(L+CR) Shirobako (Mizushima Tsutomu and PA Works)

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

More seriously, all you've really said in that effortpost is that... adult characters and younger characters are drawn differently? Yes, we know, thank you.

No, I wrote more than that. I wrote that adult characters and teenage characters tend to be drawn differently, but that Shirobako chose to have the majority of its adult female characters have the teenager look.

So why is Shirobako giving its adult female characters more teenager-esque facial designs? I'm arguing that it's to appeal to moe fans. And that's still my position.


I think it's good for people to talk openly and candidly about this because it's a good way to explore our thoughts on the modern anime industry, and perhaps to even learn more about it. And if you're watching a show like Shirobako...

Getting bent out of shape whenever somebody drops the term "moe", even if the person who uses the term is a moe fan and not a moe critic, is not going to do any good.

For good or for ill, the term "moe" is not going away. Shirobako itself explicitly references it, and IIRC, it did so multiple times. So taking the "Move along! Nothing to see here!" approach doesn't do any good, and it just leads to some people thinking that characters like Ai is the standard-bearer of moe (re: Tenzen12's posts on this thread).

With that in mind, who do you think makes for a better face of moe - Ai or Miyamori Aoi? Ai is downright infantilized, playing right into negative perceptions of moe. Miyamori Aoi is an excellent well-rounded character. If more people start seeing characters like Miyamori Aoi as moe characters (and I sincerely do think she is designed to appeal to moe fans) then that can only help the wider perception of moe, which in turn will mean people will complain about it less.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Getting bent out of shape whenever somebody drops the term "moe", even if the person who uses the term is a moe fan and not a moe critic, is not going to do any good.

Is that why my post generated so much controversy?

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Hataraki Man failed to sell even a thousand discs back in 2006, though granted it was not a moe show and was perhaps a bit less dewy-eyed than Shirobako.

I thought this was pretty uncontroversial myself yet it seemed to launch a whole "Is Shirobako moe?" riff. I'm neither a fan nor a critic, but I think a show with five cute girls eating donuts and making pinky-promises has at least some roots in moe. My intention was more to contrast Shirobako with an older office comedy, Hataraki Man. The main character Hiroko looks like this:



That's closer to the character model for Segawa-san than for Aoi. Also Hiroko is perfectly capable of taking care of herself and doesn't elicit protective feelings from the audience the same way Zuka or (ugh) Ai might.

Originally Posted by Dickdatduck More

Would someone be so kind as to define "moe" and "moeblob" for me?

For me, the prototypical "moeblob" is Asahina Mikuru from Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu. Not only is she drawn in that style, but she has the more extreme moe character traits: a little clumsy, a little dense, and sufficiently insecure to be a target of harassment by Haruhi.

[Darthtabby]

Wasn't Mikuru given extreme moe traits for comedic purposes? My brother thinks one of the problems with her is that she popularized moe over here, but in Japan she was more of a parody of something that was already established. He thinks she gave people over here a skewed perception of what moe is. (Someone I know online thought that characters needed to be like Mikuru to qualify as moe.)

Granted, you're using her as an example of an extreme, not the norm.

[Kaoru Chujo]

"Moeblob" is a disgusting term coined by people who want to trash moe. I cringe whenever I hear it. It is used when someone wants to claim that a moe character has no substance, and gives me a misogynistic feeling. Not that moe characters always do have substance: I like many moe characters, but I am not a fan of K-On, to be honest. Just doesn't work for me.

I should say that in Japanese, "moe" refers to the feeling one gets when looking at a certain type of character. In English, we use it as an adjective to describe a character. That could be the source of some misundersanding.

I liked Hataraki Man a lot, but I love this show, which I think is actually more entertaining and portrays its characters better. It definitely has some moe aspects: some of its drawing; that initial set-up with the doughnuts, which was certainly reminiscent of the classic moe franchise, K-On; the super-shy young animator. And I think those aspects help sell the show to an anime audience. But they are far from being the whole show.

Another difference from Hataraki Man is the emotional core of the show: this is about people working together to produce a product, and about their growing into their roles. Hataraki Man was about the disappointments of adulthood. You could almost say that this is shounen (with shoujo characters, lol), and that was josei. I love the way they meld serious and comic in this show, making serious points easy to swallow. That does lead to some lack of realism, but it works for me.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

Wasn't Mikuru given extreme moe traits for comedic purposes?
Granted, you're using her as an example of an extreme, not the norm.

Sure, Mikuru is a parody of the "moeblob" (sorry KC) type. Another obvious example is Nagato Yuki who looks rather like Evangelion's Rei.



That's actually an intriguing comparison given Triple_R's earlier post about eye shapes and the "moe look." I suspect a poll of Evangelion viewers would consider Rei "moe," but she has a character model closer to Segawa's than to Aoi's.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

That's actually an intriguing comparison given Triple_R's earlier post about eye shapes and the "moe look." I suspect a poll of Evangelion viewers would consider Rei "moe," but she has a character model closer to Segawa's than to Aoi's.

That's easy to understand. Rei was never meant to be a moe character. The concept didn't even exist as such back then, and Kanno has stated that he wanted Rei to be a character that would weird the audience off. It took him by surprise that the character became so popular, and even more that the audience felt so much sympathy for her. That wasn't the intention.

With Nagato Yuuki, on the other hand, they took the core traits of the "Rei archetype," so to speak, in a very deliberate attempt to make her as moe as possible. In fact, I think she's ultimately more moe that Mikuru, since Mikuru was an obvious satire of the concept. In Nagato they playing it straight.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

With that in mind, who do you think makes for a better face of moe - Ai or Miyamori Aoi?

Moe does not need a "standard bearer" or a "better face". Anime does not need to make concessions to people who believe that Cowboy Bebop is the be-all end-all of the medium. There aren't even any "moe fans" outside of bizarre, ill-informed Western beliefs; there are modern anime otaku. Shirobako's character designs reflect what modern anime otaku like, yes.

You could at least do yourself a favor and read Database Animals if you're going to write several hundreds of words on a subject like this...

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

You could almost say that this is shounen (with shoujo characters, lol), and that was josei.

Hataraki Man ran in Weekly Morning, a seinen magazine.

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

That's actually an intriguing comparison given Triple_R's earlier post about eye shapes and the "moe look."

No one in Evangelion has """the moe look""", that's not how Sadamoto draws characters.

You guys really need to look at industry trends, who is actually designing the characters, what the original designs (if an adaptation) may have looked like, etc.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

Moe does not need a "standard bearer" or a "better face". Anime does not need to make concessions to people who believe that Cowboy Bebop is the be-all end-all of the medium. There aren't even any "moe fans" outside of bizarre, ill-informed Western beliefs; there are modern anime otaku. Shirobako's character designs reflect what modern anime otaku like, yes.

You call it modern, I call moe. And I'm not necessarily wrong for calling it that way since the Shirobako characters themselves call it that way too. If you don't like the term, that's okay, but it's clearly used in Japan to identify a trend in the industry so I don't see the problem when someone says that x series is a moe anime.

[IceHism]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

You call it modern, I call moe. And I'm not necessarily wrong for calling it that way since the Shirobako characters themselves call it that way too. If you don't like the term, that's okay, but it's clearly used in Japan to identify a trend in the industry so I don't see the problem when someone says that x series is a moe anime.

The problem happens when most of the people who would even make the distinction between anime and moe anime are the people who hold a pejorative against what people call "Moe"
And no one likes to be attacked for what they like. Combine it with the fact that people often use ignorant sweeping generalizations and you'll get some angry fans

[Dickdatduck More]

Can "moe" refer to character types or art styles or both?

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

If you don't like the term, that's okay, but it's clearly used in Japan to identify a trend in the industry so I don't see the problem when someone says that x series is a moe anime.

Like IceHism said, it's largely used to dismiss anime rather than simply describe industry design trends. Look at how Triple_R insists that "moe" needs to have some kind of "standard bearer" to prevent people from sneering after one glance at the character designs, as Western anime fans have done and will continue to do for years to come.

Rather than trying to convince people like that "moe can be worthwhile too", why not try describing shows as what they are instead of just how they look? Like telling someone "oh, you like office dramas, you might enjoy Shirobako" rather than having to constantly go REMEMBER DUDE THIS ISN'T LIKE ONE OF THOSE OTHER MOES

Originally Posted by Dickdatduck More

Can "moe" refer to character types or art styles or both?

It means whatever's convenient for the argument in question. I've seen some people dismiss literally everything with a female cast and/or without violence, guns as a "moe anime".

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Dickdatduck More

Can "moe" refer to character types or art styles or both?

Both as far as I can tell.

Originally Posted by IceHism

The problem happens when most of the people who would even make the distinction between anime and moe anime are the people who hold a pejorative against what people call "Moe"
And no one likes to be attacked for what they like. Combine it with the fact that people often use ignorant sweeping generalizations and you'll get some angry fans

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

It means whatever's convenient for the argument in question. I've seen some people dismiss literally everything with a female cast and/or without violence, guns as a "moe anime".

You guys have to stop being so defensive. You're too caught up in this idea that anyone who even says that word "moe" is insulting what you like. That's not necessarily the case so get over it already.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by IceHism

The problem happens when most of the people who would even make the distinction between anime and moe anime are the people who hold a pejorative against what people call "Moe"
And no one likes to be attacked for what they like. Combine it with the fact that people often use ignorant sweeping generalizations and you'll get some angry fans

I think I have said this before somewhere, but it's also possible that the fans are guilty of the opposite: "over specification" I guess. Basically they define the term they don't like as specific as possible, so as to debunk every criticism using the term that's not conforming to that definition.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

You guys have to stop being so defensive. You're too caught up in this idea that anyone who even says that word "moe" is insulting what you like.

I am saying that trying to turn "moe" into some sort of generally-useful descriptive quality is enabling those people, as are attempts to improve the status of "moe" in their eyes by pointing to specific shows or characters (because then they can dismiss anything that isn't those, ie. "I normally don't like moeshit but Madoka is great").

[itisjustme]

^Moe is a feeling and a concept though, it's not like it's some specific well defined thing. I've seen Miyazaki call his heroines moe and I don't think it's what most people have in mind when they hear the term.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

I am saying that trying to turn "moe" into some sort of generally-useful descriptive quality is enabling those people.

It's not. That's just you being defensive. The term moe does describe an aesthetic trend in the industry, and if people want to talk about it without insulting, I don't see the problem.

Originally Posted by itisjustme

Moe is a feeling and a concept though, it's not like it's some specific well defined thing. I've seen Miyazaki call his heroines moe and I don't think it's what most people have in mind when they hear the term.

The term describes a feeling but is also used to indicate an aesthetic and stylistic trend.

[Archon_Wing]

Holy shit. This has like nothing to do with Shirobako anymore; in fact it got mocked by the show which really shows how low this topic is on the tree of relevance; somewhere stuck in the director's tummy. I mean come on people, even when I post crap, it's still about the topic at hand.

Anyone that dismisses an anime solely based on a generalization has to be taken with a grain of salt. It doesn't matter what you do with them because they'd find some other blanket to spread nonsense. On the other hand, faulting people for pattern recognition isn't fair either-- some people have experience with a certain set of trends that generated a negative reaction, and are just sharing this line of experience. But for the most part, fewer people give a fuck than you'd imagine. So just go back and enjoy your shitty moe anime already.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Holy shit. This has like nothing to do with Shirobako anymore; in fact it got mocked by the show which really shows how low this topic is on the tree of relevance

An off-hand comment by a side character doesn't mean it got mocked. In fact, the series took the matter quite seriously. For example when they say that Sugie can't draw moe, they mean it as a real problem. No one dismisses Sugie's inability to draw in this style as something silly.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Please, and off-hand comment by a side character doesn't mean it got mocked. In fact, the series took it quite seriously. For example when they say that Sugie can't draw moe, they mean it as a real problem. No one dismisses Sugie's inability to draw in this style as something silly.

That's not my point. My point is that the actual act of arguing over semantics over perceived slights regarding a fanspeak term that obviously has different connotations across different fandom is utterly ridiculous.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

That's not my point. My point is that the actual act of arguing over semantics over perceived slights regarding a fanspeak term that obviously has different connotations across different fandom is utterly ridiculous.

Arguing semantics was never the intention. I believe we started this just prizing Shirobako for its somewhat unusual way to deal with the current aesthetic trends without compromising the quality of the story (say what you will but this happens a lot). If the discussion turned into an argument of semantics is because some people got defensive for no reason.