moe (new word)

Moe (萌え) is a Japanese word that refers to enthusiasm for a specific object or the symbolized charm of the object that the speaker is passionate about. It is a new word . It mainly refers to the charm of characters in 2D media such as animation and games , and can be further defined as deep emotions felt toward a specific object.

It can be replaced with love , charm factor, body kin, etc.

There is no certainty about the ultimate origin of the word 'moe' as an otaku term. However, the word moe is similar to the noun form moe (萌え) of 'moeru' (萌える), which is a Chinese character for 'sprout', which means 'to sprout' in Japanese . It is often mistaken as originating from the Japanese word 'moeru' (燃える) , which means 'to burn' and 'bultal kite', but this is not strictly true. There is a theory that one uses萌 (萌) to express emotions that arise in one's heart . However, in times when the word moe was not well known, the notation 燃え was sometimes used.[1]

Considering the Japanese etymology, it is highly likely that moeru (萌える), which uses 'sprouting', is derived from moeru (燃える, 'burning out'). Originally, the word hoondok in Japanese is a native language that existed before Chinese characters , and since Chinese characters were introduced, Chinese characters with similar meanings were added. For example, 'Kakeru' is usually written as '掛ける' by using 'Gwae', but when it is used in relation to gambling in the form of betting money, it is written as 賭ける by using the Chinese character 'Bet'. However, in the case of replacing Chinese characters in this way, the usage is extremely limited, and the use of 'moeru' in 'sprout' is also limited compared to moeru (燃える), which uses 'burning out'. If you look up the daily dictionaries, examples of moeru (燃える) using 'burning kite' also mean 'moeru (burning) in the spirit of learning' or 'moeru (burning) in a haze', so it is also It can be seen that something is derived from the rising image . On the other hand, Moeru (萌える) of 'sprouting' is only an example of a plant sprouting, but Moeru of 'Fire Kite' is officially listed in the dictionary as 'emotions and passions rise' and is a 'flaming longing'. There are example sentences such as 'righteousness', so if you are expressing 'emotions rising from the heart', in fact, 'moeru' of 'burning out' would be more meaningful.

Nevertheless, it is not clear why the Chinese character ‘Ssakteulmaeng’ is used instead of ‘Bultal Yeon’. However, I guess it is because the meaning of moeru in 'bultal kite' is broad, and in reality, moeru (燃える) has a very broad meaning. It can be used to express burning, of course, to express a haze, to express rising emotions, to express good feelings such as 'burning love', or to express bad feelings such as 'eyes burning with anger'. Therefore, it may be difficult to express the extremely good feeling that we know . However, the meaning of moeru (萌える) in 'sprouting' is only 'sprouting', and it is a good image of natural life sprouting, so the good image of 'moe' can be felt through the Chinese character itself, and is often used in real life. If you insert the Chinese character for 'ssakteul maeng', which does not work, there will be almost no room for confusion when using the word moe. Therefore, it can be assumed that otaku took over the gap first and occupied it for their own purposes.

In addition, there is a claim to find the etymology of the name of a character with the 'moe' attribute. Let's take a look at the major ones

In addition, there are several minor theories, but it is difficult to verify them with certainty.

As seen in the above expressions, it is used as a noun and an adjective.

Anyone who does not know the meaning of the word moe will not understand it well even if it is explained in the dictionary, but it is easy to understand if you think of it simply as a word used for a character who is pretty and somewhat attractive. If I had to translate it, it would be attractive. I feel attracted to ~~. degree.

In Korea, expressions such as ‘chewy’ and ‘chewy’ are used for similar purposes. It is mainly used by idols and anime girls. Meanwhile, in Korean, the similar pronunciation can be changed to moae (慕愛), which means longing and loving. The title of ‘Mo Ae Mo Ae Studying in Joseon ’ is also taken from this.

Moe culture is a love comedy It is evaluated that it originated from a boy's cartoon . Until the 1970s, it was difficult to find romance-oriented works such as romance as well as love comedies in Japanese boys' manga. Then, in the late 1970s, female writers were introduced to shonen comics, and as girls' comics were used in shonen comics, works based on love began to appear in shonen comics. Among them, the representative work is Takahashi Rumiko 's Noisy Star Guys (1978-1987), which is evaluated as a work that created the genre of love comedy as a genre of boys' comics. In the 1980s, love comedies and pure love stories were established as the mainstream genres of boys' comics. Representative works include Takahashi Rumiko 's Maison Ikaku (1980-1987), Adachi Mitsuru 's Touch (1981-1986), and Matsumoto Izumi 's Whimsical Orange Road (1984-1987).

The characteristics of the works of this period are that they usually focus on one main character, one female protagonist, one or two sub-heroines, and one or two rivals (the sub-heroines and rivals do not necessarily appear), and they usually depict the process of the main character and the female protagonist's love coming true, while emphasizing the story. If you take a look at the flow of the three works exemplified above, you can see that the following structure is often found.

Among them, the biggest difference from modern moe works is that there are fewer characters . Since the works of this period focused on the narrative, there was neither the ability nor the reason to introduce many characters. The goal was to draw a beautiful love story like a novel, not to appeal to the charm of each character. Even if other characters appeared, they were limited to supporting roles. This trend continued until the late 1980s, and the romance development of Masakazu Katsura 's work , Deiyou Shoujo (1989-1992) and Super Dimension Fortress Macross followed the style of pure love stories.

However, writers and works that break the narrative structure centered on the main couple and make new attempts appear. To be precise, it already was. Rumiko Takahashi is the person who established romantic comedy . As various sub-characters have already appeared in The Noisy Stars , each character has established his or her own personality. If we look at only the female characters who appear in a significant role in the main story, we can name Ramu , Shinobu , Sakura , Ran , Oyuki , Benten , Ryunosuke , etc., and if we include minor roles, many more characters are active with their own unique characteristics. Let's begin. This moment can be said to be the starting point of modern moe. Entering the 90s, works in which each character's personality is prominently displayed appear one after another. Representative works from this period include Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2 (1987-1996) and Kosuke Fujishima 's Oh! Examples include My Goddess (1988-2014).

Meanwhile, another groundbreaking work appeared in girls' manga , Naoko Takeuchi's original Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (1992-1997). By combining girls' manga with sentai , and this went beyond the framework of girls' manga and became a huge hit as an animation, we entered an era where pretty girls appeared in droves. In addition, the harem work Love Hina, which synthesized all the "moe" elements that were talked about at the time, became a huge hit, leading to a flood of harem works based on moe characters. In a way, animation that includes modern moe elements was a craze not only in the 2020s, but also in the 1990s, and among them, the time when the word and concept of "moe" spread widely to the general public was around Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995).

In particular, the seeds of the moe boom were sown when Ayanami Rei made bandage moe explosively popular at the time, and its differentiation and systematization began with The Eternal Tsundere That You Wish For in 2001. Next, we cannot leave out the contributions of Kyoto Animation animations from the late 2000s, such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (2006) and Lucky Star (2007), which used otaku culture as their subject matter, as the main players in expanding the moe market .

Japanese animation initially began as a dramatization that emphasized the flow of the story, but around the late 1980s, animations that focused on the charm of characters gradually increased. The charm of a character is an important element that cannot be separated from a work, and if the character is not captured, the work cannot progress. Additionally, the act of a writer using a character to advance the development he or she has conceived is character collapse or auteurism , which is a method of developing a work that creators should be wary of. The 'character-oriented' works referred to in this document are not works that bring out the charm of the characters and let the characters take the lead in developing the work. Rather, a good work is one in which the characters are brought to life and the characters take the lead.

'Character-oriented' animations referred to in this document refer to animations in which characters are used for moe. The human depth of the characters is ignored and the characters are consumed to suit sex codes and otaku tastes. Criticism of the Moe Code is based on its lack of artistic quality. Whether moe codes are included or the characters fit otaku tastes, there is no problem with taste as long as the character has a strong personality and the narrative of the work itself is good. However, there were people who felt the absurdity of the fact that works that did not have the basics of a story gained the weapon of Moe Code to challenge the market and even often achieved success.

In other words, the "moe industry" in cultural content refers to the sexually attractive characters pursued by Japanese cartoons/animations since the 1990s, the groups of works in which these characters appear, and the secondary productions related to these cartoons/animations. De facto symbol of Japanese subculture .[3]

A cartoonist creates a “moehan” character. → Become popular. → It is animated. → “Moe characters” are commercialized. → Figures, pillows, etc. are remembered for the characters, not the comics. In this way, “Moe” stands at the extreme point of the character industry that began around the 1990s, and recently, the creation of “Moe” characters and character-related industries have increased to the extent that it can be called a Moe craze, and the demand base for them has also increased significantly.

"Moe characters" and "Moe attributes" that define Moe characters have been established through experiments by many creators over a long period of time, so they have developed to be attractive for the first time. The current Japanese animation industry has virtually become impossible to talk about without Moe.

However, as the size of the moe industry grew, problems began to emerge as well. Due to the moe craze, in most fields such as animation/comics/games, 'If you don't have moe water, you can't succeed properly. You can succeed by making moe water. As the awareness of ' is widespread, the biggest problem is that a significant number of animations have mass-produced content that is meaninglessly similar. In addition, Moe, who takes characters as sexual objects, has grown otaku culture economically, but at the same time, it has caused society's perception of otaku culture to change more negatively.

Then, in the late 2000s, as the Korean wave swept through Japan, China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, the Japanese government analyzed the reason and concluded that it was possible because of government-level support. So, the Cool Japan policy was promoted, and what was included in it was the Moe culture. Since there are already many foreigners who are interested in Moe culture, we set a goal to develop tourism products and revitalize the local economy using this.

When the Japanese government recognized the Moe culture as a representative cultural content of Japan and started to create related ministries, a surprising phenomenon began to occur where general organizations or local governments created Moe characters and used them for promotional purposes. This is called moe revival. The recognition that moe culture is one of the genres that young people like is starting to spread, moving away from being regarded as a bad hobby. Right away, the mayor of Akihabara promoted a character who transformed himself into a moe, and Shinzo Abe attended the Niconico conference.

Recently, in consultation with small local governments, the region is promoted indirectly through animation. The purpose of using the pilgrimage culture to increase the vitalization of the local economy. In these local governments, it is not difficult to find Moe characters drawn on billboards for local publicity.

As mentioned above, Japan There is a widespread belief among otaku circles that you can never succeed unless you do moe. In Japan, related works and products are selling so well that it is possible to sustain them with moe alone, and because of that, there are no other fan fantasy moe works whose purpose is to feature cute and pretty characters. There is a sarcastic word for this, “ Beautiful Girl Zoo .” Additionally, because moe codes mostly target underage girls rather than adult women, they are portrayed as sexual objects, expanding the perception that otaku are perverts.

Jumping on this bandwagon, the worst case scenario appears where the character has no humanity and is just a mess of moe code. After wearing a maid outfit and wearing cat ears, she hugs the main character, giving a soft giggle after every word, but in her head, she loves the owner so much! The same character is an example. Of course, it is true that viewers and readers are also human, so they do not give affection to characters who only have 'moe' as a code. Not all animations that emphasize pretty girls and moe are successful, and many nerds are now tired of works that only emphasize moe attributes . Although there are many cases where moe is included in popular works , works that are only filled with moe are unconditionally unpopular. Of course, when people who are not familiar with otaku culture see it, it 's my eyes! Shouting, they hate the producers and viewers and stay away from them. Some of them awaken , but... it's just a kind of decoration. It needs to have an above-average story to sell.

Of course, we should not dismiss moe content itself as completely worthless. However, if moe content is not a part of the anime market but rather encroaches on the market, it is a different story. The excessive flood of moe content has brought about mannerism in the Japanese comics industry, and for a long period of time from the early 2000s to the late 2010s until the outbreak of COVID-19.[4] Japanese animation came to be seen as a league only otakus watch . In particular, the early 2010s was a golden age for otakus , with a series of anime featuring pretty girl zoos and red-hot sex toys. On the other hand, for the Japanese animation market, the extreme stalemate of consumers had led to the darkest period of all time, and the issue of negative growth was even raised. As a result, the social perception of otakus became negative, not only in Korea but also in Japan, where they were viewed by the general public as a group of unpleasant losers, and so Japanese animation that was mainly focused on moe, which otakus were crazy about, could not help but be treated negatively, as a vulgar and unhealthy taste, like light adult videos.

Because of this overflow of moe, Japanese animation, and even in other countries such as Korea , Greater China , and the West , is perceived as nothing but moe, and it is at odds with the public's tastes, making the public reluctant to access related media. Even masterpieces and popular ones. Incredibly, both in Japan and outside of Japan, it was said that if there were a lot of male characters, it would be feminine, and if there were a lot of female characters, it would be masculine. As the distance between Japanese animation and the Japanese public grew, the animation industry began to rely on DVD Blu-ray sales and OVAs and theatrical releases, which were more profitable than popular TVA broadcasts, and moe- centric versions to suit the tastes of otaku, a small but enthusiastic group of consumers who purchased them. The focus will be on the work of .

In addition , in the 2000s, when the Internet and social networks were underdeveloped and access to information was limited, not only Chinese and American voice actors who were geographically distant, but even Korean voice actors did not understand the moe code well, which led to difficulties in interpreting characters, leading to mixed voices . I was scolded by Since then, all three kingdoms have gradually become optimized for moe acting through the 2010s , but it is ironic that the moe code is criticized by some who say that the acting is cringy and uncomfortable to listen to in their native language . In relation to this, some named producers, including Yoshiyuki Tomino, pointed out the harmful effects of 'Moegoe'. In the case of Tomino, during the production of Gundam G's Reconguista, it was pointed out that the vocalizations of the voice actors to play moe characters should be ignored and the original voices should be used as they are.

Now, more than 15 years after it became a buzzword, it is less used than Oshi (Japanese) or Totoi . A generation has emerged that doesn't really know what the word "moe" means, and people who use the word "moe" are treated like otakus. In the 2010s, as Japan's internet culture rapidly changed to a fantasy-oriented direction represented by Mong-mong and Nan-j, even non-otakus seem to feel aversion to 'moe', which has become a semi-common noun that they have heard of. However, in the context of maid cafes, the words “be delicious, moemoe kyun ” are still used as a set.

It is believed that the reason why the trend of the word “moe” has cooled down is because a lot of time has passed since the trend began, so the lifespan of the buzzword has naturally come to an end. Also, unlike in the early to mid 90s when the trend began, “moe-style” content is now commonplace. There is also a theory that this is because there is no longer a need to refer to it as a separate word. This is similar to the buzzword UCC , which started becoming popular around the same time and ended its lifespan slightly earlier, and the rapid diversification of Chewdeok culture and disconnection with the older generation in the mid-to-late 2010s also accelerated the decline in the influence of the word 'moe'. . Ultimately, in the 2020s, the use of the word 'moe' has come to mean an unwritten rule , a natural rule that must be observed when subcultures and other fields, such as virtual YouTubers , are integrated .

Additionally, starting in the late 2010s, it is often used as a more "academic" concept when discussing the moe anime boom and its characters, which began in earnest among second-generation otakus . In this way, the frequency of use has decreased and the purpose has changed, but it has not become a dead language.

It is sometimes translated as byeongga ( bbonggajukne ), but strictly speaking, this is an incorrect translation. To add more detail, it was a mistranslation due to the incorrect construction of the sentence. There is no Korean expression that is applied 1:1 with Moe yet.

The Nostalgia Critic recommends seeing a psychiatrist if you're fed up with animated characters .

In April 2009, a foreign K-On character was ranked moeful in a popular vote.[6][7] A new word appeared. I think it has a different meaning from cute, pretty, beautiful, hot, sexy, etc. And one of the Internet terms that became popular in China in 2014 is Meng Meng Ta (萌萌哒) , which is a Chinese character with the Chinese character "萌" (萌) added twice to mean very cute. It is a word that was born under the influence of Japanese five virtue culture .

Some enthusiasts even write ‘Moe’ as ‘Moae’. It may be a simple typo , but it is also possible that he is a patriotic fan who loves the Korean language. This is because the word ‘moae’ is proudly registered in the Korean dictionary as a standard word. According to the Korean dictionary, maternal love means ‘admiration and love.’ It is actually a completely different word from the original 'Moe', but surprisingly, it has a similar meaning to Moe, so it is said that it is possible to replace Moe with the beautiful(?) Korean word 'Moe'.[8]

There is a name called Moe among English names, so it is surprisingly common for nerds to misread it as the Japanese /moe/. In reality, it is / mo /[mou].[9]

Good Smile Company is driving the wind of Moe in the figure world.

singer from india Dollar Mehndi 's song Moye Moye sounds like Moe Moe . The reaction in Niconico Douga is explosive.

Kim Yong-ha , director of Blue Archive , gave a lecture on the topic of Moeron at NDC 2014, the Nexon developer conference, while working at Smilegate . You can watch the lecture directly on NDC Replay . According to the testimony of those who heard it in person, it was said to be the best lecture of the day.

If you break out '萌', it means 十十日月, and accordingly, in some parts of Japan, October 10th is regarded as an unofficial holiday called Moe Day.