Moe World Domination, a Di Gi Charat review
2024-07-16
How has everyone been doing today? I hope your morning went better than mine, cuz I had a long battle with the trash bins that can only be described as a tentative tie. Thankfully I had my brilliant partner on the phone with the council, and they should be able to sort all that out... hopefully!
Now, onto today's topic: Moe World Domination!!!
Of course, I'm not the first to talk about this, and I most definitely will not be the last. In my humble opinion the ongoing conversation around moe could never stop being relevant, the same way no one could ever stop talking about love or war or whatever. Of course this is me being incredibly hyperbolic, and when it comes down to it there is a genuinely very nuanced conversation around the subject of moe, in all its positives and negatives, but for this particular post I'm leaning more towards the lighthearted kind of nostalgic retrospective that people are allowed to indulge in when theyre in their 20's. No longer am I stuck being a weird kid, I can now be a weird adult and that is a much more acceptable way of being, in my humble view, cuz at least I'm looking at it with a rose colored lense while holding up a sign that says 'yeah, this still sucks, and I know it!!!'
Di Gi Charat is one of those characters that has somehow managed to take the best of every aspect of its contemporaries/aesthetic and pack it up into one super-powered mega ball that is just impossible to avoid despite its lack of relevancy in modern day western anime fan culture. I mean, look at this thing!!!
WOW!!! it really does NOT get better than this!, the color scheme, the 1999 charm, the massive bells, the uncanny nekomimi-hat, the fact that it's all canonically a costume she just doesn't take it off?! Even that cutesy maid outfit toes the perfect line between more period accurate and straight up anime moe, it's so impressive it's no wonder she managed to get out of being just a mascot to be propelled to new heights!
And yes, if you thought I was finished with the mascot talk, you're out of luck, cuz we're looping right back into it baby!
I literally watched the original mini-anime for the very first time today, which for the record is absolutely worth the watch. It's 16 lots of 3 minute episodes, you won't even notice it go by! There's something so charming about that style of low-budget surrealist cartoon, it reminds me solidly of Baman Piderman (which deserves a whole blog post just for it), and other similar youtube short cartoons. The reason that it's incredible to me that I've never watched this before is that for years I've been doing everything I can to reach similar heights to the Di Gi Charat design direction, and I'd never even touched it!
[Shown above: my first real sona, piichi/peach, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Di Gi Charat - circa 2013]
Now, realistically of course, I'm not saying that I invented moe, nor did any of these design decisions come from nowhere. More likely than not, my younger 11 year old self would've been inspired by the likes of Kiruminzoo and Jewelpet twinkle:
Characters which are likely to have taken at least partial inspiration from Di Gi Charat! Now I'm not super knowledgable on 1990's-2000's anime/otaku culture, so it's still likely there are more obvious culprits, and I'd love to hear if anyone knows a better timeline of events, or who the real 'patient zero' of these catgirls is :3
I was planning on ending this post with a redraw of my first sona in a more period-accurate Di Gi Charat style/design, but I feel I've rambled enough as is for the day. I'll leave you with this for now, and possible make a part two of this train of thought for another day.
Currently listening to: