Japanese for Gamers 101: Otakus in Love

First, I’d like to thank everyone (i.e. Dani and Iain) who offered ideas for this segment. Unfortunately, I have yet to find good Japanese translations for TK, ownage, or spawn camper. I will keep searching, but in the meantime we’ll be looking at a vaguely disturbing Japanese expression. It is one I have dreaded doing because it is both incredibly popular in Japan (making it obligatory for this feature) and also extremely hard to explain. Prepare to enter the flower-petal heart of the Japanese otaku, as today we address the concept of moe, or fetishization.

Word: 萌え
Romanization/phonetic: Moe/ Moe(as in the 3 Stooges) + eh
Etymology: Stem form of the verb 萌える (moeru); to put forth buds, to sprout.
Definition: Used to express one’s love/affection for a virtual or fictional character, such as an anime or video game chick.
Origin: Started on electronic bulletin board systems in the 1990s.

Notes:
According to the Nihongo Zokugo Jiten (The Dictionary of Japanese Slang) “moe is a word that expresses love for or obsession with a fictional person (i.e. a character, particularly a young female character) that appears in an anime, manga or game”. The word apparently first appeared in the early 90s on electronic bulletin board systems, and quickly spread among the otaku community.

By the 2000s, moe had become such a common expression that it made the top ten list for the annual “New Words/Buzz Words of the Year” awards. The award Web site defines moe hazily as a term that “indicates the act of embracing deep feelings with respect to some thing” (emphasis mine).

On the other hand, the extensive J-Wikipedia entry further specifies that moe is typified by “pseudo-romantic affection or attachment accompanied by protective and nurturing feelings, or pure (meaning non-sexual I assume) feelings of affection and attachment, or a preference /obsession related to fetishistic feelings or the ‘moe-attribute’ (i.e. the attributes of the subject and object of the moe-feeling).” Um… yeah. Whatever. The short definition: collecting and jacking off to/on vinyl figurines.

More interestingly, Wikipedia mentions that this expression probably has its roots in ancient Japanese literature, most notably poetry. The poem everyone seems to cite is this one from the Manyoshu (one of the oldest books of Japanese poetry in existence) by Shiki-no-miko:

石ばしる垂水の上のさわらびの萌え出づる春になりにけるかも

My poor attempt at a translation is:
“I can sense the onset of spring in ferns sprouting above a waterfall flowing over a cliff.”

Um… yeah. Whatever. Jacking off to vinyl dolls. That’s all you gotta remember.

Further reading: English Wikipedia entry for “moe”.