>PG: Do you think moé is somehow compensating for a lack of love in the real world? HT: It may seem that moé is compensatory, but that is not always the case. These days, it is often the other way around. People don’t imagine a relationship with an anime character because they couldn’t find a girlfriend, but rather they fell in love with a character in the first place. Any relationship with a human woman after that is compensatory. We have grown up in a media environment where it is possible to fall in love with manga and anime characters. Some people never stop feeling love for them. So it’s not necessarily about dropping out of society—it’s also about being brought up in a world that sets one up to be a moé otaku. [For more on growing up in media environments, see Saito Tamaki, page 178.] PG: What do you think is the future of moé? HT: Some day soon this hierarchy of “real” and “artificial” will break down. Society is not ready to accept love for only two-dimensional girls. We still need a middle ground between the two-and three-dimensional worlds, for example maid cafés, where women dress in costumes and perform as characters. The future is knowing that we are in love with fiction and accepting it. We don’t have to “wake up” just because someone tells us that the “real” world is inherently better than the world of moé fantasy. Someday we will be able to accept that the world of dreams is a good world.
PG: Do you think moé is somehow compensating for a lack of love in the real world...
>PG: What does the word moé mean to you? HT: It’s a feeling like love, but a sort of bittersweet love. It’s like falling in love for the first time. The other part of moé is a feeling of calm (iyashi). You look at a cute character and your heart is at ease. Moé is the warmth and solace that cannot be found in human society. Moé characters tend to be separated from humans and reality in some way, so you might have girls with cat ears or robot girls or alien girls. There is a sort of purity to these characters—they are not tainted by our world. Tezuka understood this. There is a story in his manga Phoenix (1967–1988) where a man falls in love with an alien, Tamami, who looks like a beautiful girl.
>Honda Toru, born in 1969, is an author and cultural critic. He became famous in 2005 when he wrote the books Denpa otoko (Rambling man) and Moeru otoko (Man, bursting into bud), which espouse his philosophy on moé. He went on to write the books Mo’dan no tetsugakushi (A philosophical history of unpopular men) in 2006, No’nai ren’ai no susume (Recommending imaginary love) in 2007, and Sekai no denpa otoko: mo’dan no bungakushi (Rambling men of the world: a literary history of unpopular men) in 2008. From Honda’s perspective, moé is a response from men who feel marginalized by a society in which there are few acceptable male roles beyond that of salaryman. In such a society men must work hard and buy into romance by purchasing gifts and going on expensive dates. Calling this a system of “love capitalism” (ren’ai shihonshugi), Honda advocates an alternative: relationships with fictional characters—what he refers to as a “love revolution” (ren’ai kakumei).
This explain things like vtubers a lot
Tldr - people use fiction to escape from reality
In other news, water is wet
this all seems like shit that everyone already knew.
I should also read that at some point
still got beautiful fighting girl sitting around
>So it’s not necessarily about dropping out of society—it’s also about being brought up in a world that sets one up to be a moé otaku.
Ah yes, the eternal question.
>For example, [Morinaga] argues that the majority of Japanese men are ugly and poor, and women’s inability to deal with this accounts for falling marriage rates. Men who can’t find partners instead fall in love with characters from manga, anime, and games. In 2005, Morinaga published the book Moé keizaigaku (Moé economics), where he talks of moé as a proud culture of men who have reached enlightenment. His ideas on moé appeared in a controversial article published in the New York Times Magazine on July 21, 2009. In this interview, Morinaga explains the economics of moé, his fears about moé “fundamentalists,” and his hope for wide acceptance of otaku.
>I think that the pressures contributing to the phenomenon are shared globally, and that moé will become a big market in other countries too as more and more men end up on the losing side of the economy.
>MT: The model of success today is the entrepreneurial man who takes his company public and ends up with millions, an apartment on the waterfront, lots of friends, and a beautiful wife. The opposite end of the spectrum is the otaku, who is thought to be a complete and utter failure. But the model of success that I have described is crumbling. I think that otaku might come to be seen less as losers and more as models of happiness. Consuming what you need to be happy and not worrying about being the richest or most powerful might become the new standard. If both men and women make compromises, otaku might even be able to get married.
Sounds like side-stepping the issue here, for people pitting real against not-real they are awfully avoiding reality. Sounds like living in the Matrix.
>and women’s inability to deal with this accounts for falling marriage rates
Over-complicating the issue, AGAIN! This reminds me of junior programmers, when they are faced with a problem they ALWAYS come up with extremely convoluted solutions, it's not because you have a poor grasp of a problem because of lack of knowledge that the problem is actually complicated.
Good thread. if you're interested in this stuff go read Hiroki Azuma's book on the topic ("Otaku")
>PG: Do you think that the more realistic a character, the less it elicits a moé response? HH: I believe it’s possible to have moé feelings toward realistically drawn or depicted characters, but this goes unnoticed. Characters like those from the anime series Lucky Star are for moé beginners because aspects of character design and behavior are obviously designed to be cute and elicit a response from viewers. In fact, if you look at the information provided by the designer in the liner notes of the DVD, you will see that so-called moé elements (moé yoso) are clearly defined. It is teaching the viewer how to read aspects of cuteness in character design. On the other hand, literary novelists such as Dazai Osamu or serious filmmakers such as Oshii Mamoru hide the moé elements of characters deep down. It is not expressed on the surface. In these kinds of works, readers or viewers have to discover the moé elements by reading into the characters, story, and situation. The process is intensive in terms of cognitive labor, thus not many people are willing to do it.
>We still need a middle ground between the two-and three-dimensional worlds, for example maid cafés, where women dress in costumes and perform as characters. The future is knowing that we are in love with fiction and accepting it.
I always find shit liek theis to be the worst of both worlds rather than best.
Love 2D and I'm at least technically not opposed to 3D though not very intrested and I feel a strong repulsion to stuff like idols and other 2.5d scenarios. It often feel pandering when real people try to do cartoonish shit and an insult to the women who act it out.
I read a a book from this author before though.
I assume there's multiple interviewees with at least somewhat different perspectives.
OP here, I agree with you. I thought that was a dumb statement. Pure 2D love in your head does not mix with maid cafe shit.
Yes, the book is comprised of interviews with many different people.
Damn, Libgen has a few books of this guy, all around the topics of otakus and society.
Thanks user, this will make a good read
Half of these are not "moe".
Cheers, I enjoyed Otaku spaces which I think is the same author. Its interview style didn't have a huge amount of leading questions so I felt I could make my mind up myself about the subject matter.
I actually bought a physical copy a little while ago. Honestly I'm impressed it got translated at all, unsurprisingly none of the texts he cites are translated. I gather there's a decent amount of scholarship on this stuff in Japan.
Is it worth reading overall? See its cheap on kindle right now.
>Honda Toru, born in 1969, is an author and cultural critic.
People just get really horny.
That's it.
>don't look at the deeper sociological and psychological aspects that drives a person to such a lifestyle it's just horniness lmao
Perhaps
Thanks, doesn't seem that long so I might as well give it a chance.
We are slaves to the [horny]
I'm not even going to read your green text autism, I'm just here to say that moe wasn't created for little children or for little girls, moe was specifically made for perverted degenerates, paedos who sexualize little girls, I'm sure that when reading my statement the first thing that crosses your disturbed mind is the word "based", but you're not based, you're a fucking degenerate and you should kill yourself.
Based
By all means look at the deep sociological and psychological aspects that make people attracted to one thing over the other.
There's just no real reason to use anime and manga specifically as a point of reference. Some people want a thing, some people get their idea of what thing should be from [INSERT NOT ENTIRELY TRUE PORTRAYAL OF THING HERE], some people retreat into fantasy to be as close to thing as possible.
It happens. Anime and manga isn't particularly unique in this regard and it's probably not even the most widespread. This kinda stuff influences entire political movements, laws have been made based around people reading books and going "Damn, I wish I could do that".
The "moe" angle is unnecessarily specific and makes the whole phenomena and the nerds it effects seem more unique than they actually are.
We're being raised in a culture that says "you can have it all" and "if you don't achieve your dreams, you didn't try hard enough." People saturated in fictional media of all types, not just anime, as well as the viral popularity of a small percent of people that our society has deemed correctly successful, expect those scenarios to play out in their own lives because we've been taught that's how the universe works.
Our brains are still at a place where we accept fiction as reality. It's hard to look at reality and realize that it's mostly a loop of mediocre days interspersed with some good and bad points, especially when the fiction is fulfilling a need that our personal reality is lacking. We read adventure or romance to artificially insert a spike of meaning into mediocrity, and the ease modern media makes it to find the spike tailored to an individual's particular mind makes them highly addictive.
It'a not just about being horny, it's about personal fulfillment in an imperfect, uncaring universe.
>We're being raised in a culture that says "you can have it all" and "if you don't achieve your dreams, you didn't try hard enough."
Does this actually happen, I didn't have an upbringing like that and couldn't name anyone I know that did.
Do you live in a village on the mountains or something?
It depends a lot on where you were born and socioeconomic status.
There are definitely large groups of people who are raised being told that the world is your oyster. Seize the day. Phrases and philosophies that paint the idea that you’re entitled to whatever you want as long as you want it enough.
If you grew up with less than ideal circumstances then you might be a bit more savvy that this stuff only applies to certain people and arguably usually applies to some pretty heinous people but still it’s definitely an idea etched into society
That actually makes sense. I thought it was a bait thread.
You didn't notice the CONSOOM, plastered everywhere you look?
There's a twist nowadays it's even more pernicious, they added the fear of missing out in the mix or "you can have it all" and "it's just atoms hitting each others bro" and "the goal in life is happiness"(that means it's ok to take drugs) and "we're just monkeys".
>Our brains are still at a place where we accept fiction as reality.
The first people that bitch at Christianity will bring up Harry Potter in a political debate. We already solved this long ago, there is no need to develop any new technology, the technology is called religion.
>You didn't notice the CONSOOM, plastered everywhere you look?
While related consumerism isn't exactly the same thing as giving people unrealistic expectations in life.
>Moé is the warmth and solace that cannot be found in human society.
I came to this thread to shit on OP, not feel depressed
This is a very good post.
you will recall japan also lost its entire youthbase from ww2 around the equality of women
fuck you Yotsuba, I am already dead