Help me understand moe. It's cute, right? Like, is

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>>150164790
>It's cute, right?
No.

Moe is not a trait of characters, it's a feeling that an individual can feel for those characters. Moe is the feeling of romantic attraction to a fictional character. That doesn't mean just thinking a character is cute, or attractive, or endearing. It means you have the romantic feelings for a fictional character which people would usually only have for other real people. It's not the feeling that you think you would like to be in a romantic relationship with that character if they were real, but that you pine for them as they are now. A fictional character.

And that is all moe means. What inspires feelings of moe is, of course, up to the individual. It may or may not have to do with appearance, personality, cuteness, age, sex, scenario, etc.

Okay, now that we've covered that, let's talk moe characters. I'll reiterate here, moe in not a trait of characters, but the idea of a "moe character" has become ubiquitous so it needs to be understood. So what is a "moe character?" It's a character who either very commonly or more often has been designed to intentionally inspire feelings of moe in the audience. There was a gradual shift in the anime industry whereby producers realized that moe was a thing and that they could cater to it. Catering to moe has become so pervasive that basically all CGDCT type shows do it unabashedly, and because the traits which successfully engender feelings of moe tend to coalesce around certain feature sets (dumb but not too dumb, hyper-optimism, classic cute girl design, etc., but don't forget that moe is different for every individual), people will now just off-handedly refer to characters who are obviously designed to match those feature-sets as "moe characters." The same is show for the idea of a "moe show," if the show was obviously designed largely to cater to feelings of moe.

>>150165502


Holy shit, great answer. Thank you anon.

>>150165502
Thanks, anon. You just helped me realize that I do feel moe for a certain character.

>>150164790
Rukia isn't moe and
lurk more

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Lurk moar.

>>150165502
is the notion of romantic love an essential component of moe? or can it also be a feeling of platonic affection?

>>150164790
Rukia is considered ugly.

>>150164790
No it's kind of hard to explain but >>150165502 is a pretty good explanation. Watch more Anime and you'll get it.

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i'm prolly one of few left that even remember this guy
i miss him dearly

>>150165944
would quite like to read but jesus christ i cannot

>>150165944
Why is it so hard to use paragraphs?

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>>150165901
You're getting into complicated territory, but historically moe has pretty much always been discussed in terms of romantic feelings. See >>150165884

There's an argument that could be made for moe referring to any feelings which transcend the fiction barrier, meaning any feelings one would normally only feel for other real humans being felt for fictional characters, but then you would have to handle things like happiness, sadness, anxiety, all the normal reactions audiences can have to fictional material.

On the other hand, there's the whole daughteru phenomenon, wherein fans experience feelings similar to moe but based in familial protectiveness and affection rather than romantic affection. Personally I would not refer to this as moe, even though it looks very similar. As far as I'm concerned, if it's not romantic then it's not moe, but this is obviously a closely related area. As of now I would have to call it an unnamed phenomenon, but a fitting way to refer to it might be "paternal moe." I hesitate to suggest any name because the original idea of moe was, of course, first popularized by the nips.

>>150165561
>>150165630
Just doing my part. There are too many poorly educated anons shitting up /a/.

>>150165909


Lies and slander.

>>150166256
Damn, I think I have this "paternal moe" for Luluco. I just want her to find Nova and be happy with him.