世論 What Japan Thinks

goo Ranking recently asked what aspects of the opposite sex that others might find a little odd did people find alluring, for both men looking at women and women looking at men.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 18th of January 2012 1,048 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 61.6% of the sample were female, 12.3% in their teens, 15.6% in their twenties, 27.9% in their thirties, 25.8% in their forties, 9.5% in their fifties, and 8.9% in their sixties. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

At JR Osaka station there is a woman announcer voice that describes in English where to stand, and the “two” in “Please form two lines” is strangely alluring to me. The accent is mostly Japanese with very little US or UK English influence, but the “two” comes out in an accent that sounds very much like from my home area, a cute “tchew”. I also used to work with a Japanese woman who pronunced the Japanese “fu” sound rather sweetly.
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First, what is moe? I’d like to explain in my own words, but I’d probably irritate half my readership, so instead here is a casual essay and a more formal look at what it means.

A fad at the moment is sticking cute cartoon girls on everything, so this quicky from goo Ranking looked at to what items they couldn’t see the need for the addition of moe characters.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 26th of October 2009 1,162 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 62.9% of the sample were female, 10.5% in their teens, 20.7% in their twenties, 30.8% in their thirties, 21.9% in their forties, 9.0% in their fifties, and 7.0% aged sixty or older.

A moe toolbox will go well with your ita-sha, and as for a moe CV book, perhaps only necessary if you wanted a job at a maid cafe.
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Japan has a million and one Days every year, with today, the 10th of October being marked as Moe Day, Look After Your Eyes Day, Fishing Day, Tuna Day, Tin Can Day, Public Bath Day, and no doubt many, many more. To investigate the awareness of these and other celebrations, iShare looked at October Days.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 24th of September 2009 591 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.9% of the sample were male, 34.9% in their twenties, 30.3% in their thirties, and 34.9% in their forties.

Moe, or 萌え in Japanese, is basically the love of cute animation or video game characters, which for me has undertones of unhealthy obsession, and its broad acceptance within Japan is one aspect of the country that I do not like at all. As to why today is Moe Day, let’s look more closely at how the 10th of October and Moe are written in kanji:

As to why the other Days fall on today, I am at a loss to tell you why, except for Public Bath Day. 10th October is 10/10, or 1010, or one thousand and ten, which can be pronunced in Japanese as sen-tou, which is also the pronuciation for 銭湯, public bath. I’m quite proud of myself for working that one out. Finally, 10th of October used to be Health and Sports Day, but from 2000 they moved it to the second Monday in October.

萌（♡´∀`♡）え
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