In Japanese, moe moe kyun 萌え萌えキュン is a cutesy phrase from the anime K-On! It doesn't really mean anything. In article, I'll explain why, and how the sentence is constructed in Japanese.
Anime: K-On!, Keion! けいおん！ (Episode 4)
Context
The band goes to a training camp on a beach to sharper their music skills. They discuss what they'll be doing for the school's festival. Ritsu says they'll run a maid café, and Mio will dress in maid clothes and say something like cute like moe moe kyuun.
As this was said, the imagination of Mio transforming into a maid and making a heart-shape with her hands was shown.
- kuro no sutokkingu!
黒のストッキング！
Black stockings! - junpaku no epuron!
純白のエプロン！
Pure white apron! - soshite, meido kachuusha!
そして、メイドカチューシャ！
And a maid hairband! - moe moe~~ kyun♥!
萌え萌え～キュン♥！
(what this article is about.)
Translation
The phrase moe moe kyun doesn't really mean anything in Japanese. It's just a cute phrase.
The term moe 萌え refers to a feeling toward the cuteness of 2D characters. It's specially used toward maid characters, for some reason.
It comes from moeru 萌える, for a plant "to sprout." Not to be confused with the homonym moeru 燃える, "to burn." Although this homonym is sometimes used in wordplay.
In this case, it's said twice, as moe moe. This is called reduplication, and the Japanese language is full of it. Normally, onomatopoeia and other mimetic words are reduplicated in similar fashion:
- dokidoki
ドキドキ
Thump thump. - wakuwaku
わくわく
Exciting. - pikapika
ぴかぴか
Sparkling.
Such words often have a continuous meaning attached to them, so if moe moe means something, it means a continuous moe feeling, or something that's constantly moe.
Lastly, kyun キュン is a mimetic word for a tightening chest or heart. It's used when a character falls in love with someone, or when they're endeared by the exuberant cuteness, or something like that.
As you may have noticed, Mio says kyun キュン at the exact moment she makes the heart shape with her hand. That's the moment where the heart goes kyun.
Fan Art
The phrase moe moe kyun plus making the shape of a heart with your hands is kind of a meme now. A number of anime parodied this, artists have drawn the most ridiculous illustrations of this, even real people have used it on TV.
Pose
The moe moe kyun pose, and sometimes the phrase with a maid everything, has been parodied in other anime, too. For reference, some examples.
The original moe moe kyun pose is done by placing thumbs and indexes against each other in a heart shape facing away from the gesturer. The thumbs are above the indexes, so the wrist has to rotate to a rather unusual position, like grabbing both handles of a wheelbarrow. The other fingers extend out away from heart shape.
Anime: K-On!, Keion! けいおん！ (Episode 4)
An example of an almost exact copy, with other fingers bending into the heart shape instead:
Anime: Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne! 私、能力は平均値でって言ったよね！ (Episode 4)
Inner Variant
Who in their sane mind would care about such details? So long as you're making a heart with your hands, that counts as a moe moe kyun pose, right? Some examples with the thumb toward the gesturer instead, in which case it forms the bottom part of the heart, as opposed to the top part:
Anime: Kobayashi-san Chi no Maidragon S, 小林さんちのメイドラゴンＳ (Season 2) (Episode 1)
- Context: Tooru, a dragon girl, thinks she's the best maid, finds an advertisement by a maid café claiming it has the best maids, decides to burn it with fire. Hearing this, Kobayashi-san says:
- masa-ni moe moe?
正にモエモエ？
Literally burn-burn?- A pun with moeru 燃える, "to burn [something]," e.g. by spitting fire on it.
Anime: Meikyuu Black Company, 迷宮ブラックカンパニー (Episode 7, Stitch)
- Context: Ranga gets a job that's just wearing cute clothes and talking to costumers.
- From the characters holding glowing sticks in the background, the job is probably being an idol.
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