mt-i’s anti-”anti-moe” post
This is awesome.
[...]a particularly exclusive group is the bloggers you could call intellectual aestheticians, who unironically judge anime based on its adherence to (their understanding of) the conventional canons of high culture.
[...]but one singularly effective way of establishing your IA street cred is to discuss moe and its calamitous influence on all aspects of anime-as-an-art-form—the works themselves, the creators, the fandom, you name it. Because moe, you know, is the main reason for anime’s artistic downfall since the aforementioned and still unspecified golden age.
We found that you ought to make the following points, preferably in order:
- Affirm the sorry state of anime in relationship with moe;
- Point out some deeper consequence of the moe trend;
- Put that consequence in a larger social context;
- Propose a theoretical (sociological, philosophical, etc.) explanation for the underlying social change;
- Deduce the historical inevitability of the moe decadence;
- Remain a beacon of enlightenment in this inescapable turmoil.
The usual trick is to assert that the moe trend threatens not only anime quality itself, but the very fabric of anime production and consumption. [...] nobody expects you to substantiate those claims: vague and general assertions (“demise of elaborate story-telling”), problematic scare words (“exploitation”, “sexualization”) are quite welcome and will go unchallenged
[...] give an impressive-sounding description of the scope of the imaginary problem that you have brought up, and interpret it as a mere symptom within anime of large-scale historical, ideological or social movements. And be sure to make that a downward movement. [...] “the downfall of political and religious grand narratives in the secularized North after the Cold War”, “the consumerist corruption of wabi-sabi in post-Imperial Tokyo shopping malls”, you see what I mean.
As a proud IA, you need to uphold your intellectual pretensions by giving your post a scholarly twist. [...] For example, don’t just write about “the downfall of political and religious grand narratives after the Cold War”; make it “the Lyotardian theory of incredulity towards metanarratives”. If you mention “the end of history”, put it in a “Fukuyaman perspective”.
And you don’t need to let reality (e.g. the fact that words like tsundere originated in fan discourse itself, rather than by fiat of the industry; or the existence of TV Tropes) get in the way of your discourse.
And those are just some of the good parts.
Oh god, that was probably the best meta post about the animeblogosphere I’ve read since good ‘ol tj_han. It’s amazing how mt-i manages to parody their tone and language, yet still never does descend in to wall-of-text “tl;dr” style too much. I found that probably the best part of the post lol. Not forgetting how he ended the post itself!
Seriously, give it a read. It’s worth the 15 mins.
