Category Archives: thought exercise

Fukumotoverse, or “Zawa-rld”

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Recently I’ve been wondering, or should I say, hoping that the works of Fukumoto Nobuyuki all take place in the same universe. We already know that Ten and Akagi take place in the same timeline, with the latter being a prequel to the former, but what of everything else?

Can Japan have enough room for the SHADOW PRIME MINISTER OF JAPAN (Washizu from Akagi), the RICHEST MAN IN JAPAN (Zaizen from Zero), and the KING OF JAPAN (Hyoudou from Kaiji)?!

Is there not just one horrible conspiracy controlling Japan, but several, and they all have to be taken down by incredible gambling heroes? Are all of these evil old men actually in competition with one another, vying to see who is truly the ruler of Japan and its seedy gambling underworld? Do they compete to see who is the most ruthless and murderous of them all?

And is there an even stronger hidden ruler above THEM? Could there be a SHADOW DEMON EMPEROR GOD OF JAPAN that would unite the forces of all of our heroes together into 地上最初の賭博軍団, the world’s first Gambling Army?

So basically what I’m saying is, we need to get Imagawa Yasuhiro to make an anime based on Fukumoto’s works.

Studying the Realism in the Fujoshi Character Design

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Ever since the mid-2000s the fujoshi character has seen an increase in overall presence in anime and manga, as evidenced by my Fujoshi Files, an ongoing project where I catalogue fujoshi characters. While comparing various fujoshi characters, especially in seinen manga, I began to realize something interesting about their portrayal, and that is the fact that they are often the characters closest to how a Japanese girl would actually look: dark, straight hair, possibly wearing glasses.

There are series such as Genshiken and Zetsubou-sensei where the fujoshi characters having dark hair is not unusual given the rest of the cast also sporting dark hair. My discussion focuses on those shows where characters’ hair styles and colors tend to be the anime rainbow stereotype.

When you look at Lucky Star as a whole, you’ll see that bespectacled fujoshi Hiyori is the only female character to sport straight, dark hair. Contrast this with Konata, who is the biggest otaku in Lucky Star and her unrealistic blue hair. Patty, while a fujoshi, is an “American” character first, so she’s blonde. Again, I want to mention that Hiyori is the only example of a character with a realistic hair color and style mainly because of how much the rest of the cast isn’t. In a world where bright pastels rule hair colors, the fujoshi is the exception.

Similarly in Kannagi, Takako is also a dark-haired glasses-wearing fujoshi, though her hairstyle is arguably more unrealistic than most of the other characters. However, it cannot be argued that most of the rest of the cast, especially female characters, have hair colors that do not occur at all or much less commonly in reality among Japanese girls.

Meanwhile in Mousou Shoujo Otakukei (Fujoshi Rumi), the main character of Rumi also stands out as being much plainer than the other girl characters out there and even a lot of the guy characters. Part of this has to do with the fact that she is the main character and that this visual plainness is a part of the story being told, but it speaks to this desire to make her a more realistically accessible character even if it’s only at a shallow level at first.

“There’s plenty of characters who look like that who aren’t fujoshi!” you might be saying, and you’d be totally right. The dark-haired, straight-haired glasses girl predates the fujoshi character boom, and arguably falls into the same category as the “iinchou” class representative character. Adachi Hana from Yankee-kun to Megane-chan is a character who is actively trying to achieve that iinchou look, even going as far as to wear fake glasses. She also bears some resemblance to Asai Rumi from Mousou Shoujo. So in a sense, the author of Mousou Shoujo, Konjoh Natsumi, and the fictional character, Adachi Hana, are attempting to reach the same goal: design a character with the look of a realistic Japanese girl. The main difference of course is that the iinchou is characterized by an ultra-clean look and  responsibility, while the fujoshi is characterized by being somewhat disheveled and a tad irresponsible.

You might then be saying, “Ah, but that’s really how fujoshi look.” But then I have to ask, why is it that in these shows where all other characters are not beholden to reality that the fujoshi ends up being how fujoshi “actually look?” And why is this occurring in comics targeted towards guys?

Most other character types in moe or moe-ish anime tend to be fantastic versions of possible real-life people: childhood friends, reticent girls (tsundere), little sisters, etc. Everyone knows that little sisters in anime are rarely like actual little sisters, and even if you compared the imouto character in an h-game to an actual incestuous younger sister the two images would not line up. In this sense, a fujoshi character can be as unrealistic as the others but it is often the case that a certain sense of realism is desired in fujoshi characters in a manner different from other character types.

Looking back at tamagomago’s essay for which I provided a translation, one line in particular jumps out at me: “No matter how realistic it gets, it’s still a fantasy,” or in other words, no matter how realistic a female otaku character may be, they are still just a character in fiction. What this sentence implies is that there is to some degree a push to make female otaku characters have a sense of relatable realism, perhaps more than other character types, and fujoshi fall into this category by extension.

Perhaps the answer to the question of “why are there these realistic aspects in the fujoshi design” is that having a member of the opposite sex also be an otaku makes them more accessible, gives the male otaku a glimmer of hope brighter than previous. Also, by making them a fujoshi instead of just an otaku, a useful distinction is created. And of course, if applied to actual reality with real girls, it is not in itself a realistic goal as long as the male otaku does not confuse his image of 2d and 3d girls.

Analyzing the X-Men Manga and What It Says About Manga and American Comics

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This is a follow-up to the images from the X-Men manga I posted yesterday. Now that I’ve given people time to ruminate over those pages, pages which I selected partly to show how various characters are portrayed but mostly to show how the artists took a very “manga” approach to the material, I’d like to go into further discussion about them.

I’d also recommend checking out my post about what I think is a recurring defining trait of American comics.

There’s two things we can say about this comic. First, is that it’s based off of the 90s X-Men cartoon, which was actually shown in Japan with new openings specific to the Japanese broadcast.

Second, is that this isn’t a terribly good comic. It’s an interesting piece of cross-cultural collaboration and all but of course isn’t nearly as high-profile in America as, say, Nihei Tsutomu’s Wolverine comic “Snikt.” It is, to put it simply, okay but not great, and there are many, many runs of the original American X-Men comic which are better and more influential. But of course that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from it.

While this page doesn’t really show any X-Men and in fact just has Mystique in disguise, I think it tells us a lot about some of the fundamental differences between manga and american comics, and it has largely to do with the fact that it is such a low-profile throw-away comic. It is not the pinnacle of manga achievement, but that’s what makes it so useful.

After all, if you only try to learn from the very best you’ll only end up seeing a fraction of the whole image.

Here we have Mystique disguising herself as per her shape-shifting powers. Clearly the goal of the artist here was to portray an attractive female so that when the thug accosts her she can turn her head into a grotesque abomination for contrast. The result is an almost Matsumoto-esque female figure, particularly in the face. She’s disguised as a mysterious, alluring sort of woman, and it’s one far more in line with the Japanese version of such a concept as opposed to the more American va-va-va-voom type, despite this being an adaptation of an American property.

Now what I find to be even more interesting than the character designs is the panel arrangement of this X-Men manga. Again, it is not the best example of panel flow in a manga, but it is a very good example of what is considered “standard” for panel progression.

Panels are arranged as if they do not all exist on the same plane. Intra-panel depth cues are not nearly as important as seeing the panels placed one on top of the other to achieve a smooth progression throughout the page. A lot of emphasis is placed on shifting facial expressions, and those faces help to carry the reader’s eyes through the page.

Of course, this is only in a page with no action and how could I make a proper comparison without some fighting going on?

Below is an example of a fight scene from this manga, and an example of a fight scene from popular X-Men artist Jim Lee’s run, which was going on at around the same time.

Now it’s not exactly a fair comparison as Jim Lee is considered among the best artists who have ever worked on X-Men and there simply aren’t a lot of X-Men manga to go by, but what’s important here are the small differences.

Notice the degree to which the characters separate from the backgrounds. In the case of the manga, the separation is much more stark despite the Jim Lee panels having color on their side, color generally allowing an artist to much more easily separate foreground and background compared to black and white.

Then there’s the vertical progression vs the horizontal one, which admittedly this is not a good example for. This is perhaps my own pet theory, but I believe that a comic in a language which is generally written vertically will tend to have a vertical progression, while comics in a horizontal language will put an emphasis on the horizontal just short of having books actually being wider than they are tall. The most prominent example is the Japanese 4-Koma vs the American 3-panel strip, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Basically what the X-Men manga here has shown us is what features are so naturally a part of manga and people’s and artist’s perceptions of manga that they crop up in a comic based on American superheroes.  Because this is a comic based off of the X-Men with obvious attempts to match the look of the cartoon and comics, the Japanese and manga influences in the drawing style come out even more.

Emotion, Intelligence, and the Comics Ambassador

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In writing my two responses to the Christopher Handley case, I worked very much from my own feelings and thoughts on the whole situation. However, when I read Newsarama writer Jeff Trexler’s blog entries about the Handley case, particularly his post titled Handley, Comics and Obscenity, I began to think about my approach to talking and writing about censorship and obscenity in regards to comics.

While I do put emotion into my writings, particularly the two Handley posts, I know that I come across as emphasizing the logical and the intellectual, trying to use my own knowledge in conjunction with my desire to increase my understanding of the situation. However, as Trexler puts it, this can be considered a case where I am seen as a “liberal outsider” who is simply not understanding the fundamental truths as perceived by, say, an Iowa jury. I want to be able to convince not just the people who think in the same fashion as me, but also those whose value systems and deeply rooted beliefs stand much further away. I want to be able to change my writing style accordingly, but I don’t think it’d be a surprise to anyone literate in any language in the history of man to say that changing one’s writing style as well as one’s mode of thinking can be extremely difficult. The way this post is going so far should tell you that already: I’m trying to reason out how to write in a way which appeals to the heart rather than the head; irony in itself.

I’ve mentioned what I’m about to say when I previously talked about the Geek Logical Fallacy, but we as people often run into situations where the values we subscribe to in trying to make sense of the world or convince others of an important truth that are seemingly irreconcilable. No more does this arise than with the topic of religion, especially on the internet. A believer and a non-believer enter into an argument about the existence of a higher power, and both can be dense in their own ways. The believer will quote his religious text, which he deems as the source of Truth with a capital T, and that clearly everything comes from this Truth. However, to the non-believer these are all irrational beliefs full of contradictions and appeals to emotion. The non-believer meanwhile will start trying to use his self-proclaimed intellectual and logical superiority to lord it over the believer and show through this “logical” progression that everything the believer believes is false and wrong. Of course, the believer will take this as a direct attack and will stand his ground. The non-believer is trying to convince the believer using intelligence, while the believer is trying to convince the non-believer using logic, and both parties regard the others’ core value as being less important than the one they themselves emphasize.

This is part of the reason why so-called “Intelligent Design” has been able to make in-roads at all into harming the teaching of Science in public schools. The people in charge of the movement know their target group, and they are able to prey on their fears and prejudices. When Scientists representing Science come in and go, “Well that’s not how Science works you see, I have these facts to support my claim,” it can all come across as white noise, it’s not hitting the people where it matters because Science thinks it can logic its way to victory.

And that may be the situation manga and comics as a whole may find themselves in. Sure, comics are not exactly science, and there is a very emotional aspect of them, but in any future cases similar to Handley’s that may pop up, we may end up in situations where the people we’re trying to convince cannot be convinced in the way that we normally would convince our peers. A scientist can convince another scientist using science, but it takes something more to branch out to the rest of the world.

What we basically need are Ambassador of Comics, Comics versions of Carl Sagan, if you will. Though I would not even begin to presume I can fill this role, I write now to try and see if I can’t help just a little bit.

Christopher Handley’s Guilty Plea and its Implications

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Christopher Handley has plead guilty for possessing obscene manga. While on the surface it seems a simple matter, the implications are enormous and complex, and to tell the truth I’m not sure I can get around to everything that I feel is worth saying, but I will at the very least try to get people to think about the causes and effects and consequences of this decision.

Handley was threatened by the government through a variety of means. While it is legal to have obscene materials in the privacy of your own home, they tried to get him on charges of having obscene material shipped across states, which it was because it came from Japan. However, that material was never meant for others, it was Handley’s personal pornography, and it involved no actual people, only fictional characters, concepts in a story. Of course, that’s not how the government prosecution wants you to see it.

The whole matter comes down to underage pornography. While there is the matter of the government never being too specific on the manga that caused Handley to be charged in the first place, ultimately they want you to think that it’s child porn even if it isn’t, even if all the characters are well over 18 and have adult proportions, even if they mistake Gaogaigar for lolicon. That’s where this discussion will take place.

A minor in the United States is someone under the age of 18. I am perfectly fine with that number. It’s different in other countries, sometimes higher and sometimes lower, but 18 is fine. It is fine, that is, when applied to real people, and that’s what the law should be about. However, anyone would be daft to believe that teenagers under the age of 18 do not have sex. Legally, it would be ideal if this did not really happen, but it is the truth and it is reality, and fiction should have every right to depict an aspect of reality while not being completely beholden to it or the law. In other words, if fiction were to be forced to depict a world where everything is legally okay or turns out that way, fiction would die. Imagine Death Note without murder. Imagine Kare Kano without sex between its high school-age characters. Both are possible, but both are enriched by these acts which can be deemed wrong by some, and while both are not considered “obscene” normally, when you start to hack away at the “obscene titles,” what you might not realize is that you’re also chipping away at more “innocent titles.”

Luckily, the US is not controlling all fiction. Shows about teenagers dating and having sex have been a staple of television since the 90s, the most prominent example probably being Beverly Hills 90210. And sure, they eventually grew up and become full-fledged adults, but the start was always the sexualization of teenagers, even if those teenagers were played by adults. Here we are in America, sexualizing teenagers while also saying that it’s wrong. Again, I am perfectly fine with the law saying that a guy who is 30 should not be fooling around with a girl who is 16 along as this law is for real people and not fictional characters where that huge age gap and all the implications behind that age gap can possibly factor into the story. And it seems like for a lot of entertainment in America, the government understands this, but something is particularly dangerous about comics.

I have to wonder if the the idea of comics being “for kids” has influenced this perception in any way, that comics should not have the ability to go that far when in fact it might be more suited to taking things a step further than perhaps any other form of media or art or entertainment. Purely text fiction would not so nearly incur the wrath of the government or normal people as the potential for obscenity requires some digging; it is not as immediate as visual imagery. I do not ask comics to be like literature or high art, but what I do hope is that comics, comic creators, and comic readers as a whole can achieve all of the possiblities of the medium without having to worry about their ideas being considered too “obscene” or “wrong.”

If you think the material is bad, you are allowed to say so, but it should not be possible to run to the government and tell them on someone with whom you disagree, even if the “you” I mentioned IS the government.

I understand that not everyone is as closely connected with the world of fiction as myself or others, and they may see this guilty plea and its consequences as being very cut and dry, very black and white. “What does it matter that there are a few less stories out there,” one might say, “If it protects people from getting hurt?” But the “matter” is that ultimately these are ideas put on paper, and you are trying to protect people from harm that may or may not happen based on a fictional work where the motive of the work may fall entirely out of step with the perceived harm that it could potentially generate. It is thought crime, and while the term thought crime is bandied about and misused constantly, this is a very valid example and I ask that you consider the idea that your own private thoughts, thoughts which may exist only in your head and in a diary or journal in your home, could be turned against you without there being any actual evidence of intent to carry it out in reality.

As a final note, I want to talk about the manga Ressentiment. It is a title where people have the ability to have virtual sex with virtual girls, and the main virtual girl is depicted and designed to be around high school age, and it’s all designed to be a part of the story. It can be offensive, but it’s all there aesthetically to give the reader a sense of disgust or sadness. When she’s naked, or put into an obscene position, she is a fictional virtual minor. Who is harmed by this? Can the law extend so far as to protect a character who is part of the fictional world of another fictional world, and punish those who read about it?

Capturing the “Spirit” of a Work

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When I first saw the trailers for the new Star Trek movie, a movie designed to be a continuity reboot of sorts with a young Kirk and young Spock, I was worried. On the movie theater’s screen was a whole lot of action and explosions and intense moments all while the trailer implies what a big coming-of-age story the whole thing will be. I felt that while it could still be a sgood movie, there was a risk that it would not be faithful to the spirit of Star Trek. Having seen the movie, I can say that I was thankfully wrong about it. It’s still full of action and is basically a coming-of-age story, but the core of Star Trek felt intact.

Now, this might be hard to believe based on everything I said in the above paragraph, but I am really not that much of a Star Trek fan. I may have caught a few episodes on tv here or there, particularly The Next Generation, sat through parts of the Star Trek original series marathons that would crop up on tv now and then, watched Duane Johnson Rock Bottom Seven of Nine, and know what the hell a Jem’Hadar is, but it’s not something that has consumed my attention like say, Gundam has. I am not speaking from the perspective of a diehard Star Trek fanatic. That said, the core of Star Trek, I feel, lies in its “How far could we go, if only we got along?” message. To extend it further, I feel that Star Trek is an “intelligent” series, not in the sense that you need to be smart to watch it, but that the focus is mainly on the exchange of ideas, be it between friends of the same race or enemies from different planets, and it’s something I think the new Star Trek film accomplished successfully.

I said something similar about Dragonball Evolution about the need for an adapatation to really capture the “spirit” of its source material, something that, for example, I felt the recent Iron Man film also was able to do. However, what I found in speaking about my concerns regarding Star Trek and any other movie where I feel that an adaptation of an existing work may not be adapting “properly,” is that I had a hard time describing what I consider the “spirit” of a work to be, what an adaptation must successfully bring over from the source material to make it truly an adaptation. After some thinking, the answer I’ve arrived at is something like this.

I believe that the necessary ingredient for an an adaptation is respect for the source material. Incidentally, it’s also something which I consider to be essential to the study of anime as well. It’s not about liking or disliking a work, or perhaps even the production quality, but the people doing adaptations must be able to see what at the core of these works made them special, what made them successful, what is it that gives these works their uniqueness, and using that as a foundation to build upon. It’s okay if you want to make it look less “cheesy” or update some outmoded concepts, but don’t completely throw out what made this idea good or effective in the first place.

Bad Writing vs Bad Translation

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The Eureka Seven manga was released by Bandai Entertainment alongside their anime release. For those of you who haven’t read the manga but have seen the anime, it’s a different take on things with I think less solid storytelling but still has its good points. However, the dialogue in the English language version was often very awkward-sounding. It didn’t sound like people actually talking. Lines which were supposed to be “cool” or “dramatic” ended up landing with wet thuds. I had read a bit of the manga in Japanese prior, but as I finished it up with the English release, the flow of language in it continued to bother me. I had to wonder then, was it the translation, or was the original writing simply that stilted and it was my lack of complete Japanese fluency that didn’t notice it originally?

Whenever I read a translated manga where the dialogue seems off or unusually poor, I have to wonder where the blame lies, seeing as how there are so many people and factors involved. You have the original writer, writing in their native language, coming from their own culture, and then you have the translator, adapting to their own native language, keeping their own culture and readership in mind for just how much they change or allow to remain “as is.”

Is it that the translation is bad? Or is it that the writing wasn’t so great in the first place? And if the writing is bad, do you massage it until it becomes fine and readable English prose? It sort of goes beyond the literal accuracy vs spiritual accuracy argument when you have to factor in a source which may not be regarded as the pinnacle of literary talent. And it’s something that without proper research can be difficult to detect, aside from a few obvious examples where you can just tell the translator was struggling with a very Japanese-sounding sentence. “The burning passionately me now challenges you to a duel!” That sort of thing.

And then you throw money into the mix.

Let’s say that you’re a translator (and who knows, maybe you are!), and you’re giving the script to some work with achingly bad dialogue, like say, Government Crime Investigation Agent Zaizen Jotaro, and as much as you think there are definitely better works out there, you’ve been handed this and your company’s supposed to make a profit off of it. Do you try your best to salvage the bad writing and make it presentable? Or do you show it for what it is? And if so, are you prepared for idiots like me to accuse you of doing a poor translation?

The Thing Which Makes You Think, “Ah Yes, This is an American Comic”

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In the comments section for kransom’s translation of Takekuma Kentaro’s lecture on Miyazaki, a lot of talk is brought up regarding styles and trends according to where the artist is from or where the artist draws their inspiration from. Specifically, the comments center around Miyazaki’s style being similar to that of European artists. Commenter JBR states, “Nausicaa is very similar, in many ways, to the European avant-guard [sic] comics of the 1970’s/80’s, which also emphasize densely-constructed panels and attention to background detail.”

So if the emphasis on European comics is on these “densely-constructed panels and attention to background detail” (something that rings true even for comics that aren’t avantgarde), and the priorities for Japanese story comics is in having the panels be “easy to read” with respect to how panels flow into each other and other aspects, I had to ask myself, “What is the primary feature of American comics, specifically comic books, that makes it stand out?” What, in other words, is the aspect that artists and fans can draw from to make a comic feel very American?

Thinking it over, I’d have to say that I believe that traditionally, the primary feature of American comics is the desire to convey a complete amount of information in a single panel, to really inform the reader that, yes, this is going on right now exactly as you see it. Characters’ poses and actions in relation to text and background all work together to provide a sort of storytelling clarity that some might even regard as overly busy. You know where that foot is going. You know exactly what the characters are doing. You know what is going on in a given scene, as if every panel were an incident in and of itself. Some might say this is the problem with American comics, but I think that wanting to present information in your comic in complete chunks has its merits, in the way radio dramas of yesterday and cd dramas of today do. Of course, I say “traditional” because as comics artists from all over the world interact with each other these differences start to recede, but I think you can still see them in today’s comics.

I’m well aware that there are comics that do not do this, and that even in the comics that do there are plenty of panels which are more for conveying a mood or some other function. I’m also aware that all the visual examples are from superhero comics, and that there’s an entire indie comics scene out there, and famous artists such as Dave Sim, Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, and even Brian Lee O’Malley who do not abide to this “rule” if you can call it one. However, I do feel that this is the aspect of American comics which people remember the most, whether they’re long-time fans or new readers, these panels designed to exist on their own if they have to, but also function as part of a whole.

Idea: A Comprehensive Guide to Essential Episodes

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Mazinger Z. Galaxy Express 999. Ranma 1/2. Astro Boy. There are a lot of anime out there that are considered classics (and rightfully so), but the problem with getting into them is that they can be very, very long with anywhere from forty to two-hundred episodes and beyond. Because of this, trying to experience what made these shows great becomes a daunting task, especially when not all of them are “serial,” and instead have large chunks which are simply episodic and, while perhaps decent episodes, are not the ones that can really grab people by the heart and the lungs.

What I am proposing then is that a guide to these long shows be made, pointing out the episodes which are considered, while perhaps not “necessary” to the viewing experience, to be the apex of the show. That way, anybody who just wants to sample the show but in a meaningful way (not just watch the first episode or two and be done with it) can do so and fully understand the reasons that show is called a classic.

But I can’t do it alone.

When the main focus is to be absurdly long shows, no one person can watch everything to make sure that all bases are covered. I would need help. Possibly, I would have to get one or two people watching any given show and have them report back to me what they consider to be the “big” episodes, and then check it out myself to see just how good they are. Something like that.

Maybe this can apply to manga too.

I don’t have any episode lists to recommend at the moment, but I-

Wait, maybe I do.

LEGEND OF THE GALACTIC HEROES
RECOMMENDED EPISODES: 1-110

(Seriously, watch the entire show)

My Response to Tamagomago’s “Otaku Girl Moe”

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Yesterday I posted my translation of Japanese blogger Tamagomago‘s post about the moefication of the “Otaku Girl.” This is my own follow-up to it, and how I feel about the various themes and ideas put forth by Tamagomago.

While I think the threat of otaku confusing reality with fantasy is not that likely for the most part, I do see how “Otaku Girl Moe” is different from most other types of moe, with the possible exception of “Imouto Moe, ” though that mistake can be quickly dispeled by interacting with real little sisters. Otaku Girls actually exist in the real world and are in a sense closely related to Otaku Guys, so the line between fantasy and reality can blur quite a bit. It’s sort of like how most people probably wouldn’t realize that a model’s photo was airbrushed, or that the situations that occur in porn have very little chance of actually happening, but because we associate those things with “reality,” e.g. photos are realistic, we as people can be susceptible to their illusion.

Basically, while I don’t think there’s an immediate danger involving confusing the Otaku Girls in Anime with Otaku Girls in real life, there is a sort of precedent.

I of course also agree with the notion that as strong a character and as realistic as Ogiue is, she’s still just a character in a story. Though I can still hope…!

Another interesting point Tamagomago talks about is what I translated as the “exceedingly shaky” foundation upon which otaku build their preferences for women. I mentioned an earlier example of confusing fantasy with reality, but this one is particularly interesting as it’s almost an inverted example from the one above.

What we have is a situation where an otaku will take a realistic goal, i.e. finding a girl that can relate to them, and using their doubts and fears to transform it into an impossible dream. In other words, they’ve taken what is real and confused it for fantasy, something not talked about quite as often in these conversations about moe we have on this internet.

Of course, the part that generated the most conversation was where Tamagomago said that the act of calling someone moe is “violent” because it strips them of their individuality. Perhaps it was my translation not being completely clear, but the point that Tamagomago was trying to get across was that real people are not anime characters. It’s kind of an obvious thing to say, but within the context of moe you’re using a term associated with fiction and fictional characters and attaching it to real human beings with real depth and personalities. Let’s forget the word moe for a second, and instead imagine that I was talking about one of my female friends and I said, “Her character development is excellent!” It’s still a compliment, but it’s kind of bizarre to use that kind of language with an actual girl.

One more note, I don’t really think calling girls fujoshi is that bad, especially as it’s taken on this specific meaning of “yaoi fangirl.” Words in languages are malleable things as much as some would like to disgree, and the word “otaku” is a perfect example of this as its negative properties have fluctuated over the years. It’s like, I know that the word decimate originally meant “reduce by 10%.” Do I care? Not at all.

So in conclusion, I can’t wait for Hirano Kouta to knock down Tamagomago’s door for daring to say that there’s no such thing as Otaku Guy Moe.