Apropos of nothing, here are 15 reasons moe — the art of character design intended to instill empathy, sympathy and feelings of affection in the audience — is awesome.
1. Colours!
It’s become increasingly fashionable to use what is often mockingly referred to as a “grimdark” aesthetic these days — all dark blues, browns and greys. Moe anime and video games are a stark contrast to this by remembering what primary colours are and how nice they can make you feel.
2. Characters!
Moe anime and games tend to have deliberately exaggerated rather than realistic characters, but these exaggerated characteristics can make for highly impactful, emotional moments when they reveal their deeper secrets. And it’s pretty rare to find a character in any anime who is exactly what they seem — even in the most fanservicey, perverted, filthy ecchi thing you can possibly think of.
3. Girls!
You want awesome female characters? Look no further. Many moe anime and games feature all-female casts running the gamut from confident, loud types to introverted, intellectual types. The whole point of many of these shows is to demonstrate that these all-girl groups are capable of doing absolutely anything from winning a local talent show to saving the universe — and they certainly don’t need no man to do their thing.
4. Story!
Related to the characterisation issue, it’s hard not to get drawn in to a moe anime or game due to the emotionally engaging stories they typically include. A core part of the “empathy” part of moe is making the audience root for the characters, and there’s no better way to do this than seeing them overcoming all manner of adversity to come out on top.
5. Mood!
Miserable? Watch an episode of Love Live! and I defy you to still be miserable afterwards. (NB: do not apply this challenge to Clannad or Ano Hana.)
6. Easily parsable visual language!
(I knew I’d regret doing the “one-word heading” thing as soon as I started it.) Moe anime is easy to understand, even for beginners to Japanese media, because it makes use of such clear visual language alongside its writing. Everything from hair colour to eye shape is designed to give us an immediate understanding of a character — and perhaps subvert our expectations at a later time.
7. Blurring gender lines!
Here’s a contentious one for you: looking at moe anime through less enlightened eyes, it would be easy to consider it somehow “girly” — compare and contrast toys “for boys” and “for girls” in the ’80s and ’90s for a good example of what I mean. “Boys'” toys would use muted, dark or aggressive colours whereas “girls'” toys would use bright, vivid colours. Moe is something that, according to this stereotype, should be “girly”, but there’s enough to appeal there to men as well as (not instead of!) women.
8. Always something new!
You’ll never run out of moe stuff to enjoy. In fact, you’ll almost certainly never be able to catch up on all the moe stuff that already exists, even if Japan in its entirety stopped producing it altogether.
9. Music!
Moe anime has some of the most catchy, memorable music in existence, even if you don’t speak Japanese. Doubly so if it’s a music-themed anime such as Love Live!
10. Talking about stuff that doesn’t normally get talked about!
Moe anime isn’t all ditzy girls blathering on about bullshit in an airheaded manner — though, of course, such examples do exist and can be enormously entertaining in their own right (hello, Yuru Yuri). Nope, sometimes moe works can deliver an emotional gutpunch by combining cute, cheerful visuals with surprisingly dark, even harrowing storylines. See The Fruit of Grisaia for a masterclass in how this is done.
11. Community!
The community of moe fans on the Internet is one of the most passionate, enthusiastic communities around; become a part of it and you’ll always have something to talk about and someone to talk about it with.
12. Waifus and husubandos!
For those who like to pin their allegiance to a particular person or thing, moe as a cultural phenomenon has you thoroughly covered. Declare a waifu and/or husubando and you’re making a clear but light-hearted statement about yourself. (Declaring everyone else’s waifus as “shit” optional.)
13. Cultural osmosis!
While exaggerated media such as anime and video games can give you a somewhat distorted view, they can be a catalyst for the audience to learn more about a culture other than their own, in turn leading to greater mutual understanding.
14. Relatability!
Tied in with the waifu/husubando equation is the fact that most moe anime will feature at least one character that at least one member of the audience will relate to in some way or another. By extension, this can help some people feel more comfortable talking about certain issues by being able to put them in some sort of context rather than feeling like they’re dealing with them alone.
15. An international cultural phenomenon!
Moe anime has given broader culture a lot of things to chew on — mostly with regard to character and narrative tropes. It can be particularly interesting to see people from outside Japan attempt to make use of these tropes and put their own spin on things — the wonderful visual novel VA-11 HALL-A from Venezuelan developers Sukeban Games is an excellent example of this.
