>>5Early this year, The New Republic senior editor Jeet Heer similarly noted the odd, online prominence of “racist anime fans.” But what might seem like a broad contingent of anime-obsessive trolls is actually a bit more nuanced. Look closely and you’ll see that the most commonly adopted avatars are cartoon girls whose passiveness or adorable radiance contradicts the cruel language and intentions of the users who co-opt their aesthetic. One of the first users to target Kreizman has worn a variety of anime avatars since first harassing the author in July. Before @PetainSnek deleted his account earlier this week (and possibly started a new one), the user’s avatar was a fan art drawing of the Neon Genesis Evangelion character Rei Ayanami, the archetype for an anime character style known as moe.
As one observer of Kreizman’s ordeal tweeted in personal solidarity, “It’s always moe girls yelling Nazi shit at me for some reason.”
Moe is an archetype as well as a genre unto itself. Broadly defined, moe means young girls doing cute stuff: attending school, crushing on boys, pouting, and being clumsy. If there’s a single word you could use to describe most moe archetypes other than “cute,” it’s “passive.”
Moe trolls themselves are hardly passive. They brand themselves with character art from WWII-themed anime series such as Girls und Panzer or Barbarossa, or adorn more run-of-the-mill moe imagery with swastikas or “Make America Great Again” caps. Here’s Mio Akiyama, a shy high school bassist in the popular manga series K-ON!, reimagined by a fan artist as an SS officer.
https://www.theringer.com/2016/8/9/16046698/anonymous-twitter-trolls-anime-avatars-harassment-4chan-8578d36b2920-8578d36b2920