PG: Why do you think that moé char-
acters tend to be young?
HT: Because that makes them vul-
nerable, which inspires us to protect
and nurture them. The character
needs support, love, or care, even if
Phoenix: Tamami
she is strong and independent. If she
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122
is not at all vulnerable, then she can live on her own. It would be hard to approach such a perfect being. Being vulnerable means that you need others, and these characters can’t survive without support.
PG: Who tends to have an interest in moé characters?
HT: Clearly we are talking about those who are marginalized—
Japanese men in particular, who seem to be getting weaker.
After the Second World War, the value of men in Japan was de-termined by their productivity at work. The man who earned money was able to spend it, showing that he was a worthy mate.
This then became the only way to be a man, the only way to be favorably appraised by women. I call this the era of love capital-ism, meaning that dating and courtship were increasingly tied to consumption. Trendy dramas aired on television that promoted going to fancy restaurants or taking a ski vacation. So those men who failed or dropped out of the system looked for love elsewhere, for example in manga and anime. The situation got worse when the economy tanked in the 1990s, which made it harder to get that job and be that ideal man. There were a few men who had love and a lot of men who didn’t. I call this the love gap ( ren’ai kakusa). Moé provides a low-cost, low-stress solution to this problem. It is love on our terms. Moé is a love revolution that challenges people’s commonsense notions about the world. You don’t need much capital to access moé, and you can do it in a way that suits you. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that everyone should give up on reality; I’m just pointing out that some of us fi nd satisfaction with fi ctional characters.
It’s not for everyone, but maybe more people would recognize this life choice if it wasn’t always belittled. Forcing people to live up to impossible ideals so that they can participate in so-called reality creates so-called losers, who in their despair might lash out at society. We don’t have to accept something just because people tell us that it is normal or right or better.
HONDA TORU
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123
PG: So, you don’t have to “be a man” or “get the girl.”
HT: Exactly. Think about anime series such as K-On! (2009). It’s just a bunch of girls hanging out in a high school. There is no romantic angle at all. Fans watch the show to see cute girls acting cute. It’s just like women looking at Hello Kitty and saying,
“She’s so cute!” But then men can also watch K-On! and imagine relationships with the girls. But there is no script for how they should relate. In a world without male characters, how should the male viewer identify? It’s a complicated question, and the answer is totally open to the imagination. Moé fans are so busy turning everything around them into cute girls that it is not impossible that they turn into cute girls themselves.
PG: Are there any other reasons why moé culture should have taken hold in Japan rather than in another country?
HT: Manga and anime play
a much larger role in Japan
than comics and cartoons
do in other countries. When
Tezuka Osamu started pro-
S
ducing his manga after the
TION
Second World War, they were
RODUC
immediately widely popular.
P
They were cheap and acces-
EZUKA T©
sible in a society where there
were few other entertain-
ment options. Then Tezuka
adapted his manga into
anime, which also spread
Tezuka: Don Dracula
quickly. Now in Japan, manga
and anime are a part of growing up for kids of all backgrounds.
You get used to seeing cute characters everywhere. Many people learn to draw them, and with more and more people drawing, character designs get better and better. The attention paid to manga and anime characters in Japan is unique in the world.
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124
Nowhere are there cuter characters in greater numbers than in Japan. This is clearly one reason why moé settled here.
PG: Would you say that moé is about a physical attraction to characters?
HT: I don’t think moé is just about physical attraction. People who pursue moé are looking for something deeper. In bishojo games, there is one girl that the player loves and wants to be with, and the story is about how the player fi nds his way to her.
In the 1990s, there were bishojo games that were all about the fantasy of multiple partners. The game Classmate (1992) was very much that way, but in its sequel, Classmate 2 (1995), the objective was to fi nd true love with one girl. The sequel was much more E
PPLA
PINE
PINK/F
EL©
Classmate 2
HONDA TORU
MOE_13_116-125.indd 124
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125
popular than the original. And this is not an isolated example.
In the 1990s, you had all sorts of games about love and romance being released by companies such as Elf and Leaf, and then in the 2000s there were the crying games ( nakige) released by Key
[see page 98]. As the name suggests, crying games are all about emotion, not physical attraction. Despite what some people might think, these games are something like romance novels.
It’s the relationships that are moé.
PG: Do you think moé is somehow compensating for a lack of love in the real world?
HT: It may seem that moé is compensatory, but that is not always the case. These days, it is often the other way around. People don’t imagine a relationship with an anime character because they couldn’t fi nd a girlfriend, but rather they fell in love with a character in the fi rst place. Any relationship with a human woman after that is compensatory. We have grown up in a media environment where it is possible to fall in love with manga and anime characters. Some people never stop feeling love for them. So it’s not necessarily about dropping out of society—it’s also about being brought up in a world that sets one up to be a moé otaku. [For more on growing up in media environments, see Saito Tamaki, page 178.]
PG: What do you think is the future of moé?
HT: Some day soon this hierarchy of “real” and “artifi cial” will break down. Society is not ready to accept love for only two-dimensional girls. We still need a middle ground between the two-and three-dimensional worlds, for example maid cafés, where women dress in costumes and perform as characters. The future is knowing that we are in love with fi ction and accepting it. We don’t have to “wake up” just because someone tells us that the
“real” world is inherently better than the world of moé fantasy.
Someday we will be able to accept that the world of dreams is a good world.
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126
Interview with
Morinaga Takuro
RO
KUA TAGA
IN
Morinaga Takuro, born in
1957, is an economic ana-
lyst, media personality,
MOR
writer, and lecturer at Dokkyo Uni-
YS
TER
versity. Morinaga is said to have
COU
otaku leanings, which come out
in
RO
KU
his discussion of moé. For example,
A TAG
he argues that the majority of
A
IN
Japanese men are ugly and poor,
MOR
OF
and women’s inability to deal with
HPAR
this accounts for falling marriage
OGT
rates. Men who can’t fi nd partners
HOP
instead fall in love with characters
from manga, anime, and games. In
2005, Morinaga published the book
Moé keizaigaku ( Moé economics),
where he talks of moé as a proud
culture of men who have reached
enlightenment. His ideas on moé
appeared in a controversial article
NWOL
published in the New York
GC
M
Times Magazine on
NOM
July 21, 2009. In
RAY B
this interview,
PH
RA
Morinaga ex-
GOTO
plains the econom-
PH
ics of moé, his fears
URINEG
about moé “fundamen-
FI
talists,” and his hope for
wide acceptance of otaku.
MORINAGA TAKURO
MOE_14_126-135.indd 126
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127
For Love or Money
A Lesson in Moé Economics
Patrick W. Galbraith (PG): You are an
economist. Why study otaku?
Morinaga Takuro (MT): Economics often
assumes that people make rational deci--
sions. Humans, however, don’t operate
rationally. The research theme that I
have pursued all these years is why
people go crazy, and through this re-
search I became interested in the otaku
HAS
market. Otaku will pay any amount for
ANDO
things that they value, but these things Moé keizaigaku
©K
are worthless to others. They also buy
a lot! You end up with small-scale
NW
suppliers producing diverse products
OLGC
for a limited number of buyers. The
MNO
producers and consumers tend to be
M
RAY
the same people. For example, the
B
PH
people making and selling maid cos-
RAGOT
tumes use what money they make to
O
PH
buy fi gurines or trading-card games.
The result is what I call the Akihabara
block economy. The money circulates
around from place to place within a nar-
row closed market, and no one actually
makes a profi t. As an economic analyst,
Figurines (left and far left): part of
the otaku market
FOR LOVE OR MONEY
MOE_14_126-135.indd 127
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128
Above and right: otaku goods
what I see looks absolutely crazy. Why would
anyone produce things if they aren’t making
money? The answer is love. The producers are
otaku and they want to produce for other otaku who appreciate their work. They are pursuing what they love.
PG: You have also written about the
economics of love.
MT: Right. The marriage market is as
crazy as the otaku market. In the last
twenty or thirty years, the number of peo-
ple not getting married has dramatically
increased in Japan. The national census
survey of 2005 revealed that 49.4 percent of
men between the ages of thirty and thirty-
four were unmarried. In the 2010 census,
NW
that fi gure rose above 50 percent. Our cul-
OLGC
ture is polarized into those that date many
MNO
people and those that date no one. For ev-
M
RAY
ery one man who meets the criteria of de-
B
PHS
sirability, there is any number of women.
RAGO
Those men who don’t meet the criteria
TO
PH
can’t fi nd a partner. Women say that
MORINAGA TAKURO
MOE_14_126-135.indd 128
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129
they want a “standard” ( futsu) man. Not normal, OOH
but standard. Standard in the sense
Y CN
of a middle-class working
AN
© D
man, the sort that was
common in the United
States in the 1950s and
1960s. In Japan, we call
such men salarymen.
Women want to date
someone from the
middle class who is a
stable, reliable earner.
At the same time, the
middle class is rapidly dis-
appearing. Most people
are in the lower
class, which is not
desirable, or the
upper class, which
is out of reach. So
those few examples of
the middle-class man are in
high demand.
Otaku producing for other otaku: Danny Choo’s Mirai Suenaga
mascot character
PG: How does this situation
make people go crazy, to borrow your word?
MT: Well, alternative lifestyles are developing within the group of people without partners. From the deep despair of having a small income and few prospects comes the urge to abandon all hope for a human partner. You could call it crazy, but actually it’s enlightenment. Those who cannot fi nd human partners begin to have desires for manga, anime, and game characters, or what they call “two-dimensional” women. For them, it is better than the real thing. Unlike a human woman, a character will do what they want.
FOR LOVE OR MONEY
MOE_14_126-135.indd 129
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130
NWOLGC
MNOM
RAY
PG: You have written a book on moé economics. First of all, what B
does the word moé mean to you?
PHS
RAG
MT: Moé is a feeling of love for fi ctional characters. When you OTO
PH
love something that is not a human woman the way you would lov
lo e a human woman, that feeling
is called
is
moé.
PG
P : When did you fi rst start to no-
tice
ti
moé?
MT
M : It was around the year 2000
that
th
moé became a legitimate phe-
nomenon.
n
Japan went into defl a-
tion in 1997,
t
and the gap between
those who ha
t
ve and those who
don’
d
t really widened. Men with-
out adequate income could not
o
get married, and in fact could not
ev
e en get into a romantic relation-
ship. The number
s of these men
rapidl
r
y increased at the end of
the 1990s. As these men turned
to manga, anime, and games to
This page
Thi
: more ottaku
k good
ds
fi nd love, moé blossomed.
MORINAGA TAKURO
MOE_14_126-135.indd 130
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131
PG: Why do otaku like young characters?
?
MT: Otaku tend to be weak, especially in n
male-female relationships. They are dis--
empowered both economically and in the
he
love market. People into moé are losers in
in
the love market. In order for them to feel
el
secure and happy, their partner has to be
be
younger and appear to be within their
control. What they need is a character
TIOLIT
that is even weaker than themselves.
A
ME
So characters tend to be small, cute,
NIELA
and young looking.
DY B
PHS
RA
PG: Now that you have told us what
at
GOTO
the word moé means to you,
PH
could you give us a defi nition of
moé economics?
MT: The moé market does not lie
with the people I call the “fun-
damentalists”—the term I use to
describe those who are completely
y
satisfi ed with two-dimensional
love. These fundamentalists comprise
less than 10 percent of the market. For
those who can’t be satisfi ed only with
the two-dimensional world, there is a
need for material. The moé market is
concerned with providing this three-
dimensional material to people looking
for satisfaction in the two-dimensional
UTHOR AY B
world. Figurines of anime characters,
HPAR
cosplay, maid cafés, and so on are all
OGT
ways of making the two-dimensional
HOP
part of the three-dimensional world.
Maid cafés: 3-D satisfaction
FOR LOVE OR MONEY
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132
PG: Why do you think the moé market is so much more robust in Japan than, say, the
The Moé Manifesto Page 11
