What exactly is "MOE"?

[Artimus Gigan]

forgive my ignorance, but this term has been popping up frequently as of late and so I'm personally question it's meaning.

Do the letters act as intials? Does MOE mean "Malicious Outraged Engagement" or something of that sort? Ususaly someone is receiving head trauma or some other type of bodily harm through the vehicle of a 99 hit combo.

Or is it just a slang term for the word "More" because there is the allready existing slang term for more wwich is "mo'e". So I'm wondering if they're just forgetting the punctuation. Is it that they just want to se more of whatever is presented and utter the cry of MOEMOEMOEMOEMOE


Then there's the first stooge, the bartender, and Momo from Xenosaga but those I think I can rule out as of having any relation.

[J'onn J'onzz]

I wikipedia'd it; supposedly it means a fetish for anime or video game characters.


But that doesn't really fit the usage it has in Haruhi in the introduction of Mikuru-chan... The translated Haruhi novels I've read had a footnote saying that moe was sort of a "turn-on-factor."


In short, I have no clue what moe is. Too many conflicting descriptions.

[Ryoutarou]

Moe is basically a term that applies to attractive anime females. Mainly used in phrases like "She's so moe" or "All that girls from that series aren't moe enough for me".

I blame Densha Otoko for reviving the word's mass usage.

[Spastic Minnow]

I thought it generally had to do with the young "big-eyed" cute girls.

...well. we can always go to the standby source...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_%28slang%29

well, it seems moe mostly depends on perception and what is thought of as cute to the viewer

[GWOtaku]

I don't really know why people can't just call them cute and be done with it. Its a super-otaku thing, I guess.

[Chad Bonin]

It shows up in Akihabara@Deep and Densha Otoko.

"Her ankles are so moe..."

[Conekiller]

I don't really know why people can't just call them cute and be done with it. Its a super-otaku thing, I guess.

That's unneccesary. I expect better from you.

It's pretty much referring to the "turn on factor" as mentioned before, but with a hint of the "young innocence" as an attractive feature. At least, that's how I've interpreted it.

[Kury Wagner]

meganekko-moe

Ick. I'll never understand that. >_<

I don't really know why people can't just call them cute and be done with it.

That's too normal. Anyone can say "cute".

[GWOtaku]

posted by Conekiller:

That's unneccesary. I expect better from you.

I'm not sure what you mean, it wasn't really meant as an insult to anybody (or whatever you thought it meant). If moe identifies "young and cute" than its basically a slang, superfluous term for saying cute in the first place.

*shrugs*

[Karl Olson]

I don't know whether just "young and cute" encapulates moe.

Yamazaki: In other words, take the image of your ideal woman and turn it moe. The moe from the creator's heart is what gives life to his creation.

Satou: Ideal... How about a childhood friend my class, and she's a maid-robot!

Yamazaki: That's... that's the most amazing thing I've ever heard! Let's go with that! The moe within you has been awakened!

Satou: W-Wait a minute, Yamazaki! I have more! She was also... the lover of our main character in a previous life!

Yamazaki: Ahhhhhhhhh! This is too good! It's uber-moe!

Satou: And on top that,she's sick with a fatal illness and only has the main character to depend on!

Yamazaki: Genius! Pure Genius! The image is coming to me now!

Satou: And she can't use her legs, and she's blind!

Yamazaki: Excellent!

Satou: And she has Alzheimer's with a split-personality!

Yamazaki: Great!

Satou: And she's a alien!

The result of such a combination of moe:



So there you go. That's moe in a nutshell. Romanticizing if not fetishizing the weirdest characteristics at points.

Of course, the definition I gave for moe in my moonphase write up was as follows:

Moe - A Japanese slang-word used by otaku to describe something that's cute but also quasi-sexual.

However, it's what is making it quasi-sexual where moe seperates itself from just being "sexy and cute." Like finding a blind, alien, robot, maid girl in a wheelchair with terminal illnesses who was your lover in previous life sexy. Or finding a catgirl, vampire lolita sexy. That's where moe trancends even Freudian complexes and ends up in it's own special world - moe often piles up characteristics beyond what is traditionally cute and/or attractive.

I mean, the term can basically be traced back to the Moetan English Book, which might just feature some of the most useless English ever, but it is taught in the book by the simultaneously cute and fanservicey (and I do mean fanservicey - I had a hard time finding a picture clean enough to post here) character of Ink Nijihara (aka Pastel Ink) who is a magical girl fighting a witch and who also has a crush on a 12th-grader, even though she's only 12-years-old herself. Like I said, cute and quasi-sexual was just a basis - it's what getting piled on top that makes it moe...



I mean really, when you were 12, did you even know anyone who dressed like that? Of course not. Would you like to have? Well, then for you that's moe.

/For me, it's unsettling. Moe in it's extremes gives me the jibblies.

[GWOtaku]

....uh, wow. Well, now I know.

"Unsettling"--a good choice of words to use, I'd say.

[FlyByNite77]

Karl, you're awesome. As soon as I saw the topic I was going to post that pic from NHK... heh

[Karl Olson]

Well, I knew that it was going to happen at some point, and really, it is one of the better illustrations of why moe isn't just a synonym for cute/sexy. The other thing that would have been good are the bonus notes from some ecchi manga that I saw once which described a ren ai video game about a school filled with disabled girls, all of whom are disabled in different ways and with different causes. It might be only thing I've ever seen that tops that panel of NHK when it comes to explaining why moe is a little (a lot?!) screwed up.

[Conekiller]

I'm not sure what you mean, it wasn't really meant as an insult to anybody (or whatever you thought it meant). If moe identifies "young and cute" than its basically a slang, superfluous term for saying cute in the first place.

*shrugs*

Yeah (and moreso, according Karl's...informative essay there) Sorry for jumping down your throat like that, your use of "otaku" struck me as referring to "american otaku". It hadn't occurred to me you meant "why wouldn't the Japanse otaku just use "cute""

[Classic Speedy]

I thought "moe" also was a word in Japanese that sorta is an exclamation that can be used for multiple moods. IIRC, I've seen some characters grumble, "Moe..." when they're annoyed or frustrated, for example.

[Karl Olson]

I thought "moe" also was a word in Japanese that sorta is an exclamation that can be used for multiple moods. IIRC, I've seen some characters grumble, "Moe..." when they're annoyed or frustrated, for example.

In the modern context, and particular in otaku usage, it's as a described more or less.

[Scirel]

So, in other words, Moe is basically an incarnation in a woman of a man's fantasies about what, for him or for others, would be the ideal girl that would both depend on him and make him feel loved.

Moe charachters can look any age between 10 and 28(physical years) it's the cahrachteristics that make them moe, th charachteristics of dependance and "flawed perfection".

i.e. For most people, their perfect girl wouldn`t be perfect, they would have cute flaws. these flaws make them "perfect" for someone.

[Karl Olson]

I'd say age knows effectively no boundaries when it comes to moe and not just in the lolicon/todderkon direction either, as there is certain an aspect of the moe fetishism that can tend towards older women as well, as long as they are also cute. I'd atleast say you could get into the 30s or 40s physical without batting an eyelash when it comes to moe, as long as it was an attractive 30 or 40. Make her teacher or a nurse or a doctor or a police woman or someone else with a distinctive career (even a generic office lady works) and just like that, you have moe.

[Weatherman]

The general understanding of Moe that I have, it's usually pronounced Moe-eh, is that it's more or less about tossing something sexual in a rather "Dude, I don't want to know about that. You're giving me the willies" way onto a female character. I don't quite rememebr where I read it, but I beleive it started with the Sailor Moon character Sailor Mercury and kinda gestated form there. It's only relaly become big in recent years, coincidentally, or not, wit hthe rise of h-games as the source for more and more shows.

A Moe character is supposed to be the ultimate fantasy "real" girl. Faye Valentine would not be Moe. She's too agressive, at leats for the ultimate extension of the Moe ideal. Thecharacters are usually young or young looking, to the point of being lolicon bait in soem cases, as emotionally stunted as the male "hero" tends to be in the Moe shows, insanely cute with lots of "cute" manerisms and usually some kind of life-altering trauma in their past. Essentially, it's the ultimate "I can save this girl and then she can save me!" ideal.

Azumanag Daioh comes to mind as well, tough the general level of fetishization is really toned down in that one from alot of Moe stuff. Karl's right in that alot of it is borderline to outright pornographic.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha comes to mind as well. Decent story aside, it really did get outright skeevy sometimes.

[Karl Olson]

The general understanding of Moe that I have, it's usually pronounced Moe-eh, is that it's more or less about tossing something sexual in a rather "Dude, I don't want to know about that. You're giving me the willies" way onto a female character. I don't quite rememebr where I read it, but I beleive it started with the Sailor Moon character Sailor Mercury and kinda gestated form there. It's only relaly become big in recent years, coincidentally, or not, wit hthe rise of h-games as the source for more and more shows.

A Moe character is supposed to be the ultimate fantasy "real" girl. Faye Valentine would not be Moe. She's too agressive, at leats for the ultimate extension of the Moe ideal. Thecharacters are usually young or young looking, to the point of being lolicon bait in soem cases, as emotionally stunted as the male "hero" tends to be in the Moe shows, insanely cute with lots of "cute" manerisms and usually some kind of life-altering trauma in their past. Essentially, it's the ultimate "I can save this girl and then she can save me!" ideal.

To an extent. However, you get the strong silent moe girls (Sakaki from Azumanga,) hyperactive moe girls (Excel from Excel Saga, from Azumanga) and the domineering moe girls too (Re: Haruhi Suzumiya, and Asuka from Eva) and they aren't really weak, just not perfect in a traditional sense, so there is an aspect of the flaws or twists being the critical thing. They might in fact make life hell for the male protagonist, but for some dudes, that's moe.