Moe (萌え, Japanese pronunciation: [mo.e] ⓘ), sometimes romanized as moé or moe’ in English, is a Japanese word that refers to feelings of strong affection mainly towards characters in anime, manga, video games, and other media directed at the otaku market. Moe, however, has also gained usage to refer to feelings of affection towards any subject.

Moe is related to neoteny and the feeling of “cuteness” a character can evoke. The word moe originated in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Japan and is of uncertain origin, although there are several theories on how it came into use. Moe characters have expanded through Japanese media, and the concept has been commercialised. Contests, both online and in the real world, exist for moe-styled things, including one run by one of the Japanese game rating boards.

Moe characters have expanded within the Japanese media market. In 2003, the market for moe media such as printed media, video, and games was worth 88 billion yen; roughly one-third of the estimated 290 billion yen otaku market in Japan.[16] In 2009, Brad Rice, editor-in-chief of Japanator, said that “moe has literally become an economic force” saying that more products use some element of moe in order to sell better. Rice also goes on to say that moe is used to get anime and manga works out to “hardcore fans who buy excessive amounts of items related to the character of their desire.”[17] Source: Wikipedia

Moe is a Japanese word for something that produces feelings of affection. In short, ‘cute’. A kitten, small child, or a painting may be described as moe. It can also refer to fashion (think J-pop stars or idols), characters, art-styles, or stories.

There is a theory that moe was introduced by post-WW2 Japanese artists to distance themselves from the hyper-nationalistic imagery of Imperial Japan. In any case, Osamu Tezuka showed that dark and complex stories can be told without a dark and complicated art-style, leading to a number of Japanese works - even ones aimed at an older audience - using a moe artstyle.

There is definitely a subculture that fetishises moe, but I’ll leave it at that.

I’d say it’s closer to a character style. Moe is a term that originally referred to the soft warm feeling you get when you view a cute character. Like the feeling of wanting to protect them eg Rosa from Brooklyn 99’s reaction to holding a puppy.

Nowadays I’d say it’s also a way to get more views for your middling anime. Eg the trope of cute girls doing some random hobby. Popular examples of the trope include lucky star, nichijou, the one about the euphonium that I can’t remember the full name of, and plenty more that are terrible that I never bothered to watch or remember their name. The trope isn’t necessarily bad, as the named examples above are good shows, but it is often used to try to draw viewers to bad anime by including token, or entirely filled with Moe characters.

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