Moé Rising: The line between cute and characterization

What is eternity doing tonight? has become Mega Megane Moé. For the latest posts, please change your links accordingly. Ikimashou, Mega Megane Moe's host, is going through some hard times, and until these get resolved, posting will continue here at Eternity.

(I like Hisui, but the ol' line about "So moe I might die" comes to mind)

Moe: is it in your anime, killing your enjoyment?

Recently I've been in a bit of despair over Clannad, the third installment in Key's sad-girls-in-noun series that has been animated by high-quality animation studio Kyoto Animation. By all means, I like to consider myself a Key fanboy (I believe the official term for this is "kagikko") like the best of them; look up at my banner (might need a couple refreshes, admittedly) or down at my posts, and you'll see a whole lot of raving, ranting, and allusions to vanilla ice cream, among other catchfoods.

But with the advent of decidedly more real, down-to-earth visual-novel type stories in anime, for example, the highly lauded KimiKiss, it seems that some of Key's works could almost be growing stagnant. Even other shows with what could be considered mildly moe characters, take a more realistic, balanced view, as the infamous quote in ef - a tale of memories goes: "If the girl is thought to be cute, it means she isn't being described properly."

There are a lot of instances of concentrated moe in anime nowadays, but Key works are generally among the genre-leaders in this regard. Just look at Kanon, and Yuuichi's four childhood friends. Clannad is a bit more even-keeled in terms of characters, but Kotomi's recent arc is what really tipped the scale for me, and led me to this post.

It made me wonder - is there a sort of divide between moe characters and strong characters? Is a moe character, by definition, one that has to be shallow? Or is this just a false dichotomy?

Now, as you may surmise, I'm going to be one to stand by the Kanon characters until the end of time. Whether it's the persistent, fight-o attitude of Nayuki, Mai's deceptively kind demeanor lying behind her silent personality, or Shiori's strange, worldly poetic monologues, they all strike a chord somewhere deep inside.

But one has to wonder whether this emotion results from a liking of a strong characteristic or personality they have, or just what many people label as "moe", what has been described as a sort of 'protective urge', a sort of "wanting to be there for them" of like.

I say this because if you think about it, what exactly would happen if you removed the main character (and projection of many a viewer), Yuuichi, from the puzzle. Would they all come crashing down? Would Shiori ever have been happy? Would Mai ever have stopped fighting those demons, internal and external? Would Makoto and Ayu even exist?

It's a sort of grown-up fantasy for people to idolize guys like Yuuichi and situations like his, more than just a simple lust that people feel towards swimsuit models and front-page pin-ups, more of a wanting to "be the only one that can help them", an ironically selfish motive.

And in order for this situation to exist, the girls' characters have to be intentionally flawed, they have to be incomplete, one might say 'broken'. Of course, that's not to say that any flawed character is bad - a character in fiction shouldn't be perfect by any means, and entire Shakespearean works have been built around characters - and stories - gone horribly wrong.

But I think the key to a character is to make them functional enough so that they can live on their own. Kaiji, from his self-titled series, I think, is an example of one such character; he lives a rather poverished, lacking life, but there's no question that he could survive in his tiny apartment on his gas station pay. He may not be happy with his current life, but he is capable in every way, and so when he gets offered these deceptive opportunities by the yakuza to step up into a greater life, the audience can really feel for the torture, the human emotion that he has to go through.

However, the case really does seem different in many a visual novel, and Kotomi's one such unfortunate example. As blog feedback has been indicating, Kotomi's a sort of mixed bag: she's one of the most adorable characters since the history of ever, but her story just doesn't click as Jeff Lawson in one of the above posts puts it:

"I also have this gnawing feeling her story will turn out to be the weakest of the entire show. She’s hot moe infused with essence of sweet moe with a side helping of refined moe served on a dish made of moe mined in the moe mines of ancient Moetopia."

And somehow, I can't help but think that these two facts were linked.

For example, if you walk down to your local Moe dealership to purchase one of the latest 2008 models, you'll be greeted with a customization list that reads off like a list of some of the biggest cliches in anime. Childhood friend? Traumatic childhood incident that caused mental impairment? Unable to make friends with anyone but one person? Check those boxes.

It's sort of a left-brain, right-brain thing. The subjective right half eats it all up, loves the characters and their emotional ploys and the world be damned if anything come between them. But the logical left half notes that they've seen it all before, notes that it's all been done to death, hates it and wishes there was something more creative.

Are these 'moe triggers' always cliched? Maybe that's part of what it is - you really can't get that sense of comfort with a character without really knowing who they are, and the easiest way to do that is to pigeonhole them into at least a partially stereotyped character. If you have a character that breaks bounds, that isn't cut and dry, it's admittedly harder for them to be moe. Why? Because they're new, because they're different, and for a lot of situations, different is scary.

This is where ef goes, in taking a different path - the characters can't wholly be sympathized with, and they can't wholly be hated either. Miyako's 99 Missed Calls is a perfect example of this; you really feel sorry for the girl, for trying so hard and getting shut down, but on the other hand, you get really creeped out by her persistence and desperation.

And while this sounds like a bad thing, I enjoy this style a lot, because it really invokes a lot of thinking, really makes you consider the character more than a simple black and white portrayal.

Once again I want to hark back to Stripey's post on fanservice in anime, and argue that moe is largely the same way. Logically, you could probably argue that moe is essentially a subset of fanservice, for a more 'pure' type of fan.

And it functions the same way, on a character-by-character basis. If you take a blank character as a plain ice cream sundae, and lather it in moe syrup and dip it in moe chocolate and sprinkle moe candy all over it and put sliced moe on it with a moe cherry on top, it may look tasty to the eye but the fact of the matter is you'll probably be gagging by the second bite.

Moe functions well as a garnish, a way to accentuate an otherwise strong character. It shouldn't replace a character's true personality and strengths but rather add to them, show a kind of contrast.

To speak in character terms, it's similar to the theory of why tsunderes are so widely loved by many anime viewers. If a character was only tsuntsun (cold, mean, etc) or only deredere (loving, affectionate, etc), it wouldn't be half as effective, because the viewer would not get that feeling of 'seeing the side of a character that not everyone sees'.

Similarly, in visual-novel-type shows, having a character that's all moe, or conversely, not moe at all, doesn't work quite as well. If a character looks weak on the outside, but really has a strong inner drive (Nagisa), or if a character looks mean on the outside but has a soft spot inside (Tomoyo), it really works better, provided that one doesn't overpower the other. And as you may have guessed by the parentheses there, that's why I'm still liking Clannad, why I look forward to the arcs of the other characters. (Aside from the comedy, of course.)

And that's probably why I still continue to idolize Kanon; even though the character structure is very weak in spots, the characters, at least some of them, do fit this concept quite well. I know I described Mai to a T last paragraph. Other characters, like Ayu, may not work quite the same, as her clumsiness, loli-ness, and uguu~power generally overwhelm her serious aspects, but deep down, they are there somewhere, so I can't say that I could truly hate on any of the Key games. Such is the tint of the rose-colored glasses.

Kotomi, I should hope is just a holdback of the older days of visual novels, when characters were perhaps a bit weaker, a bit more stereotypical. Since a lot of her story is so cliched, so moe-engined, she lacks that 'other side' to her, that something that makes her more than an cute 2D (in both senses) character. Certainly I see potential in a lot of other Clannad characters to break the mold and balance the opposite scales of rational appeal and emotional appeal, so don't count me disenchanted yet.

Sometimes, there just needs to be a bit of stepping back for a minute and seeing how this new trend for moe is and isn't changing things...

-CCY

(Hopefully not in this direction, for one...I apologize.)

(This post should rank pretty high on the incoherency scale, the analytical articles are always tough to write. Especially when you're arguing against every anime you've ever watched. I still have no regrets in liking moe characters, I'm just surprised at how much of my viewing lineup is tilting away from stereotypical moe offerings - the ef rewatch (in case you were wondering what was holding the review), Kaiji, ARIA, SZS Zoku, even KimiKiss is on the lighter side of moe)