Reason for Warning: This aesthetic discusses sensitive topics like romanticized delusion, manipulation, mental health issues and social isolation, as well as minor mentions of lolicon and gore. Reader discretion is advised.
Femcel Weeaboo is an aesthetic primarily made by and/or depicts women who are an overlap between femcels and weeaboos and identify as such. These young women use anime and manga as escapism from their lives, typically as mentally ill NEETs with no real life social circle or romantic partner, although this is through an internet persona rather than necessarily having to actually take place in reality. The majority of femcel weeaboos mostly use Tumblr and Twitter, where they post photos of Japanese media and memes (typically centered around mental illness and existential dread).
Those who participate in the Femcel Weeaboo subculture usually share a very specific taste in anime and music; they often identify with and relate to fictional characters from anime shows and video games that have "messed up" backgrounds or characters that exhibit traits of mental disorders, including but not limited to: Serial Experiments Lain, Needy Streamer Overload, Evangelion, WataMote, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, etc. As for the musical aspect, some genres widely listened to by the Femcel Weeaboo community are Indie Rock, Breakcore, and Lolicore.
Visuals[]
The people that express this aesthetic combine multiple disparate elements that express feminine interests, otaku culture, and depictions of mental illness. For example, a blog may contain things that show a weeaboo lifestyle back-to-back, or in phases. These images tend to be of more candid quality, with the lighting being harsher and more blue, as it is less polished in appearance.
The more kawaii-oriented side of the aesthetic may pair these themes with girly imagery, cursive texts, pink pastels, kawaii mascots like those on Sanrio products, and soft colors. The images posted often are edited with anime girls and male love interests from popular anime.
Due to the popularity of nostalgic 90s anime within the community, art posted in femcel communities tend to have edgier tones attatched to a typical cute moe archetype. Sketchy lines and rendering, harsh black-white contrast, and dark themes (self harm, ero-guro, denpa media, drug use, mental illness, etc.) are added in conjunction with an old school loli-esque art style. This art style is popular amongst lolicore music artists.
Exaggerated references to early internet culture, particularly the more controversial corners like 4chan, are very common among the aesthetic. However, this is despite the fact that many participants in this community are too young to have experienced early days of these websites firsthand (often ironically referred to as "LARP" or "live-action roleplay", as it is seen from a point of view of anemoia).
This trend of 4chan-inspired content, filled with specific meme references and anime characters that were common in those image boards back in the 2000s, seems to have been popularized by an artist called Lottie (also known as "canihavepromo"). Her content gained notoriety on TikTok for its inspiration from 2000s anime as well as old Flash animations from 4chan, which were pretty accurate for that era considering the fact that she was only 16 years old and never actually used the forementioned website, although she was subsequently deplatformed for her problematic behavior and other controversies involving her.
Criticism[]
The criticism of this aesthetic is similar to that of Waif, however the Femcel Weeaboo aesthetic focuses more on fiction than real life and is less likely to discuss the topics surrounding anorexia and eating disorders that are way more prominent in the Waif community.
Romanticization of Taboo Topics[]
An important shared interest of this community is early internet meme culture originating from websites like 4chan and other taboo topics like manipulation, gore and pedophilia. For instance, there were many controversies in TikTok over a trend of femcel weeaboos creating catfish accounts and calling themselves "IRL lolis" ("loli" is a word in Otaku culture which serves as a kinky word for young female anime characters, generally considered inappropiate due to its association with pedophilic content). This is also reflected in its association with Lolicore, which although not inherently sexual, is a subgenre of Breakcore and J-Core music very popular among the Femcel Weeaboo community. Another common topic of the aesthetic is gore, often portrayed in a similar way to Cutegore. These topics are often used as a form of venting or frustration with trauma, and mirror the psycho-erotic horror seen in Denpa media and other cerebral forms of horror.
The connection between Femcel Weeaboos and the controversial Incel subculture as a whole is loosely defined due to the recent surge of this aesthetic, though incels themselves often believe that women are incapable of experiencing the same situations as them, "inceldom" or "involuntary celibacy", which they describe as the state of being unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, thus fully excluding women from their community and negating the existence of femcels.
Media[]
The anime and manga watched by this community tends to fall into either a darker tone that is notorious for 90s denpa or psychological horror and the philosophical issues presented in them, or anime that heavily uses moe tropes. Most anime that people of this subculture make memes and jokes featuring characters from is Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain, however most anime made in the early 2000's to late 1990's can be featured. The more kawaii-oriented side of the aesthetic features series from shojo and idol anime, video games and visual novels targeted at girls. These are often from music-related games like Project Sekai or Love Live!, but other series are also popular.
Anime/Manga[]
- Akira
- Azumanga Daioh
- Berserk
- Black Lagoon
- Chainsaw Man
- Cowboy Bebop
- Death Note
- Devilman Crybaby
- FLCL
- Girls Last Tour
- Goodnight Punpun
- Himouto! Umaru-chan
- Lucky Star
- Monster
- Nana
- Neon Genesis Evangelion
- Onegai My Melody
- Perfect Blue
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica
- Serial Experiments Lain
- WataMote
- Yotsuba&!
Fictional Characters[]
Femcel Weaboos tend to identify with the following fictional characters:
- Lain Iwakura from Serial Experiments Lain
- Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion
- Asuka Soryu Langley from Neon Genesis Evangelion
- Konata Izumi from Lucky Star
- Kuroki Tomoko from WataMote
- Ayumu Kasuga/Osaka from Azumanga Daioh
- Asa Mitaka from Chainsaw Man
- Homura Akemi from Puella Magi Madoka Magica
- Madoka Kaname from Puella Magi Madoka Magica
- Yuuri from Girls Last Tour
- Chito from Girls Last Tour
- Saya from Saya No Uta: The Song of Saya
- Cirno from Touhou 6: The Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil
- Yakui from Nijiura Maids
- Moot-tan from 4chan
- W. T. Snacks-tan from 4chan
- Kiyohime from Fate/Grand Order
- Osakabehime from Fate/Grand Order
- Madotsuki from Yume Nikki
- Aoi Mukou from Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi
- Miyuki Sone from Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi
- Ame-chan/KAngel from Needy Streamer Overload
- Shiori Novella from hololive
- Mikan Tsumiki from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
Video Games/Visual Novels[]
- Ensemble Stars
- Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi
- Needy Streamer Overload
- Project SEKAI: Colorful Stage!
- Saya no Uta: The Song of Saya
- THE iDOLM@STER
Musical Artists[]
- bôa
- Goreshit
- Hatsune Miku
- Kikuo
- Lana del Rey
- Mitski
- my head hurts
- psiangel
- Rebzyyx
- rehirable
- Rory in Early 20s
- Sewerslvt
- Shoebill
- wawawa
- Yabujin
- Malice Mizer
Gallery[]
