Lolicon

In Japanese popular culture, lolicon (ロリコン, also romanized as rorikon or lolicom) is a genre of fictional media which focuses on young (or young-looking) girl characters, particularly in a sexually suggestive or erotic manner. The term, a portmanteau of the English words "Lolita" and "complex", also refers to desire and affection for such characters (ロリ, "loli"), and fans of such. Associated mainly with stylized imagery in manga, anime, and video games, lolicon in otaku culture is generally understood as distinct from desires for realistic depictions of girls, or real girls as such,^[1]^[2]^[3] and is associated with moe, or feelings of affection for fictional characters.

The phrase "Lolita complex", derived from the novel Lolita, entered use in Japan in the 1970s to describe feelings of love and lust for young girls over adult women. During the "lolicon boom" in adult manga of the early 1980s, the term was adopted in the nascent otaku culture to denote attraction to early bishōjo (cute girl) characters, and later to only younger-looking depictions as bishōjo designs became more varied. The artwork of the boom, strongly influenced by the round styles of shōjo manga, marked a shift away from realism, and the advent of "cute eroticism" (kawaii ero), an aesthetic now common in manga and anime more broadly. The lolicon boom faded by the mid-1980s, and the genre has since made up a minority of erotic manga.

Since the 1990s, lolicon has been a keyword in manga debates in Japan and globally. Child pornography laws in some countries apply to depictions of fictional child characters, while those in other countries, including Japan, do not.^[4] Opponents and supporters have debated if the genre contributes to child sexual abuse. Cultural critics generally identify lolicon with a broader separation between fiction and reality within otaku sexuality.

^ Galbraith 2016, pp. 113–114: "Given its importance, it is not surprising that lolicon has been well researched in Japan over the course of decades, which has led to numerous insights. [...] Characters are not compensating for something more 'real,' but rather are in their fiction the object of affection. This has been described as 'finding sexual objects in fiction in itself', which in discussions of lolicon is made explicitly distinct from desire for and abuse of children."
^ McLelland 2011b, p. 16: "Japanese scholarship has, on the whole, argued that, in the case of Japanese fans, neither the Loli nor the BL fandom represent the interests of paedophiles since moe characters are not objectified in the same manner that actual images of children can be, rather they express aspects of their creators' or consumers' own identities."
^ Kittredge 2014, p. 524: "The majority of the cultural critics responding to the Japanese otaku's erotic response to lolicon images emphasize, like Keller, that no children are harmed in the production of these images and that looking with desire at a stylized drawing of a young girl is not the same as lusting after an actual child."
^ Cite error: The named reference McLelland 2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[FOOTNOTEGalbraith2016113–114-1] Galbraith 2016, pp. 113–114: "Given its importance, it is not surprising that lolicon has been well researched in Japan over the course of decades, which has led to numerous insights. [...] Characters are not compensating for something more 'real,' but rather are in their fiction the object of affection. This has been described as 'finding sexual objects in fiction in itself', which in discussions of lolicon is made explicitly distinct from desire for and abuse of children."

[2] McLelland 2011b, p. 16: "Japanese scholarship has, on the whole, argued that, in the case of Japanese fans, neither the Loli nor the BL fandom represent the interests of paedophiles since moe characters are not objectified in the same manner that actual images of children can be, rather they express aspects of their creators' or consumers' own identities."

[FOOTNOTEKittredge2014524-3] Kittredge 2014, p. 524: "The majority of the cultural critics responding to the Japanese otaku's erotic response to lolicon images emphasize, like Keller, that no children are harmed in the production of these images and that looking with desire at a stylized drawing of a young girl is not the same as lusting after an actual child."

[McLelland_2016-4] Cite error: The named reference McLelland 2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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