History Analysis / Moe

Of TheFourLoves, Moe most closely resembles the state of love seen most strongly in the care of a mother (who both supplies a need and herself often needs to be needed) for her her child (who both consumes the need and satisfies the mother's need to care), but affection can naturally arise so long as the circumstances are "X and Y have been around each other since practically forever".

Modern women, by a variety of factors, have all but monopolized public displays of the nurturing instinct. It's "okay" for a woman to {{Squee}} at a PreciousPuppy or CuteKitten, but if a grown man does it it's weird in the eyes of everyone else regardless of gender. Nobody likes hanging around SickeninglySweethearts when they shower affection all over each other regardless of gender. And good luck to any man who wishes to act overly familiar with a woman who doesn't have the same level of comfort with physical intimacy (while nobody blinks when a woman puts her hands on a man in any kind of matter for any kind of reason without getting his permission first). Heck, nowadays if a man were overly touchy-feely with another man he'd be suspected of being gay, and if some heterosexual woman wants a life partner and not a "safe" man she can be friends with without the friendship turning into {{UST}}, there goes his chances with her.

Is it any surprise, then, that men tend to dote on fictional characters, while women tend to romance them? Who cares if it's LovingAShadow or being InLoveWithLove? A baby denied affectionate touch and words but otherwise well cared for will still wither away and die; how could a grownup, whose needs for everything else have ballooned with age, possibly need ''less''?

Is it also any surprise that teenaged girls tend to be the most often deemed moe? Sure, it's possible to be affectionate towards anyone or anything, for that matter, but a young girl will someday become a woman, and the hope that in returning your affection for her, she will fall in romantic love with you is so strong that men will find themselves feeling moe for fictional characters.

Moe & innocence are closely intertwined. Many female moe characters, like Komari & Noumi from ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'', act (and in Noumi's case, ''look'') like young girls trapped in a teenager's body. (LoliconAndShotacon, with its ''actually'' young girls instead of teen girls who act young, could be seen as the logical extreme of this, hence the hazy difference between moe and lolicon). One of the first modern moe characters, Sakura from ''Anime/CardcaptorSakura'', was the lead in a {{shojo}} MagicalGirl series. While she was not considered moe at first, {{otaku}} latched onto her and re-interpreted her as a moe symbol. Therefore, moe could be considered an appropriation of childhood innocence by adult men.

Creator/HayaoMiyazaki is an example of someone who, while initially sympathetic to Moe, changed his stance later on. He once stated that Moe is the natural result [[IronWoobie of attempts to simply create a female character whom you can sympathize with]] and nothing more. He has stated that making them [[BishoujoSeries "lovely"]] is merely the same as making a hero brave or strong. He has also stated that while not inherently controversial, the nature of what Moe has become and it's subsequent handling in the growing years has, according to him, reached the stage where there are too many people who shamelessly depict Moe characters as pets or objects of fetishism/power fantasy rather than as wholesome characters, and things are escalating more and more (especially due to Japan's gender conflicts and men [[{{Hikikomori}} retreating in secluded lives]]).

-->'''Kaichiro Morikawa''': Generally speaking, I see a downward spiral. Aum Shinrikyo was influenced by {{Anime/Genma Wars}}. In the 1980s, otaku dreamt of Armageddon; they fantasized about employing supernatural powers to [[EndOfTheWorldSpecial create a]] [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans new world]] after {{the end of the world|AsWeKnowIt}}. But [[DeConstruction Aum's subway attack in 1995 thoroughly shattered the post-apocalyptic otaku dream]] of creating a new world in which they would become heroes. [[DespairEventHorizon After their apocalyptic fantasies collapsed, they steadily shifted to moe.]] Before their Armageddon obsession, there was science fiction, which provided otaku with an alternative to the actual future. In the broadest terms, moe has replaced 'future.'

-->'''Kaichiro Morikawa''': Generally speaking, I see a downward spiral. Aum Shinrikyo was influenced by {{Anime/GenmaWars}}. In the 1980s, otaku dreamt of Armageddon; they fantasized about employing supernatural powers to [[EndOfTheWorldSpecial create a]] [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans new world]] after {{the end of the world|AsWeKnowIt}}. But [[DeConstruction Aum's subway attack in 1995 thoroughly shattered the post-apocalyptic otaku dream]] of creating a new world in which they would become heroes. [[DespairEventHorizon After their apocalyptic fantasies collapsed, they steadily shifted to moe.]] Before their Armageddon obsession, there was science fiction, which provided otaku with an alternative to the actual future. In the broadest terms, moe has replaced 'future.'

-->'''Kaichiro Morikawa''': Generally speaking, I see a downward spiral. Aum Shinrikyo was influenced by Genma Wars. In the 1980s, otaku dreamt of Armageddon; they fantasized about employing supernatural powers to [[EndOfTheWorldSpecial create a]] [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans new world]] after {{the end of the world|AsWeKnowIt}}. But [[DeConstruction Aum's subway attack in 1995 thoroughly shattered the post-apocalyptic otaku dream]] of creating a new world in which they would become heroes. [[DespairEventHorizon After their apocalyptic fantasies collapsed, they steadily shifted to moe.]] Before their Armageddon obsession, there was science fiction, which provided otaku with an alternative to the actual future. In the broadest terms, moe has replaced 'future.'

Moe & innocence are closely intertwined. Many female moe characters, like Komari & Noumi from ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'', act (and in Noumi's case, ''look'') like young girls trapped in a teenager's body. ({{Lolicon}}, with its ''actually'' young girls instead of teen girls who act young, could be seen as the logical extreme of this, hence the hazy difference between moe and lolicon). One of the first modern moe characters, Sakura from ''Anime/CardcaptorSakura'', was the lead in a {{shojo}} MagicalGirl series. While she was not considered moe at first, {{otaku}} latched onto her and re-interpreted her as a moe symbol. Therefore, moe could be considered an appropriation of childhood innocence by adult men.

Moe & innocence are closely intertwined together. Many female moe characters, like Komari & Noumi from ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'', act (and in Noumi's case, ''look'') like young girls trapped in a teenager's body. ({{Lolicon}}, with its ''actually'' young girls instead of teen girls who act young, could be seen as the logical extreme of this, hence the hazy difference between moe and lolicon). One of the first modern moe characters, Sakura from ''Anime/CardcaptorSakura'', was the lead in a {{shojo}} MagicalGirl series. While she was not considered moe at first, {{otaku}} latched onto her and re-interpreted her as a moe symbol. Therefore, moe could be considered an appropriation of childhood innocence by adult men.

Moe & innocence are closely intertwined with each other. Many female moe characters, like Komari & Noumi from ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'', act (and in Noumi's case, ''look'') like young girls trapped in a teenager's body. ({{Lolicon}}, with its ''actually'' young girls instead of teen girls who act young, could be seen as the logical extreme of this, hence the hazy difference between moe and lolicon). One of the first modern moe characters, Sakura from ''Anime/CardcaptorSakura'', was the lead in a {{shojo}} MagicalGirl series. While she was not considered moe at first, {{otaku}} latched onto her and re-interpreted her as a moe symbol. Therefore, moe could be considered an appropriation of childhood innocence by adult men.