Hunting the Elusive

(…or ‘The Moe Hegemony’. Read on to the end for some thoughts on the movement of moe towards a more global outlook.) Published 3rd September 2008, retailing 2000 yen ex tax, 111 pages, ISBN 978-4-87031-864-9, Taiwan Teki Shoujo (台湾的少女) collects the works of ten artists from the former colony. Note the special use of the “teki” kanji, which is used in place of the normal “no” hira. This is keeping with the whole Taiwan (Chinese language) theme. Unsurprisingly, REI gets a huge portion of the book as well as a lot of attention. Disappointingly, Capura Lin, whose art is outstanding, gets no mention. [Download review pictures] [JPG version] << I suggest downloading the JPG version.

This review is going to cover all the artists in the book, but I might not mention all of them by name because decoding the kanji would be a pain.

Obviously, the cover is from REI. Since this is an Etsu (E2) publication (like the Girls! Girls! Girls! volumes), the stuff is is a collection of works done by these artists for the magazine in the past, as well as some of their other stuff, and some original drawings.

We know that REI has a regular feature on the E2 magazine featuring costumes/uniforms, so the first chapter of the book is filled with these.

Make no mistake, I like REI’s stuff, but sometimes they look a bit awkward, or can seem a bit plain.

Certainly, I am stinging from the fact that they excluded Capura Lin, but then she didn’t do any work for E2, so it’s understandable.

Perhaps I have mentioned this before (I seem to remember saying something similar when I covered dmyo), but when you are looking into illustrations, how exclusively Japan should we keep it?

Aesthetically, could you tell the difference if you didn’t know this artist wasn’t Japanese? I really doubt it. But how far is too far? When you get artists in America drawing like this (not many, fortunately), what are you gonna do?

In fact, as I flip through the book, I recognise some pictures I might have seen before at an image board. It boggles the mind that I automatically assumed they were Japanese artists.

This artist seems to take inspiration from a few others I could mention. Looking very generic.

In truth, I really like the half-page illustrations by this artist. Not so much the full-page ones.

Snow is always good too.

It seems as we get into the book, the style of the artists similarly become more individualistic. This could be a good thing.

I think more about artists from other nations. It might actually be possible to aesthetically pick out illustrations which are Korean, I think. The Taiwanese artists might be a bit hard to differentiate, given the stuff seen up to now, although I can definitely pick out REI’s stuff.

I actually quite like the style of this artist. Some of it is a bit awkward (especially for the faces), but I like the attention to detail and the originality of the overall look of the pictures.

I have taken to prizing originality quite a bit more nowadays (haven’t I been always?), as opposed to just generic looking girls. I won’t name the artists I think are “generic” illustrators, because they are pretty popular with many people. I guess part of the problem is if the artist becomes too popular, everyone emulates them, and it doesn’t matter if they were the originator of the style – it just gets lost in a sea of similarity.

One of those weaponry x moe artists here.

I like the planetarium-looking one with the orbs.

Very odd looking illustrations from this artist. The sections are also getting shorter and shorter. In some ways, the style of this one doesn’t seem polished or consistent yet.

This artist seems very familiar to me. Definitely with the pink hair girl I have seen that illustration floating around before. Again, I always assumed the artist was Japanese.

Another short section with an ecchi-loving artist.

It seems the book ends with a whimper rather than a bang. You know how other artbooks get better and better towards the end, and leaves you hanging for more? Not this one. You could sense it beginning to ramp down as the artists got less and less space.

Two pages of thumbnails and blurbs follow, then the concluding page with publication data.

Conclusion: this book is only 2000 yen, but depending on your aesthetic likings, you might or might not want to get it (thus the reason for looking at this review, of course). If for example, you love REI’s stuff, then that is a good prompt for you to buy it. There are smatterings of other quality stuff in here, and that is always worth something. But of course, like many other artbooks which merely collect a number of different artists, the problem is there might be pages which are simply “wasted” because you don’t like the illustrator. This makes for a rather mediocre reading experience, which is not helped by the petering out towards the end.

It is however interesting picking out pictures and defying the notion that Japanese artists have a hegemony on moe. While this is obviously not true, I think collectors need to start thinking about how they are going to deal with this global distribution of moe. Right now, it’s just Taiwan and Korea predominantly, and it’s not surprising because of these nations’ close ties to Japan. For the most part, I have no problems accepting them. But I am thinking forward – what happens when it spreads? Already some American artists are coming out with good art in the moe style.

It might be bigotry on my part, but I would have difficulty accepting stuff from, say, an artist in Brazil, into my collection. Heck, I have trouble coming to terms with Australian illustrators featured at anime conventions (mostly “who is this? and those awful looking illustrations!”), or ‘manga’ drawn by American or Australian artists (“WTF, wannabes?”).

I don’t even give them a chance. I know that’s probably bastardry and critics can successfully argue that I “can’t even draw, so whatcha talkin’ bout?” But by being honest about my attitudes, I think we can flesh out some of the problems collectors face in terms of determining which materials are ‘genuine’ and which are ‘wannabe clones’. The Japanese hegemony on moe might not be absolute, but geographic limitations are certainly a factor in our elitist world.

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