About moege and the art of making cliche engaging.

[onorub]

I watched this video from one of the comic book channels that i watch, and it randomly make me think about moege in the sense that maybe moege is the art of making cliche stories interesting. It's interesting to think about how making someone get into pure slice-of-life through sheer good writing is what might truly make a good author. I just wanted to hear more thoughts about this.

[Silvz]

Do people read moege for their writing? I thought it was because of cute girls doing cute things, honestly.

[onorub]

3 minutes ago, Silvz said:

Do people read moege for their writing? I thought it was because of cute girls doing cute things, honestly.

But that's the thing, a good writer but even be able to make "cute girls doing cute things" engaging. It may be yuri, but the Flowers series is as good as it gets with that because of the banter between characters. Some moege are well-liked because of good chemistry between characters and some are liked because of good comedy. That's what i mean by "making cliche work".

[Silvz]

Do you think Flowers is moege?

[onorub]

In a roundabout way, yes. Even though moege is aimed at the vanilla crowd, Flowers pulls the "cute girls doing cute things" aspect better than most moege.

[[Hun]Lepto]

Aren't moege eroges mostly liked, because you can fuck the embodiment of cute girls?

 

On a serious note, I think moeges are simply more likeable, because the characters have more time to grow on the reader and anime clichés are usually avoided or resolved in a more satisfying/actually funny way (not that there can't be any). And those who are interested in slice of life aswell are more fulfilled than with an anime that rushes slice of life scenes to fill the timelength.

Edited October 13, 2020 by [Hun]Lepto

[Zalor]

7 hours ago, Silvz said:

Do people read moege for their writing? I thought it was because of cute girls doing cute things, honestly.

Along these lines, I thought it was because people are lonely and they want to pretend they live an ideal everyday life with cute waifus. In other words I thought the only appeal was pure escapism.

EDIT: Just finished the video. It's pretty good and I'm pretty much in agreement with the guy. My understanding of his point is that a talented writer can take a cliched premise and make it work. Yes, that could apply to moege but that applies to every genre imo. It is no way the defining aspect of moege as you seem to be suggesting though. The defining aspect of moege is to sell a fantasy of cute girls to Otaku. A good writer could take that goal and spin it into a great story, but as I think Clephas has pointed out with his blog, relatively few manage to do that.    

[Yuuko]

Yes, writing is actually super important for moege.

Charage is actually just moege with good writing, but people just call them charage because their ego does not allow them to like moege.

[Plk_Lesiak]

Good writing in pure waifu games makes the difference between a satisfying experience and absolute trash. I don't think even art or sex scenes can redeem a moege that doesn't do a good job of making the heroines endearing and/or interesting. Because if it can't suck you in and create this kind of emotional connection, it has no advantage over a random anime drawing or a hentai short you might find online with little to no context.

Of course, there's also the issue of taste, as some people will find even good renditions of moe archetypes unbearable after seeing them too many times... And then there's a subset of VN audience that can consume utter s*** unironically and somehow find in enjoyable. But generally, I think cleverly written slice-of-life never truly gets old and moe tropes are fun tools for that kind of content. In hands of someone with genuine talent, they can make for a great, light experience.

You can overdose on moe though and in the hands of a talentless hack it will quickly devolve into something disgustingly stale and uninspired. Which is, I think, why the formula has such a bad rep nowadays. Even on our market there's now more of it than anyone can reasonably process, and when done poorly it's really hard to justify its existence, as the only thing it will do that nukige wouldn't is waste a few days' worth of your free time...

[Denshahime]

Indeed. So to speak, my favorite Visual Novel is pure SoL, I wouldn't have believed myself when my future-me told me, but my favorite VN is Da Capo II. You will find every cliche in this game, and still it captured me completely. Even today SoL VNs and Anime are my favorite Genre. Good music plays an important role as well, all the good old cliche VNs have this certain "nostalgic" music, old but gold. 

[Stormwolf]

On 10/13/2020 at 10:18 AM, Yuuko said:

Yes, writing is actually super important for moege.

Charage is actually just moege with good writing, but people just call them charage because their ego does not allow them to like moege.

Nahh, its away to separate pure trash and sometimes readable trash.