I was thinking about what “moe” means. Also, I am aware that the letters m-o-e do not appear in the word “emotion.” It’s an intelligent and humorous play on English phonetics. If you don’t get it then go over to my blog’s description on animenano to understand.

Am I wasting my time? No, I don’t mean that in regard to talking about “moe.” I have no less than one research paper, multiple resumes, one AI project, one Software Engineering project, two chapters in my AI text, and I have to go over the notes from my last lecture in SE. Roughly, I have three weeks to get the research and AI project done before they are due. Did I mention that the AI project comes with a built-in report? I decided I would kill some of the non-existent time I have to spare to write a post that I’ve been mulling over.…(more)…

It probably would have been better if I did this post when The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was in full swing. There was an equally fervent debate going about on the definition “moe,” along side statements like “Mikuru is moe”, “Mikuru is the queen of moe”, and of course “Imoto-chan” seemed to elicit a moe reaction.

Despite my attempts to find a rock solid definition of moe as a word, I really haven’t found a simple one line sentence that everyone agrees on. The wiki article on the subject doesn’t appear to attempt to describe it in a dictionary respect. Instead what we have is it’s uses and history. I also find it amusing that the authors of the page decided to use “UFO Princess Valkyrie” an example of what “otaku might consider ‘Moe’.” The ANN lexicon on Moe follows the original and literal meaning. We’ll say that these people are “right-wing moe-ist.” The ANN version has definite romantic/sexual connotations. The lexicon goes on to say, “There is a lot of debate over the corssover between moe fandom and lolicom. While the crossover exists among fans and products the two genres are not synonymous.”

If one does a google search, we find far more “left-wing moe-ist.” These are the people who don’t totally agree with the classical definition of moe. I would probably put myself here. The terminology has been applied to too many subjects to have the classic definition still considered accurate; although, it is accurate in some instances (eg the aforementioned Hariuhisms).

Conclusion: As it is now Moe is a word describing an emotion or group of emotions.

I know that isn’t world shaking knowledge because others have already suggested it.

My contribution to this discourse is that when speaking about emotions one can usually only use other emotions to describe them. Try it, describe being happy. If you avoid describing things that make you happy, you’ll probably be at a loss to describe it without using other emotions or emotions in context (ex “makes you feel warm inside…”).

I’ll venture, that is a universal truth across every language, every culture, at any time that exist on this planet. I’ve said it before in my blog, “we all speak the same language.”

That language is emotion.

I’ll leave the details for you to ponder not only in regard to “moe,” because it’s a great exercise for anyone. That is if you haven’t though about it in the past.