[Week 1] K-On! and Sound! Euphonium

For the film club I do with friends, I'm picking a series of works by Japanese animator Naoko Yamada, whose new film The Colors Within releases in the US today. I've previously done a series on Mobile Suit Gundam, and because my friends are not well versed in the cultural context around Japanese animation, I preceded each selection with a short essay introducing the work and explaining some relevant cultural context. I'm doing that again with Yamada's works, and like with the Gundam series, I figured I could adapt these for my blog as well.

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This week we'll watch some of Naoko Yamada's TV work, starting with K-On! (2009), a show that epitomizes the '00s moe trend.

Then we'll shift to Sound! Euphonium (2015), known in Japan as Hibike! Euphonium, which explores similar moe tropes but with a pretty different tone.

This, for better or worse, means I have to explain what moe is.

Sprout and Burn

Moe (pronounced "mo-eh") is a Japanese slang term originating in the online otaku communities of the 1990s. As you may recall from the Gundam series, otaku refers to the subculture of obsessive anime and manga fandom that emerged in Japan in the 1980s.

Moe describes a feeling of strong affection evoked by something adorable--usually, but not always, a cutely drawn anime girl. The term originated in online otaku forums devoted to discussions about bishoujo (beautiful girl) characters. In contrast to the overt sexualization of bishoujo, moe described a kind of heartwarming endearment bordering on protectiveness. The term likely derives from two Japanese homophones, both pronounced moeru, meaning "to sprout" and "to burn". Some fans also think its origin relates to the surname of Hotaru Tomoe, a Sailor Moon character who embodies the sweetness and vulnerability of moe.

Although the word moe describes an emotional response, it's also used as an adjective to describe a particular kind of character (again, usually a girl) who has a charm, innocence and vulnerability that sparks the moe feeling. Columnist John Oppliger once likened the moe character to "the anime equivalent of the literary ingénue." Recall Suletta Mercury, the protagonist from Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: wide-eyed, awkward, earnest, and altogether too precious for this terrible world; not necessarily "sexy" but still intentionally designed to evoke affection from the male gaze. "Adorkable" isn't quite synonymous but might be a good analog.

While moe emphasizes heartwarming innocence, it sometimes overlaps with bishoujo sexualization, which can lead to uncomfortable territory. It's not necessarily a problem for Young Adult slice-of-life fiction to engage with themes of adolescent romance and sexuality, but moe content tends to pander to an adult male audience, which can make their take on sexual topics pretty uncomfortable. Along these lines, moe can sometimes overlap with lolicon--a term for content depicting fictional minors in sexual contexts (In Japan, this is legal, so long as no actual children are involved in the production). Even when it doesn't, it can be hard to shake the mental association off. That's not where we're going with this series, and I have high hopes that Yamada's perspective as a female animator will offer a more positive take, but it's something to bear in mind.

Doing Cute Things

As moe became a fandom buzzword in the 2000s, studios like Kyoto Animation began creating shows that centered on moe as their core appeal. Two of their biggest hits, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (2006) and Lucky Star (2007), captured legions of otaku fans with their moe-fied female casts and self-aware humor sending up anime tropes and trends. These shows spawned dozens of imitators, but also drew legions of KyoAni haters, who felt that cutesy otaku-pandering slice of life comedies were thriving at the expense of the sci-fi, fantasy, and action genres that they preferred. These critics were of course incorrect, as those genres would continue to thrive, but many works in those genres would also come to embrace moe elements: once again, recall Suletta Mercury.

As for Naoko Yamada, she worked as a key animator and episode director on many of KyoAni's early moe hits. In 2009, at age 25, Yamada directed her first full series: K-On!, a show about girls in a high school music club. If an animated show in the US were made with a premise like that, it would be fair to presume its target audience was young girls, but it's worth reiterating that this isn't necessarily true of moe anime. K-On! was a crossover hit, but it was based on a comic strip that originally ran in a seinen manga magazine--a comic magazine targeting men in their late teens and older.

K-On! became a moe touchstone, and popularized a subgenre centered on groups of "moe girls" pursuing highly specific hobbies, activities, or clubs, known (sometimes derisively) as the "Cute Girls Doing Cute Things" (CGDCT) genre.

There's some apparent tension between the objectification inherent to moe, and Yamada's talent at creating nuanced characters with rich inner lives. I wonder if her mentor Ishihara's early impression of Yamada as a "weird subculture girl" might be worth considering as we unpack her perspective on quirky ingénues pursuing creative hobbies.

The Set List:

Let's watch one episode of K-On! (2009). I picked a "beach episode", a time honored tradition in slice of life anime:

• K-On! Season 1, Episode 10: Another Training Camp! (available on HiDive)

Next, we'll check out two or three episodes of: Sound! Euphonium (2015), a co-directing project of Yamada and Ishihara that's a particular favorite of mine.

• Sound! Euphonium Season 1, Episode 4: "Singing Solfège" (available on Crunchyroll)
• Sound! Euphonium Season 1, Episode 5: "Festival Time" (available on Crunchyroll)
• OPTIONAL, BUT SECRETLY MY FAVORITE: Sound! Euphonium Season 1, Episode 8: "Festival Triangle" (available on Crunchyroll)

Sound! Euphonium is only available in Japanese with subtitles, but there's an English dub of K-On!. Even if you watch the optional episode, this all clocks in under two hours.

If you'd like more insight, particularly of a technical nature, I recommend this two-part interview with Yamada and Ishihara (1, 2) about Sound! Euphonium.

Generally, our group ended up being more interested in Sound! Euphonium than in K-On!. But I think in both cases, picking episodes from the middle of the series may have thrown us for a bit of a loop, in terms of keeping track of all the different characters and who they were. Ah well! Sound Euphonium is one of my favorite anime series, maybe my single favorite, so I was happy to issue clarifications and explanations about it. Personally I haven't seen more than a few episode of K-On! and I'm not sure how inspired I am to watch more of it, but it strikes me as a good comfort binge next time I'm sick for a week.

Next: [Week 2] A Silent Voice