After what feels like millennia of searching, of surmounting nigh-insurmountable mountains and fathoming fathomless seas, I’ve finally discovered a flawless example of moe balance, a character whose qualities neither pander too obviously nor insult the entire female population simultaneously and repeatedly. A character such as this is a rare gem indeed, and I now count myself among the lucky few poised to bathe in the radiance, the redolence I’m about to describe to you — and, yes, I intend to share my discovery, for refusing to do so would render me a veritable fiend, unworthy of walking among you.
I’m speaking, of course, of…
…Captain Max Jenius.
Now here’s a man I can really get behind.
No, wait.
To clarify, I’m not referring to SDF Macross Max, who, despite still being the prettiest character in his respective show, is probably closer to gar, insofar as he’s the best pilot around and taps the hot alien. We don’t want to protect him, or sympathize with his plight; we’d much rather simply be him. Max does not exhibit his curious man-moe until Macross 7, in which he occupies a position of greater political power, ironically enough.
I suppose I should mention that I ascribe to the IKnight model of moe vs. gar, or some derivative thereof, in which “one of moe’s essential ingredients is that the viewer feels him/herself to be in some way more powerful than the object of the moe feeling,” while “GAR involves admiration for someone stronger than oneself.” We end up with a vague spectrum, with moe on one end and gar on the other, on which we place ourselves: any character on the gar side relative to us can be gar, while any character on the moe side can be moe, with characters falling relatively close to us, or within a certain range of us, qualifying for more direct relatability. All things being relative, no two of us will agree on precisely what renders a character worthy of or in need of admiration or protection; lelangir offers some models, and notes that the measures therein are subjective, but I suspect that the models themselves are subjective, that we all ascribe to our own mental graphs.
Max is, you may note, a man. He also occupies a pitiable position throughout Macross 7, and all the more so when you compare him to Milia, his estranged spouse; he engages in direct combat far less than Milia, for example. He may be an ace pilot, but this is rendered moot in that he rarely pilots. He’s also not an altogether brilliant captain (to enable the “pilots are king” Macross-ism, perhaps), and he wants desperately to reconnect with his wife and daughter, but doesn’t seem to know how. I, for one, don’t want to be this particular iteration of Max. I don’t admire him as I admire Basara and Gamlin. But I would help him, if given an opportunity, and that seems suspiciously like moe.
Is it strange that I consider Captain Max to be moe despite his having a penis? Perhaps; a fair percentage of the definitions of moe I’ve come across note that the moe character is generally female, at least when it’s a straight man doing the judging. But, to my understanding, moe is not fundamentally sexual; more than anything, it constitutes a desire to aid or protect. I’m capable of feeling equally brotherly toward male and female characters. I mentioned to Cuchlann once that I like Madarame from Genshiken because I wouldn’t mind discussing his problems with him over a few beers; maybe Madarame is moe, by my reckoning. It’s possible that I’m stretching the definition of moe too thin. It’s equally possible that, definitions being arbitrary, we can agree to extend the definition of moe, to make the word more useful. But then, when it comes to a word as contentious — no, as open-ended as moe, we can only say with any certainty that its definition equals the sum of all extant definitions, of which there are many.
Clever, and true, how moe and GAR cannot be simultaneous
but I don’t especially believe that the essence of GAR is based solely upon admiration.
See, I think Madarame’s gar; but then, I’m awesome that way. I guess?
I love that you flipped the gender issue here; you’re right, it shouldn’t have to be connected to females, or even whatever gender it is the speaker is attracted to.
This is an unprecedented discussion concerning Max’s penis. I don’t think this has ever been discussed, not even by Millya to anyone.
Isn’t moe about wanting to protect the obect? Unless, it extends to providing comfort and reassurance. One can do without imagining a visage of an unwashed hobo cuddling old Max and drying his /m/anly tears, but it is an image I can no longer un-see.
That said, I salute you Pontifus for your epic marathon viewing of the series I love, and for immediately producing such fun posts to read, symmetrical with the lighthearted fun that can be found throughout the franchise itself ^_^
@ubiquitial
The essence of gar probably isn’t based solely on anything, insofar as it’s as open-ended as moe at this point. Pardon my oversimplification.
@Cuchlann
Madarame has gar moments, sure. He jumps around from moment to moment. I recall him being alternately gar and moe in the chapter in which he buys clothes (moe insofar as his moments of direct or indirect pondering on Kasukabe render him moe-lly vulnerable, a proposition I’m not wholly prepared to defend — fuel for a future post, maybe).
@ghostlightning
Well, Max’s penis is important. I couldn’t let it remain without discussion…though a penis or lack thereof doesn’t factor much into my present application of moe, which is what I’m getting at here.
-.-
That does sound pretty exciting. Between Max and Milia, Max is basically the lady anyway.
Now that I’ve finished Macross 7, I have renewed and greater appreciation for this post. Max indeed has a pitiable position, though I can hardly reason pity for a 50something pretty boy that doesn’t look a day over 30. The man has next to zero control over anything, especially his wife and daughter. That said, the Jenius family is cute as hell.
Have you seen the short movie? If not, then you simply must. Also Encore, particularly the unaired episode: “Fleet of the Strongest Women.”
One of my favorite moments is when he falls asleep in a cupboard or someplace and his bunnies take turns taking advantage and try having their way with him. Now that statement sounds more exciting that it actually is, but it is a charming moment in an anime that runs almost entirely on charm.
Somehow, against my better judgment, Macross 7 has become my favorite sequel in the franchise. The beauty of shitty lovable animu.
Yeah, my brother keeps telling me I need to watch the movie, but I haven’t yet; I wanted to move on to Frontier, and after that I more or less forgot about it, but I’ll get to it.
I did like the random closet scene; it was amusing in its own right, and I suppose you could say that it compounds Max’s…not cuckoldry, exactly; maybe his sterility, or simply lack of companionship…by having him sleep through the whole thing and limiting his waking interactions with the bunnies to “pay attention to the monitor!” I’d say it was the second most entertaining after-episode bit for me; it’s beaten out by Veffidas as a wandering kung-fu master.
I can’t say 7 is my favorite sequel, given Plus and all, but I do feel like I enjoyed it more than a lot of people would, not to mention far too much, probably.
ghostlightning brings up a great scene, with the bridge bunnies (“keep your eyes on those monitors!”) trying to take advantage of him. There is definitely a Cute Factor powering that scene that does nothing to refute your moe theory. Because I don’t care what anyone says, moe must be at least a little cute, and he pulls it off in (mostly) non-sexual spades.
Regarding the gender issue though… according to Wikipedia, moe translates into “budding,” which (watch American Beauty or, uh… ef-melodies and learn) sounds suspiciously female oriented to me. Like a Georgia O’Keefe painting. No, I swear, it’s a flower. Not a vagina.
Max Jenius, budding? I dunno. But I like the way you think. Because moe is not just contentious and open-ended, it’s misused without a hint of the thought that went into this.
You bring up a good point with the issue of budding; budding isn’t something I associate with 50-year-old, father of seven (plus one via adoption, I guess) Max. Part of what I’m trying to do here, though, is figure out how far moe has come from its etymological roots. I might be wrong, but I think the term has been applied to plenty of female characters at this point who can’t be said to be budding, per se; it seems to have taken on life of its own and picked up connotations and usages independent of its origin.
Also, written with 燃 instead of 萌, “moeru” means “to burn” (if online Japanese dictionaries serve me well), and I think it has the connotation of being passionate about something, too. In that case, it could just refer to the emotion incited in the fan, though, given how hard it can be to pin down the origins of fandom terminology, I wonder to what degree the two moerus contributed to the birth of moe.
I don’t know how much “to burn” contributed at the beginning, but it’s clearly part of the deal now — enough anime dealing with otaku characters have crossed the two ideas actively (though fansubbers still typically leave “moe” in the traditional sense but translate the burning) to connect them now.
moe… depending how you look at it, can be considered to have achieved either memetic evolution, or memetic decay. In any case it’s hard to recall its original use and instead people succumb to the temptation to make it more of a catchall replacement for several other words (cute, lovable, adorable, etc. in addition to its other or original meanings).
What does this mean? Nothing in particular except signifiers have fluid meanings with their signifieds. That’s how I feel anyway.
[...] The “essence” of moe is protectiveness; a moe character is one for whom you might take a bullet. And it isn’t about sexual attraction, I’d say, even if others might say otherwise. Have you noticed how characters in ero doujins are often stripped of their canonical personalities almost entirely? I’m guessing that’s a necessity. I’ve talked about this, about how I subscribe to a gradient model of moe and gar, before. [...]