If kawaii, or the aesthetic of cute, is
the longing for the freedom and innocence of youth, manifesting in the
junior and high school girl in uniform (Kinsella 1995), then moe is
the longing for the purity of characters pre-person, manifesting in
androgynous semi and demi human forms. This is called 'jingai,' or
outside human, and examples include robots, aliens, dolls and
anthropomorphized animals, all stock characters in the moe
pantheon. A specific example would be nekomimi, or cat-eared
characters. More generally, in order to achieve the desired affect, moe
characters are reduced to tiny deformed 'little girl' images with
emotive, pupil-less animal eyes