I’m not sure about the relative popularity of “male moe”, though, since proponents, like those of female moe (eg myself), tend to be loud and slightly frothy-mouthed, thus providing a skewed perspective.

As for Nanaka, her situation is that she doesn’t remember anything after being six years old, so her childhood friend has to help her out while six-year old Nanaka tries to live a normal high school life. Not a comedy per se, but generally not serious either, save for scenes such as Nanaka-with-her-six-year-old-memories going to her preschool and finding all her friends and teacher are gone.

Maybe “moe” describes how the mullet-haired bully sees Nanaka after her mind returns to childhood (without him knowing she’s a child), as he finds she irresistably cute, and in need of protection. Oh, and the series has a ferris wheel scene, not once, but twice!

The show has a “Sailormoon era” feel to it, and is mostly a journey into what happens with the characters, and what changes are brought due to Nanaka having the mind of a child again. I’m not sure what kind of viewer I’d recommend the series to, though. I thought I’d mention a little more about it is all.

Could a lake of “male moe” be due to male characters, be it young boy, teenage boy, young man, adult man, as generally either being self-reliant (Spike, Cowboy Bebop) or a loser (Keitaro, Love Hina), or just plain Vash-like (Vash, Trigun)? I wonder if Sasazuka (Strawberry Marshmallow) could nail the moe bit if he had an episode of his own and wasn’t being sent out into the hallway unjustly by the teacher every moment.

With series such as Sailormoon, Strawberry Marshmallow, Azumanga Daioh, Angelic Layer, Cardcaptor Sakura, Janggeum’s Dream, and Bottle Fairies on my seen list, it’s hard even to find a male character…

But I will admit that I like your tastes of “shy girls with glasses” very, very much. Chinami from Code-E is the last one I can think of; there are a few promising meganekkos side characters, at least.

Stripey: Heck, I’m having trouble trying to explain it to myself. XD Moe really is a pain to figure out sometimes, I do wonder how it managed to catch on regardless.

Cameron: Yeah, moe is definitely in the eye of the viewer; for instance, a lot of people find tsunderes (yes, that word again) moe, but I find most of them annoying. Still, there are a lot of generally-accepted characteristic out there, such as shy characters. That probably says something about a lot of anime fans as a whole…

Anonymous1: Might want to check my most recent post ;)

Anonymous2: Good to know, I figured good stuff was coming from the twins and Nagisa, I’ll look forward to see what they can do.

Chris: Oh dear God. XD Time for me to do the impossible according to Stripey and explain moe.

I think the simplest way to put it, is that moe is that liking between “she’s a good character” and “I’d hit that”. Sort of a pure romance / appeal, for characters you like on a logical/emotional/mental level, rather than a physical one.

Like Cameron mentioned, it’s highly subjective (especially since I haven’t seen the shows you mentioned), so the best I can say is in generalities.

It’s tough to have a moe character that’s strong, which is why I went on a bit of a tirade in this post. ‘Moe’ isn’t really an act, but something that needs to be genuine; if a character is acting, they’re just being cutesy (or annoying, whatever). And since admirable characteristics and moe characteristics are tough to blend (moe charas typically involving a sort of adorable fallacy in a character), strong characters that are also moe are tough to come by. The best you would probably get are characters like Sakura Kinomoto (to use an easy example), because she almost has two sides to her, the hanyaa~n side (light-hearted, everyday life) and the card-catching side (serious, can-do attitude).

Regarding Nanaka, who I’ve admittedly never heard of; generally, if you pity a character, that’s not moe. Moe is not usually something that stems from serious situations, which is what that sounds like. It depends whether her acting like a six-year-old is meant more for humor, or to invoke pathos in the viewer.

It’s possible for a character to grow at least partially out of moe, but usually not into moe. The classic example is a harem character that looks simple and 1D, but actually has a lot of depth and emotion to them. Take your pick from the Kanon cast.

Male ‘moe’ characters don’t usually happen, but this might just be because the ‘moe’-utilizing audience is largely male, and so would be more attracted to the opposite gender. Female readers - do you feel ‘moe’ for some guys?

And ‘moe’ to be honest, is all over the map, simply because it’s a broad tag. Some people find physical looks to be moe (Kyon’s famous line to Haruhi about ponytails), some prefer character characteristics (spacey moe, like Osaka), and some like a blend (my personal favorite, the megane / glasses moe), so it’s almost an inverse rule 34 that if there’s a female character, someone probably thinks she’s moe.

And hey, I didn’t learn how to pronounce moe right for months, so props to you on that. ^^

Also, do you know how to contact Randall in case something like this happens? The only email I have of him is on ikimashou.net.