The phenomenon of moe is perhaps the most significant and controversial phenomenon in Japanese popular culture to have gained prominence in the last decade. However, despite its increasing pervasiveness within the zeitgeist of the anime fan (otaku) community, it is a phenomenon that has been almost entirely ignored by those scholars studying Japanese popular culture. Moe (pronounced mo-eh, with two morae), is a rather nebulous concept that at the most basic level can be thought of as an almost fetishized ‘appeal’ of a character (overwhelmingly female) in anime or manga (comic books). This emphasis toward ‘appeal’ exploded in prominence after the turn of the new millennium to dominate an ever larger percentage of anime output; in 2003 moe-related programming and merchandise accounted for $810 million in sales in Japan (Hirano 42). However, despite its importance, a more precise definition of moe is hard to come by. There has yet to be a truly satisfactory definition developed in any academic source, and even the definitions one finds in common use in the otaku community are often vague or contradictory.