ARGOGO
critic and professor at Tokyo
TOOT
PH
Polytechnic University. He is best
known for his book Tezuka izu deddo:
hirakareta manga hyogenron e (Tezuka
is dead: toward an expanded dis-
course of manga expression), pub-
lished in 2005, in which he argues
that manga is not just about the
story: readers have often met the
characters in the form of anime and
games before they come to the man-
ga, which changes their approach
to the reading. Simply put, because
of their previous relationship with a
particular character, fans can relate
to a manga story in ways that go far
beyond the author’s original inten-
tion. Ito also separates “character,”
which is fully contained within a
particular story, and kyara, which has
its own existence outside the story.
Think Mickey Mouse and you’ve got
a pretty good idea what Ito is getting
at. For his sensitivity to fan relations
with characters and kyara, Ito has
been praised as a leading voice in
the study of moé. In this interview,
Ito talks about “the pleasure of lines,”
which allows him to make surprising
connections between moé artists and
manga greats Tezuka Osamu and
Otomo Katsuhiro.
ITO GO
MOE_18_162-169.indd 162
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163
The Pleasure of Lines
Riding the New Wave
Patrick W. Galbraith (PG): Can you
speak a little about manga in the
1970s?
Ito Go (IG): From the mid 1970s to
the early 1980s, many new creators
s
TD.
O., L
appeared, for example Morohoshi
CG
Daijiro, Otomo Katsuhiro, and
ISHIN
Hoshino Yukinobu. Though their
PUBL
TT
styles are very different, their
N©
works are considered part of the
movement known as “New Wave”
comics. Manga artists associated
with New Wave comics pushed
Tezuka izu deddo
the limits of existing genres,
and were characterized by their
sensitivity to the lines they drew. At the same time that the Germans and Brits were using synthesizers to make New Wave
music, the Japanese used pens and paintbrushes to make independent manga and anime. That was the start of moé.
PG: What is your defi nition of moé?
IG: To me, it is a psychological effect that is triggered by a character image. Sometimes it triggers a physical reaction. I fi nd it somewhat dubious to simply defi ne moé as desire. I feel it is closer to the feeling triggered by listening to techno or minimal music. When listening to rave, techno, and trance, there is a bodily sensation. At some point, what you hear is no longer the THE PLEASURE OF LINES
MOE_18_162-169.indd 163
13/2/14 10:40 AM
164
boring repetition of sound, but pleasurable music. Moé is similar to this. There is a moment when suddenly you understand and ET
feel the pleasure of images and lines. At that point, what you RO.N
IAP.P
are looking at is no longer the boring repetition of image, but pleasurable characters. There is a bodily sensation of looking at C. WWWN
them. It might seem strange to compare techno and moé, but for IA, IDE
me there is a lot of r
me there is a lot of esonance. The high-
MER
pitc
pi hed,
tc
squeak
hed, squea y v
ky oices of the singers
UTU
associated with
associated with moé [see Momoi Halko,
ON F
YPT
pag
pa e 72, and
e 72,
T
and or
T omi, page 80] are like
R
I © C
the sounds g
the sounds generated by machines.
KEY B
There w
Ther
as something called Ner
e was
d
TION
Core or J-Cor
Core or J-
e, where people
A
STR
remixed the sounds of
remixe
moé
LUIL
music and v
music
oices into plea-
sura
sur b
a le patterns,
b
and this
contin
con
ues today on the
video-sharing site Nico
vid
Nico Doug
N
a. Vocaloids,
which are virtual idol
characters that sing
songs in a synthetic
voice, fi t naturally
into this kind of con-
text. Techno music
is based on the plea-
sure of repetition, and
is what is left after
the lyrics and message
ar
a e gone. To me, moé is
the pleasur
the
e of repeti-
tious ima
tiou
ges of cute girl
char
c
acters without stor
haract
y or
meaning.
meaning
.
Vocaloid Hatsune Miku
ITO GO
MOE_18_162-169.indd 164
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165
PG: Earlier you mentioned that manga artists associated with the New Wave comics movement were sensitive to the lines they drew. Is this related to moé?
IG: The year 1983 is a watershed in Japanese manga history.
Around this time, line drawing becomes much sharper. An awareness of what is referred to as “the pleasure of lines” ( byosen ni yoru kairaku) appears with Otomo Katsuhiro. One of the characteristics of the creation of moé characters is the sophistication of certain lines. Designers of moé characters tell me they are very sensitive to the lines they use to draw character forms. They even tell me that they have a “line fetish” ( byosen fechi). Otomo is known for his realism and gritty sci-fi , which might seem to be very different from the cute girls associated with moé, but in fact S
they are connected. I found out that one of my friends, who was
@
IMT
really into the bishojo game To Heart and draws moé characters, is CJEO
actually obsessed with Otomo.
BI/PRG
N©
PG: What does “the pleasure of
lines” mean?
IG: With moé, slight movements of
of
the body are expressed, and body
y
parts are emphasized, with fewer
r
lines. One line enables the viewer
r
to imagine a three-dimensional
body. The trend is away from the
real human body toward some-
thing cute. This is abstraction, but
t
it is not unreal. The use of just a
few lines enable us to imagine a
certain
three-dimensional entity,
just like a mathematical model.
Games like The Idolm@ster (2005),
which use polygon character
design, are a good example of
the characteristics of typical
The Idolm@ster
THE PLEASURE OF LINES
MOE_18_162-169.indd 165
13/2/14 10:40 AM
166
S
Tezuka’s circular lines
TION
RODUC
moé lines. When discussing the topic of moé, P
we cannot overlook the visual pleasure of the
EZUKA T©
image itself. As I see it, foundational fi gures in manga such as Tezuka Osamu were aware of
the pleasure of a certain type of circular line
that has come to be associated with moé. You can also see this aesthetic when you look at
the work of Azuma Hideo, Takahashi Rumiko,
and Fukuyama Keiko in the 1970s and 1980s.
In the 1990s, the circular line became widely
used again.
PG: Some people argue that Azuma Hideo
was drawing on shojo manga (manga for girls) when he was experimenting with bishojo
characters. Do you think that shojo manga has played a role in the emergence of moé culture?
ITO GO
MOE_18_162-169.indd 166
13/2/14 10:40 AM
167
167
IG: The infl uence of certain as-
as-
pects of shojo manga is strong.
ng
.
There are, however, slight dif-
if-
ferences between shojo mang
nga
a
pictures and moé pictures,
ANKU
AK
most especially in the eyes.
GOH
Moé eyes are not sparkly,
I / SH
though shojo manga artists
AHAS
K
such as Yabu’uchi Yu and
A TO
Tanikawa Fumiko are close
RUMIK
to moé. The connection be-
982 1
tween shojo manga and moé
©
culture is the appreciation
SURA
TA Y
of cuteness and feminine
aesthetics. There were a
URUSEI
lot of men reading shojo
manga in the 1970s, includ-
ing author Otsuka Eiji. [See
Otsuka Eiji, page 38.] Otsuka’s
generation had strong gender
norms, which he refused in
reading shojo manga. His ar-
gument was that an apprecia-
EVI
tion of cuteness was one way
to resist the masculine capi-
YAMA / J UK
talistic system of the postwar
U
O FK
era. I think he’s right. Male
IE
© K
otaku like cute things. Many
moé artists say that they want
to be a cute girl. Otaku are the
weak boys, but their weakness
is also fl exibility. All these sto-
ries in manga and anime about
switching gender and trans-
forming are a testament to
Takahashi Rumiko (top) and Fukuyama
Keiko (bottom) used circular lines
THE PLEASURE OF LINES
MOE_18_162-169.indd 167
13/2/14 10:40 AM
168
68
that fl exibility. There
should be a new form
of maturity deri
o
ved
AN
fr
f om this new mas-
KU
AK
culinity
c
, but we are
GOH
still go
s
verned by rigid
I / SH
social e
so
xpectations
CUU
about ho
ab
w men should
beha
be
ve.
2005 YU YAB
©
MI
PG: I would like to ask
SUBO
you to r
you
efl ect on the im-
TO
NO
portance of c
por
haracters
ISHA
in J
in apan.
J
N
IG
IG: In J
:
apan today, we
relate to c
rela
haracters in so
man
ma y differ
n
ent forms. In
a w
a ay
wa , all characters are
Yabu’uc
becoming unbounded,
beco
hi Yu: close to moé
: close to
because w
beca
e see them
moving from manga to
anime to games to toys and so on. My word for characters that exist beyond a single narrative context is kyara. As the character moves between these different narrative contexts and media forms, fans share the sense that this character exists. What’s more, fans are contributing to the development of characters through their interactions with them.
PG: Can you give us an example?
IG: The mascot character of Shimotsuma City in Ibaraki Prefecture, Shimon-chan, is a beautiful example of how this works.
The people at the local government who created the character simply intended her to be a cute mascot—she has round, soft lines and butterfl y wings. So far, this really isn’t that interesting, but Shimon-chan has a great number of fans among otaku. Why?
ITO GO
MOE_18_162-169.indd 168
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169
Well, it turns out that the pattern on the wings of this particular type of butterfl y differs according to sex. Shimon-chan is sup-posed to be a cute girl character, but her wings have the gaudy pattern of the male butterfl y. So, in the otaku community, Shimon-chan is imagined to be a male cross-dressing as a cute girl, and so now she’s considered by
many to be moé.
The creators did not
write that story for
her. In fact, want-
ing to be politi-
cally correct, the
local government
has offi cially stated
that Shimon-chan
has no gender. But the
fans continue to draw her
and write stories about her.
Someone in the Shimotsuma
government updates Shimon-
chan’s Twitter account, which fans
follow and use to interact with
TY
her. We are clearly talking about
CIA
kyara, or moé kyara, when talking SUMTO
about Shimon-chan. Fans interact
SHIM
with manga, anime, and game
SY ETR
characters in a similarly
UO
unbounded way today. To
HAN, C
understand moé we ought
-CNO
to be paying less atten-
IMHS
tion to specifi c works
and more attention
to the relationships
that fans have with
characters.
Shimon-chan, mascot of
Shimotsuma City
>
THE PLEASURE OF LINES
MOE_18_162-169.indd 169
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170
Interview with
I
Az
A u
z ma Hiroki
Azuma Hiroki, born in 1971,
is a cultural critic and writer,
who came to public atten-
tion in 2000 with his book Fukashina
mono no sekai (The overvisualized
world) and an essay he wrote for
pop artist Murakami Takashi’s Su-
perfl at exhibition catalog. He then
became involved in a series of key
debates about otaku that brought
together well-known experts in the
fi eld of manga and anime, includ-
ing Kotani Mari, Ito Go, and Saito
Tamaki. These debates were pub-
lished in 2003 as the collection Mojo
genron f-kai: posutomodan, otaku,
sekushuariti (Net discourse fi nal ver-
sion: Postmodern, otaku, sexuality).
His 2001 book Dobutsuka suru posuto
modan: otaku kara mita nihon shakai,
translated and published in English
as Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals in 2009, puts forward his theory that
otaku are less interested in narra-
tive in manga, anime, and games,
and more interested in characters
NNA
that they can break down into moé
CHUM S
elements such as cat ears, maid
ZT
FRI
costumes, and so on. In this inter-
Y B
PH
view Azuma lays out his argument
RAG
and talks about the politics of writ-
OTO
PH
ing about otaku.
AZUMA HIROKI
MOE_19_170-177.indd 170
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171
Applying Pressure
to the Moé Points
The Death of Narrative
Patrick W. Galbraith (PG): Can you talk a
a
little about otaku and postmodernity?
Azuma Hiroki (AH): One of the things
often said about otaku activity is that it
A
represents a retreat from public space.
Otaku show no interest in social issues,
SHIMBUNSH
and shut themselves into the domain
I
of hobbies. This mental state only oc-
© ASAH
curs when consumer society reaches a
certain level of maturation, and there
are no larger political or social goals.
Japan reached that level of matura-
tion in the 1970s. My assertion is
that this state is similar to what is
called postmodernity in sociology
and philosophy. Of course, post-
modernity is a complicated concept,
C.
and it doesn’t simply mean a retreat
The Moé Manifesto Page 15
