エモい (emoi)

What it means

1. 1.

   Moving in a wistful, nostalgic way. Covers the feeling an old photograph, a summer evening or a song from your teens produces — not sadness and not quite happiness.

Examples with translations

• この写真、なんかエモいね。

  There's something quietly moving about this photo.

• 夕方の商店街ってエモくない？

  Isn't there something about a shopping street at dusk?

Where it comes from

From English 'emo', given the Japanese adjective ending -い so it can inflect natively. Speakers often connect it to 「もののあはれ」, the classical aesthetic of gentle transience; whether that is etymology or flattery, it is how the word is felt.

First attested: 2010s

Other forms

Romanised as:

emoi