Moverload
Being that this is the internet, there are always a lot of really pointless arguments going on about really pointless things; one of the discussions that seems to pop up a lot recently is whether Moe and every anime that has it is garbage. The answer is no, but there is a disturbing trend where Moe is involved. The way I see it, Moe is to anime as computer animation is to big-budget Hollywood movies. You have movies like Lord of the Rings where the animation really helps the movie and many of the key scenes could not have been accomplished as well without it. Then you have movies like Transformers 2 where they obviously spent more time rendering the special effects than they ever spent working on the script or finding stars who could act. Computer animation is merely a tool and the way it’s used can leave you with either a clever, brilliant piece of work, or Jar-Jar Binks.
By now you’re thinking that’s nice, but what does it have to do with anime? The recent trend with anime has been to take a very thin story with substandard animation and characters, slather a thick layer of Moe on top and serve it up to hordes of squealing otaku. If it’s Moe enough, everyone will talk about how Moe this and that is and never once mention that the show doesn’t have a story at all, or that the characters are fresh pressed from the Moe-Mold. Yet, here is where a lot of the people arguing this are getting it wrong…it really doesn’t matter. There’s still plenty of really good anime with awesome stories and characters (Hatsukoi Limited for exmaple) being made and the Moepocalypse hasn’t affected this at all.
The other portion of this Moe argument is people complaining about what others are watching; it really doesn’t affect you at all and you aren’t being forced to watch it at gunpoint, so shut up about it. On that same note, it would be nice if the people who watched those shows didn’t have to mention the word Moe every five minutes and talk about how Moe everything is in the show ad nauseum.
All in all, they make different kinds of cars and different kinds of music because not everyone likes the same things. One person’s K-ON is another person’s Gundam and you the amount of negative input you should have on what someone else is watching is zero.