Chapter 89.2 – Moe Lord

Chapter 89.2 <— click on the link to read it. Thanks to anonymous for the donation.

Moe Lord

If a Chinese person read the kanji in the Japanese word moe (萌え) it’s “meng.” You might have noticed that a lot of Chinese novels these days use (or overuse) the word meng.

Meng (萌) has become a popular slang word in China. Generally, it’s translated as “cute.” However, originally it came from “moe” which is actually not the same as cute. Kawaii is cute but moe is a different concept altogether.

Moe refers to:

feelings of affection, adoration, devotion, and excitement felt towards characters that appear in manga, anime, or video games. Characters that elicit feelings of moe are called “moe characters.” – source

People also use the word “moe” for other media, so long as it is a feeling of affection towards something or someone that is impossible for a person to have a real life relationship with.

There is no exact English word for “moe.”

萌主 (méng zhǔ) – Moe Lord is the literal translation of this but it simply means a person that someone thinks is really cute.

The word meng is normally translated as “cute” even though it’s not really what moe means because the Chinese have co-opted this term and most non-otaku use it to mean just cute or adorable.

Having said that, the Chinese otaku do still use meng to mean “moe” (source), meaning a translator can still chose whichever translation seems more appropriate. Since Du Ze used the term to refer to Xiu in the context of Xiu being a moe character, I believe “moe” is better to use than cute.

Besides, the gnome form Xiu might be cute but it would strain credulity to call the other forms cute.

Last, but not the least, “Moe Lord” just sounds funnier. That’s why I like it.

Moe vs Cute

If Xiu looked like this:

moe character lion
By Spazzykoneko, Yamavu (talk) – Image:Kemonomimi by spazzykoneko.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Instead of like this:

The Reader and Protagonist Definitely Have to Be in True Love

Then I might have used the word “cute” instead.

Thank you for reading.

3 thoughts on “Chapter 89.2 – Moe Lord”

  1. Ive seen moe used the same way meng has so I easily believed Du Ze thought Xiu was cute in the same way one loves their favorite characters
    Like moe points (though I believe itll differ from people to people both the definition and context) of a character their personality or tics beloved by a fan
    Yeah so i think moe fits!!

Leave a Comment - Name, email, and website are NOT required