Editorial: Examining the Economic Side of the Moé Discussion

Last Wednesday I took part in a small eruption of discussion on Twitter about "moé," one that primarily revolved around @janaiblog and @DarylSurat's heated argument. Moé, for those of you unaware, is typically defined as an anime and manga aesthetic that includes cute girls, slice-of-life settings, and/or submissive female characters. (Let's not even get into the obvious generalities of that statement, and the varying opinions among fans in regards to that definition.)

The most interesting point that was brought up, in my opinion, was the idea of looking at moé not through art/entertainment criticism – as many of its supporters and detractors have tried to do – but through an economic lens. In other words, we can throw away questions such as "does moé make a story better/worse?" and "is it a valuable form of character development?" Instead, we can tackle the "debate" (quoted because it's really more of a nebulous conversation than any sort of defined, concrete debate) by examining moé's effects on the Japanese animation industry.

Now, what I'm putting forward here isn't exactly new. Matt Alt wrote a great post roughly a year ago on his blog, detailing what's wrong with the anime industry. According to his assessment, the industry is "dying" due to an endless cycle. No one is really sure if this started with the chicken or the egg, but pretty much it goes like this: Animators are paid slave wages while their jobs are exported to Korea, so naturally the only people who want to work in animation in Japan are the hardcore fans who love anime more than anything else. These people are already hardcore fans, so they are most comfortable creating shows for fellow otaku. However, in aiming for the super-niche audience, anime studios produce moé series that only appeal to people who are already fans. Since they aren't creating enough new fans, the fanbase shrinks and the profits go down. And look at that! When profits go down, they pay their animators less, and the cycle continues.

That is the big problem here. Forget about moé being bad storytelling or anything like that – it shrinks the market! And it's not like I'm trying to bring down other people's favorite shows here. For example, the hit series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a show that I enjoyed, is made by otaku for otaku, so it too is contributing to the problem. If you've ever tried to show Haruhi to a normal, sane human being, you have probably realized that all of the jokes it makes in reference to anime stereotypes don't work so well unless you're already a die-hard anime fan. News flash: not all Japanese people are fans of anime. In fact, some of them would probably react similarly to your own parents when seeing something as ridiculous as Haruhi.

You want proof? Take a look at the top grossing films in Japan from 2004 to 2008. See any moé on the list? No, but you do see a lot of Studio Ghibli films (Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo), shōnen series (Death Note, Detective Conan, Naruto, One Piece), and children's properties (Doraemon, Pokémon). In this Japanese DVD sales chart from the Anime News Network, only one moé show makes it into the top 30 DVDs sold in Japan (at #25), and there are only three moé shows on the entire list. Meanwhile, dozens of more mainstream anime properties like Pokémon, Bleach, Naruto, Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro, and Space Battleship Yamato are scattered throughout the list. Despite this, more than half of the winter 2010 season is comprised of fan-pandering moé, and the remainder are mostly non-moé shows that are also aimed at niche audiences. There's a disconnect here between what's being produced and what's being consumed.

Just imagine if the money put into making those shows was instead put into making more series like the ones we see represented on the box office and DVD sales charts. What if that money was put into making more series like Fullmetal Alchemist, one of the biggest overseas anime success stories in history? I'm willing to bet that the struggling industry would be doing a lot less struggling.

(For the record, I don't live in Japan and don't pretend to have an intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of the Japanese animation industry. If you've got a more compelling argument for why moé is good for the industry – as well as the facts and the credibility to back it up – I'd love to hear it!)

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Japanese man marries dating sim character. No, really.

The phrase "If you like it so much, why don't you marry it?" has never been more terrifyingly applicable. Recently a Japanese man traveled to a Guam church where he was able to – somehow – marry Nene Anegasaki, who is not a pretty young girl who he met at a bar, but instead a pretty young cartoon character who he met in Nintendo DS dating sim game Love Plus.

The newlyweds held a reception today to show slides of their wedding and (dialogue-tree-filled) courtship, which you can now view on Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga (EDIT: You'll need to log in to watch it – thanks to Yumeka for the link). You can also promptly slam your head into a pillow and cry for the state of humanity.

A few years back, some Japanese guys tried to put together a petition to convince the Japanese government to allow them to marry cartoon characters. Luckily their weak petition fell through, but now it seems like the author of the online message (who claimed that he would marry Mikuru Asahina if given the chance) finally has a ray of hope in the dark void that is his life. He can find consolation in knowing that another otaku has found happiness with his own virtual girlfriend, as he sits in his cramped apartment, crying himself to sleep because he will never have a meaningful interaction with a fellow human being in his entire life. (Some folks in the comments section of the Tiny Cartridge post might strongly disagree as they hug their body pillows and complain about the "tyranny of women")

The best part of the whole thing is that this is a character who thousands of other otaku have probably fallen in love with. Now that one guy has married her, is she off-limits to everybody else? Oooh, brutal! Maybe you guys will have to start widening your horizons a bit. Think outside the box if you know what I mean.

[via Tiny Cartridge]

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Zenkaikon 09: Look out! There’s a cute girl hiding in everything!

Emily Compton and Katsunori Matsushita headed Zenkaikon’s "Moé Anthropomorphism-tan" panel, which sought to explain the exploitation of moé figures created either as marketing or metaphor for use in ads, anime, and other amusements in Japan.

Moé characters, for the purpose of the subjects of this panel, are sweet/cute figures defined by a set of characteristics that evokes an inclination to protect/defend them. Anthropomorphism is defined via Wikipedia as “the attribution of human characteristics to non-human creatures and beings, phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts.” Japan, which has a long-standing tradition of attributing spiritual sense to everyday objects (what they call gods, but we would see more as “spirit” or “essence”), uses a combination of pop culture and inherited spirituality to create moé mascots with attributes representing the objects they represent.

Examples range from educational comics, manga, Web animations, and anime to fetishistic advertising. An example of the former would be Afuganis-tan, a series which uses moé characters as personifications of Central Asian nations to educate children about history and current events. While this format has made the history “accessible” to youth (and entertaining to adults), it often elicits a critique of trivialization. Its characters are very stereotypical, defined by broad generalizations in appearance as well as their actions, but all the nations are treated equally, avoiding any sense of favoritism.

Mechamusume is another branch of moé anthropomorphism, wherein cute girls represent vehicles/hardware. And aside from military ads/brochures for real-world jets, tanks, and guns, examples of mechamusume’s employment can be found in anime series such as Sky Girls and Strike Witches. This form of moé anthropomorphism isn’t confined to military machinations, however. Commercial planes, trains, and even satellites are represented by cute girls integrated with either aspects of the actual design or wearing uniforms/colors of the company. An anime that touches on this is Miracle Train, which employs beautiful men riding an underground subway line as allegories for stops along said train line; each character’s characteristics are defined by the nature of the stops (business, entertainment, night life, etc.).

With an admitted soft spot for the wide-eyed girls that so often populate anime in general, I found it generally amusing to see the wealth of moé in advertising for everything from education to social commentary. It comes down to the art of representing one thing through another: a visual metaphor. Varying degrees of good and bad were clearly evident even through the various examples of a poorly lit slideshow (bad projector), but, come what may, moé anthropomorphism remains a distinctive Japanese presence and (much to the dismay of many) culturally and artistically relevant.

Ani-Gamers blogger Ink checked out a whole bunch of the panels and events at Zenkaikon 2009. For more coverage, keep your eyes on our Zenkaikon 09 label!

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