different beast
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Moe is not really a design aesthetics but rather a feeling towards a character. Sure the visual part helps but it's nothing without its core, that is how the character acts and behaves. You are meant to subconsciously care or want to protect the character, that sort of thing. Being a clumsy, an airhead or an emotionally distant kuudere, putting the character into helpless damsel in distress situation, those are one of the few building blocks of moe. But it's more complex than that as any of those components does not necessarily make a character moe.

I'd say Lain is pretty far from something you can consider moe, not only from the design point of view but also from the story point of view but it does have some of the elements, it's just they do not produce what moe is about. Then again Yoshitoshi ABe is my favourite mangaka, so I might be quite biased.
 
The Technomancer said:
EDIT: Does Doujin mean "indie"? I've only ever seen it in the context of being fanfiction
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I've seen it in the context of indie games that aren't fanfiction, but most of the time I've seen it in fanfiction context too.

cosmicblizzard said:
It should be noted that this character is considered moe, and not just by a few people:
J1VZtf0.jpg
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Never thought about that, but I guess it makes sense with the "desire to protect" definition. I'd find it easier to identify with him though.
 
The Technomancer said:
Manga is just a catch all for Japanese comics, usually serialized in weekly or monthly magazines and collected in volumes. I don't believe it extends to short-form comics though, although someone can correct me. Doujin usually refers to unliscenced work in someone else's property, or sometimes the same creator working without "official" publishing, its like selling fan-fiction (and its often sexual). Hentai just means anything sexually explicit and pornographic

EDIT: Does Doujin mean "indie"? I've only ever seen it in the context of being fanfiction
Click to expand...

Yes, Doujin is indie and absolutely does not imply anything inherently sexual. That's just how it ended up among western fans because there's not enough export demand for stuff that isn't sexual (though that's thankfully changing).

And if you mean newspaper comics when you say short-form, 4koma would be the equivalent which is absolutely considered manga. Same with webcomics (One Punch Man being the most known example).
 
The Technomancer said:
Manga is just a catch all for Japanese comics, usually serialized in weekly or monthly magazines and collected in volumes. I don't believe it extends to short-form comics though, although someone can correct me. Doujin usually refers to unliscenced work in someone else's property, or sometimes the same creator working without "official" publishing, its like selling fan-fiction (and its often sexual). Hentai just means anything sexually explicit and pornographic

EDIT: Does Doujin mean "indie"? I've only ever seen it in the context of being fanfiction
Click to expand...

Doujin is literally anything self published. As such it can be a manga, a book, a game, anything. It can be and often is a fan fiction, or it can be an original work. Touhou is essentially a series of doujin games, that doujin created by the fans as well.
 
Something I do think is worth pointing out for the thread is that japanese terms change considerably in meaning when they come to the west. It happened to "Otaku", "Hentai" and it will definitely happen with "moe", if it hasn't alraedy.
 
TheChaos0 said:
Moe is not really a design aesthetics but rather a feeling towards a character. Sure the visual part helps but it's nothing without its core, that is how the character acts and behaves. You are meant to subconsciously care or want to protect the character, that sort of thing. Being a clumsy, an airhead or an emotionally distant kuudere, putting the character into helpless damsel in distress situation, those are one of the few building blocks of moe. But it's more complex than that as any of those components does not necessarily make a character moe.

I'd say Lain is pretty far from something you can consider moe, not only from the design point of view but also from the story point of view but it does have some of the elements, it's just they do not produce what moe is about. Then again Yoshitoshi ABe is my favourite mangaka, so I might be quite biased.
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That's why I said it's a very different as it's place in the Medium is on the complete opposite of the spectrum of for example K-on. It's Proto-Moe in terms of design elements(For example the bear costume would be typically seen as Moe by itself even though in the case of story of Lane it's a literary device instead of a something to be cute) I love Yoshitoshi ABe as well I'm just pointing out design choices which would unintentionally later lead into Moe style of animation.
 
For accuracy, moe probably came from Disney. The early Disney aesthetic was about making the cute character forms close to a baby. Big eyes, rounded faces, etc to evoke an immediate attachment and caringness to the creatures. As Disney designs were the basis of early anime and manga designs, it would be fair to say Moe has in essence been a trait of Anime and Manga from the beginning. If you want to talk about the current form, where there's a lot of slice of life, coming of age manga and anime. That comes from a culture that values work which places high school years as the most important time of life.

Loli... On the other hand, that comes from Japan's more perverse elements.
 
mantidor said:
Something I do think is worth pointing out for the thread is that japanese terms change considerably in meaning when they come to the west. It happened to "Otaku", "Hentai" and it will definitely happen with "moe", if it hasn't alraedy.
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I thought 'hentai' meant animated porn everywhere though?

I always see moe as being a genuine 'cute genre' term and loli/lolicon while officially meaning an underage character usually means more one that's been sexualised in some way.
 
Steins;Gate has some entertaining social commentary on moe. One of the characters thinks the Large Hadron Collider is moe. And the underside of bridges. (Yeah, I still don't understand that one.) And the customers of maid cafes allegedly fight wars over whether maids with cat ears are the ultimate form of moe or two appeals that should never be combined. Bodies lying in the gutters. Though that can probably be counted under the "unreliable narrator" aspect of the story.

On an unrelated note, they actually do use that trope mentioned earlier in the thread where (major spoilers)
the loli character is actually a crazed killer from the future in one of the timelines. WHAT A TWEEST
 
Thelonelykoopa said:
That's why I said it's a very different as it's place in the Medium is on the complete opposite of the spectrum of for example K-on. It's Proto-Moe in terms of design elements(For example the bear costume would be typically seen as Moe by itself even though in the case of story of Lane it's a literary device instead of a something to be cute) I love Yoshitoshi ABe as well I'm just pointing out design choices which would unintentionally later lead into Moe style of animation.
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Like I said there are elements present but the atmosphere of the show does not really play along with feeling of moe. Something cute, does not equate to being moe. Moe is a feeling not how things look. Feeling of moe also varies from person to person, so I'm not dismissing you in any way, it's just I'm not feeling the same way. Lain in a bear onesie creates a dissonance for me, it's almost scary.
 
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