Big Brother and Little Sisters: Moe Market Worth 88 Billion Yen

Anime News Network found a report at Yahoo! Japan that a research firm has valued the moe market at 88 billion yen (US$840.5 million).

This should come to no surprise of fans of the book, Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo. Author Tomohiro Machiyama writes that moe might be the single most important keyword to understanding otaku in Japan today:

"In Japan, you will see flyers and posters with moe characters for escort clubs and massage parlors. Even on a train, a typical moe anime girl talks to you from a TV monitor. Everywhere, moe girls smile at you, just like Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984."