There are a few aspects of moe which are often criticized, and more often than not, these aren’t exactly good criticisms anyway since they aren’t the main point of the shows. If you’re with me up until now, you might have noticed I already casually mentioned them throughout these series of posts, but I’m going to zoom in on some here.
Kazuma please
First off, there is no plot. I believe this is the number one opinion when we’re talking about criticism for moe shows. I touched on this awhile back, but moe shows aren’t meant to be Michael Bay-like actions, guns and explosions. Moe anime are basically slice of life shows, there ARE story-and the story just involved the characters’ daily lives. It’s a mundane story, but story nonetheless. I mean, really, being actionfest, dramatized or anything isn’t the main point of moe. Moe, just like every other slice of life, focuses on amusement in the mundane, one that most of it’s shows had done a great job in. There’s minimal drama, but it’s a damn good “healing” story dealing with the characters’ sanitized, but if not, extremely fun and relaxing daily lives.
Then, another oft-heard criticism-There are no character development. I will disagree with this sentiment by saying that development exists in moe shows, only through subtle means. Developments are shown by the characters’ actions, not words, and this is something I really like about moe. Most of their introductory, expositions and developments are subtle in nature. I find that moe shows are pretty good at showing information, especially for it’s characters through subtle means rather than the in-your-face approach — and this is one of the best appeal of moe shows.
I think there are also criticisms on fanservice too. This is something again, I touched on before, but most moe anime actually focus on cuteness, not eroticism. At it’s worst, it just have pretty normal beach and hot spring scenes which don’t even last long.
And that’s about all the most common criticisms I can think of for now. But just before I end this post, I would like to point out that it’s important to criticize an anime based only within the boundary of it’s own genre, not outside of it, and this is something a lot of moe criticisms I see fail to do.
What are some other oft-criticized aspects of moe anime you can think of?
