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BEWARE_OF_THE_BLOB

   A rather obvious trend of                 March 7, 2018
   late in anime has been a
   plethora of what I've heard
   termed "moe blob" characters.             LOLITA_MOE

                                                 OTAKU_KEY

The "K-On!" anime from 2009 remains one                STEINS_GATE
of the definitive examples:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-On!

The typical elements of this trope:

   o  young woman                                Which is also a "tvtrope",
   o  very nice, likeable                        and this covers it decently:
   o  not very smart
   o  clumsy                                     http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Moe?from=Main.MoeBlob
   o  cute
   o  not sexy, though not ugly
   o  short, round, with gigantic eyes
                                             There's some "definitions"
And most unfortunately:                      out there that claim moe-blobs
                                             are "useless": that's an
   o  loud, high pitched voice               exaggeration.  E.g. the characters
   o  hyper, enthusiastic                    in K-On! can play music.
   o  genki-from-hell

                                       
I would not say that I *approve* of          
this trend-- there are shows I've            
found essentially unwatchable because        
the shreiking female lead was just           "Robotic;Notes" comes to mind,
too irritating.                              and I really wanted to like
                                             that one, since it's another
                                             of the semi-colon abuse shows
                                             like "Steins;Gate".
I much prefer the quiet, reserved
intelligent girls (who are also                            (Hm: try to find
common enough, and being japanese,                         English dubs?)
there's probably a name for this
type of character).  But I evidently                            SUBS
can't say "I can't stand moe blobs"
because there's plenty of examples
of series I like that feature them.
They either succeed in spite of the
presence of the moe blob characters;        "Yuru Camp" is a good
or perhaps, the moe blobs act as a          example of a functional
useful foil: the *interesting*              show with a moe blob
characters have to react to the moe         driving it.
blobs...
                                                            MENAGE_EXISTENCE
And they can also be pressed into
service as plot generators
(consider the "Oh no, I lost my
passport!" episode of "Sora yori
mo Tooi Basho").
                                                                 LUCKY_MIRROR
                         There's a fair amount of overlap
                         between these characters and the
                         "slice of life" genre, which I
                         tend to like, myself.

                         (Moe blobs aren't terribly good at
                         anything, so a moe blob makes a
                         weak protagonist for anything *but*
                         slice-of-life.)



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