An important aspect of the Japanese concept of 萌え (moe, pronounced mo-EH) is extreme cuteness through endearing physical and/or character defects, which serve to make that character more charming to fans. Some of these defects include clumsiness, bad vision requiring glasses, extreme shyness, being terrible at cooking, a strand of hair that refuses to be combed down (ahoge), and so on. (Hmm, now that I think about it, I think my wife married me because of various defects in my personality that she wanted to “fix”…I wonder if there’s any kind of connection here.) Another big moe element is crooked teeth, called 八重歯 (yaeba, pronounced yah-eh-ba), which are popular both in meatspace (AKB48’s Tomomi Itano is probably the most famous yaeba idol currently) as well as the 2D world of anime and video games, where crooked teeth are represented by a single fang in the mouth. Yaeba are so popular that you can now have them artificially added to your teeth, by visiting a dental clinic and asking for tsuke-yaebe, fake caps that sit on top of your real teeth to give you that cute “imperfect beauty” look. What do you think?
The popularity of yaeba fangs is going strong.
