A question I get a lot is, "against what?"
And of course I have readers who know exactly what moe is, but there's still a question: why?
I've been doing this for almost a month now and I felt like my next serious piece should address some basics. What is this blog's occasion? What is this blog's purpose?
What Is Moe?
Usage varies thanks to evolving linguistic trends, polysemy, and other phenomena, but crudely speaking moe refers to both the presence of and the reaction to traits—primarily character traits—that arouse the audience sexually and excite the audience romantically, while also creating a sense of preciousness. Moe is both the feeling and the object of the feeling, "It's so cute that I want to protect it but also maybe fuck it!" Animal lovers, especially cat lovers on the internet, may relate (except for the sexy part, unless that's your thing). If you've squeed, you may have been affected by moe; if you've glomped, you may have attempted to be moe.
Note that this concept is somewhat distinct from more traditional modes of attraction. It is primarily triggered by specific traits, moe yooso, moe elements, succinctly explained by classically trained anime scholar Suzumiya Haruhi in the following clip.
You can refer to these elements as turn-ons, and approach a more universal experience, but it doesn't quite fit. Actions can be turn-ons, but moe elements are rarely actions. Sometimes they are behavior patterns, but most of the time they are static things: hair color, body shape, demeanor, occupation (nurses!). Occasionally they transcend the character, deriving their power from the environment in which the character finds itself (e.g. a haunted house, or school at night, are classics) or from meta knowledge (e.g. the fact that Tiki in Fire Emblem Heroes is drawn by porn artist Ito Noizi).
As a general rule, there is no je ne sais quoi when it comes to moe. Moe elements are easily identified, labeled, and recycled. Consumers know what they want, and will filter image boards looking for things like "green hair" or "school swimsuit." Production companies similarly pay attention to these things and decide which moe elements to include in a given work based on predictions about what will turn on their audiences. Often characters in anime can be described entirely in terms of their moe elements—they are nothing but a database of turn-ons.
I should clarify that this isn't always explicitly sexual. Moe permeates media that's totally safe for work. Sexual attraction is just a core component of its mechanics.
In anime in particular, moe is almost everywhere. In some shows, it's just kind of there—Faye's outfit in Cowboy Bebop, for instance—whereas for others, it is their lifeblood. Moe is almost its own genre of anime, with series like K-on! or even giant franchises like Fate being nigh non-stop delivery systems for moe elements.
This concept isn't buried very deep in the medium, and even if you're not an aficionado you're probably aware of it. And if you weren't until now, rejoice! Understanding moe can be super illuminating. Next time you're watching an anime and you find yourself asking, "why is her skirt that short in the middle of a snowstorm?" or "why is this super competent ninja girl helplessly clumsy?", just remember: the creator's trying to elicit that particular feeling in the audience.
Why Against It?
What's wrong with turning people on? What's wrong with being turned on? Am I just some kind of prudish hater?
Far from it!
I am not against the experience of moe. Well, not categorically. I don't love infantilization of sex objects, nor the sex objectification of infants, and those are both unfortunately common when it comes to moe. Clumsy moe, sick moe, shy moe, small moe—a lot of this stuff is kinda squicky and I'm not a fan. I also don't love the toxic white knight fantasy implicit in the experience of moe. (Audiences must "protect" the source of attraction, often jealously.) But at the end of the day this doesn't make me lose sleep. People have all kinds of kinks and generally speaking that's cool. Sometimes it's super disturbing (for instance, racist white people whose top search term on porn sites is "ebony") but for the most part—whatever.
Against Moe is not against the audience—perverts or otherwise.
Against Moe is against the author.
Earlier I mentioned that entire characters can be described purely in terms of their moe elements. Is that chill? Maybe the occasional sex fantasy character is one thing, but we're talking on a massive scale. Entire casts are reducible to their members' moe elements. Entire works are just chips for moe salsa. And yeah, porn is one thing, but these are popular, mainstream franchises that have no narrative, no character development, no substance to speak of besides a moe database. Instead of telling stories, anime often just presents sex objects in situations.
More often there is a story, but the plot and character play second fiddle to the moe.
It's this second, larger category with which I take the most issue. Again I'm not here to rain on attraction or turn-ons. But when there's a real story, with real messaging, that real humans may be looking to for entertainment and maybe even lessons, and then all the female characters in it are just collections of moe elements, that's kind of a problem. So many societal ills can be traced to really bad sex ed and heterosocialization. When kids identify with Simon, look up to Kamina, and get hard for Yoko, something is happening.1 And someone is responsible for it.
I don't want to give too much ground to heterocentrism, so I should clarify that moe is not ONLY an exchange between female characters and male audiences... but it is largely that. When we talk about how men need to stop seeing women as rewards, moe is a part of that conversation.
This is mainly on the heads of the studios and networks, to be clear, not the individual authors who are probably overworking themselves to make ends meet. I say "against the author," but I mean "against the creator," which for most of these things isn't an individual or at least isn't an autonomous individual. It's easy to point at the big studios, the big names; it's easy to blame Hideaki Anno for everything.2 But even indie creators are forced to compete in the moe market, and so they—like a lot of small business owners—are both victim and culprit, on the one hand forced to sacrifice their artistic vision and on the other encouraged to perpetuate the most popular moe tropes.
I don't expect or even hope that moe will retreat from anime in the coming years. But I do hope that my readers will agree with me that humans should consume at least some stories with real characters, whose every aspect and motivation can't be boiled down to, "this is what a room full of men thought would sell the most body pillows."
Anime remains unapologetic.3 Even satirical works like The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi which lampoon moe eventually dissolve into its logic: the world is saved, ultimately, because the protagonist admits that it is Haruhi's ponytail that turns him on.
Against Moe is a blog that investigates anime given all of the above. I will consistently champion anime that goes beyond the typical to include interesting characters and sophisticated themes. The name of the blog is a position, and one I hold proudly.
This topic isn't super straightforward, and if I've failed to illustrate anything I'd like to know so I can elaborate. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to any discussion.