Samu-Kun Muses on Moé
My friend and fellow Visual Novelist Samu-Kun has recently posted a dense and multilayered essay on the topic of moé. He has been thinking about the topic a lot, both as a consumer and a creator, and since he and I share an interest in art history I am quite interested in his insights.
He also used graphs. I am admittedly a sucker for graphs.
In his essay Samu-Kun proposes three distinct themes and theses and expands upon them sequentially. In summary they are:
- Moé is made by artistic idealization, similar to the art of portraiture – what is desirable and good is amplified, and what is not is omitted.
- The application of moé in the service of a story can be done many ways: stories containing consecutive layers of ‘absolute moé’ and stories which build and remove ‘relative moé’.
- Moétic character stereotypes serve an important function, allowing implausibly idealized characters to be introduced into a story.
I shall expand and reflect upon each three in turn.
The Moé Image
Samu-Kun introduces the concept of moé as an image or idealization with an investigation into it’s intrinsic variability.
My original proposition that the definition of moe is indeterminable in my previous essay has been changed to that the definition of moe is variable, or that what people think is moe is different for different people. Some people like glasses girls, while people like me honestly don’t understand what’s so good about them. Some people are addicted to shrine maidens and little sisters, while others like genki girls and dojikko. Well, that’s a pretty obvious statement, isn’t it? But if moe is different for different people, then how do we understand anything about it?
In other words moé is like ‘beautiful’ or ’sexy’. Different strokes for for different folks and all that. Yet despite that you may be a sucker for twintail-tsun-lolis and I may be weak against D-cup-meganeko-maids, we can both recognize a similar effect upon us produced via similar mechanisms. The primary moétic mechanism which Samu-kun identifies, is the shared quality of extreme idealization. So extreme that he likens it to the type of editorial excess normally motivated by fear of the rack.
First, Moe is an image. Let’s say that you’re a painter who’s been commissioned to draw an ugly Italian lord during the Renaissance. You know that you can be paid a lot of money if the lord likes your painting, but if he doesn’t, then you’ll most likely be thrown into the dungeon and tortured for three weeks. So obviously, you embellish the painting and make the Italian lord look a lot better than what he actually is, right? Moe is like that painting. Whatever real life may be for you, moe is a painting, or image, of life that has been embellished and made beautiful.
With this construction Samu-Kun joins the school of moétic thinkers who hold that moé can be understood, analyzed, and formulated in explicit terms, and also that the tools best suited for understanding and discussion of moétic evolution and moétic effects are those of art history. In this small fraternity he can count a minority of fellow anime bloggers such as Shingo, Love and myself, who stand against the prevailing sentiment that moé is an unknowable experience, resistant to analysis or logic.
Samu-kun’s identification of moé as a class of idealization stops short of identifying the types of idealization that make a subject specifically moé (as opposed to say the types of idealization that makes an Italian Renaissance Lord specifically gar). One hopes that this topic is explored in future as I suspect that Samu-kun’s perspective would offer interesting insights into the specific nature of moétic idealization.
Relative and Absolute Moé
The next portion of Samu-Kun’s essay deals with the way moétic characters, situations, and effects are used in stories. His theses is that moé can be used in one of two fundamentally different ways, illustrating this by analyzing several examples, primarily from anime series, but equally applicable to visual novels, games, manga – in short any dramatic narrative.
There are two ways to use moe. The first is to use absolute moe, and the second is to use relative moe. When you use absolute moe, the level of immersion is directly proportional to the amount of moe you create. Using this system, it’s the most beneficial to just maximize moe to the fullest degree. This can be a pretty successful method of writing, but I know that I suck at it and I don’t know how to pull it off. But if you happen to like it and if you know you can do it, then go ahead and use it. Just be forewarned that absolute moe creates nowhere the same amount of immersion as relative moe.
The second way, and the method that I favor, is relative moe. In this system, the level of immersion is proportional to the change in moe level over time. Your goal is not just to create moe, but to destroy and remake it at opportune moments to maximize the plot drama and so grip the viewer. After giving the viewer a glimpse of the image of the idealized world, nothing is more horrible than shattering the image and plunging him back into reality. And nothing is more relieving for the viewer than to return him to the image after dipping him in reality. You are the story writer who has the power to give moe and to take it away. This is about creating drama here, not creating happyland.
The examples Samu-kun proceeds to give illustrate three types of stories. For each example he provides a graph of the ‘level of moé over time’, which should not be taken as a single measure of number of moétic characters or effects, but rather as an abstract measure of the sum feeling of moé upon the viewer. Finally he categorizes each of the three according to the schema above – absolute or relative moé. I’ve changed the order of his examples to provide a more logical progression, nonetheless these are his examples:
- Simple ‘comedies’ with no significant character or plot development. The level of moétic effect just rises over time as there is really are no other significant story elements. Just moé piled upon moé. In a nutshell this type of story telling is what Samu-Kun calls ‘absolute moé’, presumably because this story is absolutely about moé and really nothing else! In this case Samu-Kun also posits a ‘diminishing returns’ effect, where each additional application of moé raises the total moétic experience to a lesser degree.
- Traditional ‘romances’ where happiness is thwarted temporarily before a joyful apotheosis. The level of moé begins high, but then other types of story elements intervene. The level of moétic experience drops, only to return ever higher with paradoxically less moétic artifice than it took at the start. This is due to the fact that a brief sojourn into a story not dominated by moé makes the ultimate moétic end appreciated even more. The contrast makes the moétic idealization even more appealing, and it is this contrast of moé that Samu-kun terms ‘relative moé’.
- Traditional ‘tragedies’ where a joyful status quo is slowly and agonizingly destroyed. Like in the case of ‘romance’ the moé levels begin high, but in this case they are removed step by step as other story elements take their place. While the end of the story is the very opposite of the moétic ideal, the loss of moé elevates the memory of the moé experienced at the beginning to greater heights. Thanks to this contrasting effect, an equal application of moétic elements will produce a greater feeling of moé in the viewer than they would get from a ’simple comedy’. Again this element of contrast is why Samu-Kun terms this category of story another example of ‘relative moé’.
In this analysis I find myself in complete agreement with Samu-Kun’s division of the ways in which moé can be used in a story. Basically the use of moé can be understood like any other equally positive idealized element and moétic stories can be categorized like any other narrative.
However I think Samu-Kun’s presentation runs the risk of making it seem that these narrative structures are unique to moé. His essay seemingly conflates the specifics of moé as one type of idealized positive/pleasure giving story element, with all of the other similar elements that could provide the same foil to realism and development character, and thus can produce the same type of complex ‘romance’ and ‘tragic’ plot structures. In short I think it’s important to see how moé plays into these structures because moé is of a similar type of thing as ‘moments of overwhelming awesomeness’, ‘kawaii’, or ‘techno-fetish’. Moé can be a positive pleasure giving element in a story.
Moreover, while I think the underlying insight is quite important, I think the terms ‘absolute moé’ and ‘relative moé’ are somewhat obscuring of their actual nature.
‘Absolute moé’ is refering to a simple type of story, where moé is the desired result and the effect is achieved primarily be repeated application of things that make you go, “Moé!” K-On is indeed a perfect example of this genre. The viewer is introduced to four cute girls, with cute appealing quirks, and not much else is known, save for the fact that they want to form a band. The trials and tribulations they face are of the lightest and most trivial type, because anything more would destroy the atmosphere of light fluffyness which the show strives to create. Actual drama, tension, embarrassment, are all studiously avoided because that is not the type of emotional engagement desired. While this is indeed absolutely nothing but moé from beginning to end, I would think a term like ’simple moé’, ‘pure moé’, or perhaps even ‘fetishistic moé’, might do a better job at capturing the spirit of a story who’s entire purpose is to function as a moé delivery vehicle.
‘Relative moé’ is ultimately about moé as an element in the service of a story. In this usage I find the term ‘relative’ even more misleading. I would propose in contrast to ‘pure moé’, something like ‘mixed moé’ or ‘compound moé’ stories, preferring when ever possible to identify the other story elements that are of equal importance. For example Higurashi would be a moétic horror mystery, Bamboo Blade a moétic sports saga, and Kanon a moétic tearjerker romance.
However none of this criticism should detract from what I see as a very valuable insight into the nature and use of moé. Namely that moé can be used in a continuum. On one end the ‘pure’ moétic story, and at the other extreme, the story that ‘mixes’ moé with another element to produce something greater than the sum of it’s parts.
Previously I had been of the opinion that all moétry inevitably tended towards the ‘pure’ and ‘absolute’ form. This was largely influenced by Love’s terrific essay on the rising ‘fetishistic’ nature of anime, and indeed the last decade has seen a rise in this class of story. However it has also also seen many excellent and richer works produced in which moé is merely a genre element.
To illustrate what I mean consider another story element that can elicit just as strong a fascination as moé (and which once held the primary spot in the pantheon of distinctive anime traits) – mecha. What I mean here is mecha, in the larger sense of a fascination with intricate imagined and powerful machinery, producing ‘techno-gasams’ which, like moé, can be of the pure or mixed kind. This comes to mind because I recently watched Avatar, and while this is a western live action film, James Cameron is undoubtedly one of the great artists of the mecha genre. I went to see Avatar primarily as mecha-porn, expecting a ‘pure mecha’ experience supported by a thin and likely insufferable plot. Surprisingly Avatar exceeded my expectations, providing a rich and complete story experience with great loss and great wonder combined with a adrenaline fueled jolt of mecha action. Yes, I was obsessing about the cable cutters mounted on the rotor blades of the various ‘copters.
In contrast last summer I suffered through Transformers, where the story and characters were incomprehensible, but the giant robot action was just as thrilling as in Avatar. Trasformers is as good an example of ‘pure mecha’ as K-On is of ‘pure moé’. A fantasy twisted into being with one purpose only. So long as that purpose is served no other failing or contortion is too great to suspend disbelief for. It is no wonder that one draws the inevitable comparisons to pornography, and no wonder that the techniques and tricks of that art are so easily applied in this case. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous it may be that the Pizza delivery guy is a hot hunk and the three nubile co-eds need him to help ‘light their oven’ – all that maters is how quickly they can all get nekkid.
And yet, like the ‘mech-gasams’ of Avatar, Samu-Kun has now convinced me that the mere presence of moé does not inevitably lead to it’s pure and fetishistic form. There do exist excellent works such as Toradora! and Bakemonogatari which embrace moé but use it in the service of a greater art. Samu-Kun’s insight allows me to see how this is possible. Moé is not in of itself shallow. It is indeed niche, a type of idealized escapism that can indeed appeal most of all to thoose who find the feminine other threatening or mysterious. However the question is to what degree does moé dominate the story?
Moétic Character Types
In the final portion of his essay Samu-Kun turns his attention to the topic of the moétic character stereotypes. Looking at a couple of typical examples Samu-Kun is able to demonstrate that a ‘typical character’ actually allows a much greater degree of idealization than would be allowed by typical characterization techniques. This is such a great insight and he makes his point so clearly and convincingly that I’ll quote the entirety of his second example:
After the player character wakes up, he walks down the stairs and bumps into a younger girl. She falls down and shyly covers her exposed underwear with a blush. She ruefully smiles and tells the player character that “big brother is always such a ditz! He should really watch where he’s stepping.”
And already, without the writer having to say a word, the player already tells himself that this is his little sister. She’s a cheerful young girl who looks after her older brother. She’s had a girlish crush on him for awhile now, but she knows that he’s family and that it’s not allowed. Once again, all of this is absolute fabrication. Have you ever seen a little sister who behaved like this? If any self respecting writer actually tried to convince a reader that this was all true, he would be laughed out of his career. But it all works and it accepted whole heartedly by the reader because the writer never actually tells the reader this, but the reader tells himself the lie just by identifying the archetype.
Ever since the ancient Greeks, story tellers have understood the power not just of archetypes, but of stereotypes, and yet in contemporary western drama these types are seen as the most undesirable of shortcuts. There can be no greater criticism of a writer’s characters than to say they are two dimensional, even though they may be minor players. Yet here Samu-kun succinctly illustrates how in achieving this particular type of idealization lack of characterization is not merely convenient, but down right necessary.
This insight is deeply counter intuitive to the western narrative tradition, but critically important to one attempting to recreate the moétic effects of our Japanese idols.
Moétry for You
In short Samu-Kun’s essay ranges far and wide and contributes quite a bit of new formal thinking to the understanding of moé. While I hope he will take up my challenge with his first and second theses I am already indebted to him. Not just in the perspective he’s provided in the abstract, but very tangibly in the practical ways to leverage stereotypes to support my own artistic attempts at generating mixed moé. I know Starlight will certainly be moér, and my attempt to create a artfully balanced moetic mecha space epic seems perhaps not as wildly implausible as it once did.
What? No graphs, Rocket?
I do believe you missed something about the terms absolute and relative moe. “Absolute” and “relative” moe are based on the idea of “absolute gains” and “relative gains” in game theory. Similar to how a player only considers increasing his own benefit when taking “absolute gains” into consideration, the goal of “absolute moe” is to increase one’s moe level without taking into consideration the amount of moe before or after that particular moment. Also, similar to how “relative gains” means to increase one’s own benefit in comparison to the amount of benefit held by another player, “relative moe” means to vary the moe level while taking into consideration the amount of moe before or after that moment. Also, with the terms “pure moe” and “mixed moe,” there’s no direct link to the important idea that in the former, immersion comes with the “absolute” level of moe independent of the amount of moe before or after that moment, while in the latter, immersion comes with a “relative” change in moe level in comparison to a prior moment. I think it’s important to establish that immersion with the K-On school of moe thought is directly proportional to the “absolute” moe level (meaning the intrinsic moe level of the moment, independent of prior moe levels, not its more common definition of “pure,” “unadulterated,” or “complete,” as you seemed to mistakenly interpret in the essay) while immersion in the Kanon school of thought is directly proportion to the “relative” moe level in comparison to prior moe levels. Most importantly, don’t you think we sound more pseudo-intellectual with the game theory terms? =3
Yes, I think that these narrative structures are certainly not unique to just moe. Moe is probably an offshoot of the basic idealism vs. realism debate that has gripped humans for a very long time. For example, I have long suspected that gar and moe, while having radically different visuals, essentially tell the same story, but I haven’t said anything since I don’t know anything about gar outside of Gurren Lagann. Also, I think Avatar actually used the classic relative moe structure almost perfectly. First, we have a building up of idealism when the protagonist goes into the forest and builds an understanding with the Na’vi people – a clear reference to Rousseau and his idealization of nature – and an abrupt change in the moe level accompanied by the expected outburst of emotion from the viewers when the humans attack the Na’vi and destroy the Home Tree. In fact, the amount of emotional outrage created by the quick and precipitous change in the level of idealism is enough for the entire audience to betray humanity and root for the aliens for the remainder of the movie. It also serves to make their eventual victory even more glorious. The graph I made for Kanon might as well be the graph for Avatar.
I think we both understood a lot of the concepts regarding moe even before I wrote it all out, but it helps to have it all on paper. Also, I can’t forget to mention that a lot of what I wrote about moe character archetypes was heavily inspired when I read Mythologies by Roland Barthes… Not quite what I call a fun read and I dislike a lot of what he wrote, but I admit, maybe about 40% of it is useful for analyzing moe.
No graphs were required since you provided quite nice ones already!
Now then, you’re quite right I did not pick up on the game theory roots of the terms ‘relative’ and ‘absolute’, for the very simple reason that you did not mention it! The explanation you provide in the comment makes the use of those terms much clearer. You might consider revising your original essay to include some of that explanation.
That said I think I prefer the way I’ve articulated it, mostly because it’s easier to understand for someone who is not familiar with Game theory. I agree that it is important to recognize that the mechanism for appreciation and emotional immersion in moé is an ‘instantaneous’ one in the case of ‘pure moé’ narratives, and a ‘relative one’ in the case of ‘mixed moé’. However I think that is the subtler secondary point that helps us understand the process by which narrative elements engage the viewer. If I am not interested in ‘how the effect works on the psyche’, but want to understand ‘what I need to do to generate the effect’, then I feel an approach which deconstructs the content of the subject in question is clearer (in the case the quantities of moétic elements and their proportion and relationship to other story elements).
However I look forward to further thoughts from you if you feel there is additional value to be gleaned from a perceptive focused on the time and method of moétic consumption. In either case I really want to hear more about your thoughts on what makes moé uniquely moé!
I like how you apply “will” to Starlight.
Me too. Also, I like the new theme. Does that mean that you’re going to revive this old blog?
Also, I made a response to your question on my blog.