Quote:
Originally Posted by Random32
It's tied to moe. It's not a franchise, but it's still a very specific thing that KyoAni is tied to. If moe is replaced, KyoAni has to adapt or die since invoking moe is the primary thing they do.
Of course, I don't think we'll see moe dying out in the near future. The next fad hasn't even appeared yet, and after the new fad comes in, moe will be reduced to what mecha is now and as the undisputed king of moe, KyoAni will at least be near secured a spot on the list where Sunrise is now.
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Strange analogy, because while Sunrise actually
makes more mecha shows than it's competition, so if the mecha fad dies they die with it, I think, people are starting to overstate KyoAni's level of participation in the current "moe fad".
For example, when we only saw a single promo picture about Hyouka (
this one), and a two sentence description, everyone was already pointing at the screen and screaming about how it's so moe-moe kyun, and it must be something like "K-on meets Another", and how "they apparently went back to moe series after Nichijou's failure."
On the picture itself, you can see four teenagers drawn with a somehow typical modern aesthetic. If it would have been attached to any other studio's name, the only talking material would have been whether as the next crime mystery, it will be better or worse than Another. (even it's art style looks kind of similar to Another, especially Ibara's hairstyle or Satoshi's eyes and eyebrows). But it's made by KyoAni, so everyone kind of played up the "it's a KyoAni moe series so we can only talk about exactly how moe it is" angle.
I mean, it's not like KyoAni doing anything tangibly
different than two thirds of other shows do and always did: they are showing teenagers with neotenous features having adventures, but they are not using an excessive
number of cuteness tropes, or notably
exaggerated cuteness tropes. Just in this season alone, we have AKB0048, Acchi Kocchi, and Saki, that are all objectively more reliant on moe art styles than Kyoani tends to be.
What I think we have here, is mixing up the slang phrase "moe", that people use for anything that they find appealing, with it's very specific interpretation as a recent genre/fad/style. What most people intend to highlight KyoAni for, is the former, their success at making appealing characters, but they aren't specifically invested in the genre/fad/style.
When the mecha fad was over, it marginalized the mecha genre and studios that profited from that. When the moe fad will be over, it will marinalize the studios that are living from the most excessively cutesy character designs and genres, and not the studios that make the most appealing, and attractive characters, that was always a main selling point, and always will be.