Lolicon
In Japanese popular culture, lolicon is a genre of fictional media which focuses on young or young-looking girl characters, particularly in a sexually suggestive, fetishistic or erotic context. The term, a portmanteau of the English-language phrase "Lolita complex", also refers to desire and affection for such characters, and their fans. 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 young girls, or real young girls as such, and is associated with moe, or affection for fictional characters, often bishōjo characters in manga or anime.
The phrase "Lolita complex", derived from the novel Lolita, entered use in Japan in the 1970s. During the "lolicon boom" in erotic manga of the early 1980s, the term was adopted in the nascent otaku culture to denote attraction to early bishōjo characters, and later only to younger-looking depictions as bishōjo designs became more varied. The artwork of the lolicon boom, which was strongly influenced by the styles of shōjo manga, marked a shift from realism, and the advent of "cute eroticism", an aesthetic which is now common in manga and anime 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. Opponents and supporters have debated if the genre contributes to child sexual abuse. Culture and media scholars generally identify lolicon with a broader separation between fiction and reality within otaku sexuality.
Definition
Lolicon is a Japanese abbreviation of "Lolita complex", an English-language phrase derived from Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita and introduced to Japan in Russell Trainer's The Lolita Complex, a work of pop psychology in which it is used to denote attraction to pubescent and pre-pubescent girls. In Japanese, the phrase was adopted to describe feelings of love and lust for young girls over adult women, which remains the term's common meaning. Due to its association with otaku culture, the term is more often used to describe desires for young or young-looking girl characters in manga or anime, which are generally understood to exist within fiction. However, the meaning of the term remains contested, and it carries a connotation of pedophilia for much of the public. Lolicon also refers to works, particularly sexually suggestive or erotic, which feature such characters, and their fans. Lolicon is distinct from words for pedophilia and for child pornography.The meaning of lolicon within the otaku context developed in the early 1980s, during the "lolicon boom" in erotic manga. According to Akira Akagi, the meaning of lolicon moved away from the sexual pairing of an older man and a young girl, and instead came to describe desire for "cuteness" and "girl-ness" in manga and anime. Others defined lolicon as a desire for "cute things", "manga-like" or "anime-like" characters, "roundness", and the "two-dimensional" as opposed to the "real". At the time, all eroticism in the manga style featuring bishōjo characters was associated with the term, and synonyms of "Lolita complex" included "two-dimensional complex", "two-dimensional fetishism", "two-dimensional syndrome", "cute girl syndrome", and simply "sickness". As character body types within erotic manga became more varied by the end of the lolicon boom in 1984, the scope of the term narrowed to younger-looking depictions.
Lolicon became a buzz word after the 1989 arrest of Tsutomu Miyazaki, a serial killer of young girls who was portrayed by the Japanese media as an otaku. As lolicon was conflated with pedophilia in the public debates on "harmful manga", its meaning was replaced among otaku by moe, which refers to feelings of affection for characters more generally. Like moe, lolicon is still used by many otaku to refer to attraction which is consciously distinct from reality; some otaku identify as "two-dimensional lolicon" to specify their attraction to characters. The term has become a keyword in criticism of manga and sexuality within Japan, as well as globally with the spread of Japanese popular culture.
History
Background
In the 1970s, shōjo manga underwent a renaissance in which artists, such as those of the Year 24 Group, experimented with new narratives and styles, and introduced themes such as psychology, gender, and sexuality. These developments attracted adult male fans of shōjo manga, who crossed gendered boundaries to produce and consume it. The first appearance of the term "Lolita complex" in manga was in Stumbling Upon a Cabbage Patch, an Alice in Wonderland–inspired work by Shinji Wada published in a 1974 issue of the shōjo manga magazine Bessatsu Margaret, where a male character calls Lewis Carroll a man with a "strange character of liking only small children" in an inside joke to adult readers. Early lolicon artwork was influenced by male artists mimicking shōjo manga, as well as erotic manga created by female artists for male readers.The image of the shōjo rose to prominence in Japanese mass media in the 1970s as a symbol of cuteness, innocence, and an "idealized Eros", attributes which became attached to imagery of younger girls over time. Nude photographs of shōjo, conceived as fine art, gained popularity: a photo collection titled Nymphet: The Myth of the 12-Year-Old was published in 1969, and in 1972 and 1973 there was an "Alice boom" in nude photos themed around Alice in Wonderland. Specialty adult magazines carrying nude photos, fiction, and essays on the appeal of young girls emerged in the 1980s; this trend faded in the late 1980s, due to backlash and because many men preferred images of shōjo in manga and anime. The spread of such imagery, both in photographs and in manga, may have been helped by prohibitions on displaying pubic hair under Japan's obscenity laws.
1970s–1980s
The rise of lolicon as a genre began at Comiket, a convention for the sale of dōjinshi founded in 1975 by adult male fans of shōjo manga. In 1979, a group of male artists published the first issue of the fanzine '; its standout creator was Hideo Azuma, who is known as the "Father of Lolicon". Prior to Cybele, the dominant style in seinen and pornographic manga was gekiga, characterized by realism, sharp angles, dark hatching, and gritty linework. Azuma's manga, in contrast, displayed light shading and clean, circular lines, which he viewed as "thoroughly erotic" and sharing with shōjo manga a "lack of reality". Azuma's combination of the stout bodies of Osamu Tezuka's works and the emotive faces of shōjo manga marked the advent of the bishōjo and the aesthetic of "cute eroticism". While erotic, lolicon manga was initially mainly viewed as humorous and parodic, but a large fan base soon grew in response to the alternative to pornographic gekiga that it represented. Erotic manga began to move away from combining realistic bodies and cartoony faces towards a wholly-unrealistic style. Lolicon manga played a role in attracting male fans to Comiket, whose participants were 90 percent female in 1975; by 1981, the proportion of male and female participants was equal. Lolicon manga, mostly created by and for men, served as a response to yaoi manga, mostly created by and for women.The early 1980s saw a "lolicon boom" in professional and amateur art. The popularity of lolicon within the otaku community attracted the attention of publishers, who founded specialty publications dedicated to the genre such as Lemon People and Manga Burikko, both in 1982. Other magazines of the boom included, Melon Comic, and '. The genre's rise was closely linked to the concurrent development of otaku culture and growing fan consciousness; the word otaku itself was coined in Burikko in 1983. Originally founded as an unprofitable gekiga magazine, the publication was transformed into a lolicon magazine in 1983 by editor Eiji Ōtsuka, whose intention was to publish "shōjo manga for boys". Reflecting the influence of shōjo manga, there was an increasingly small place in lolicon artwork for realistic characters and explicit depictions of sex; in 1983, Burikko editors yielded to reader demands by removing photographs of gravure idol models from its opening pages, publishing an issue with the subtitle "Totally Bishōjo Comic Magazine". Lolicon magazines regularly published female artists, such as Kyoko Okazaki and Erika Sakurazawa, and male artists such as, dubbed the "King of Lolicon", who produced 160 pages of manga per month to meet demand. Uchiyama's works were published both in niche magazines such as Lemon People and in the mainstream Shōnen Champion. The first-ever pornographic anime series was Lolita Anime, an OVA released episodically in 1984 and 1985.
File:大塚英志.jpg|thumb|Eiji Ōtsuka, editor of the lolicon magazine Manga Burikko, played a key role in the lolicon boom.
Iconic characters of the lolicon boom include Clarisse from the film Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro and Lana from the TV series Future Boy Conan, both directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Clarisse was especially popular, and inspired a series of articles discussing her appeal in the anime specialty magazines,, and Animage, as well as a trend of fan works dubbed "Clarisse magazines" which were not explicitly sexual, but instead "fairytale-esque" and "girly" in nature. Many early lolicon works combined mecha and bishōjo elements; the premiere of the Daicon III Opening Animation at the 1981 Japan SF Convention is one notable example of the prominence of science fiction and lolicon in the nascent otaku culture of the time. Anime shows targeted at young girls with young girl heroines, such as Magical Princess Minky Momo, gained new viewership from adult male fans, who started fan clubs and were courted by creators.
The lolicon boom in commercial erotic manga only lasted until 1984. Near the end of the boom, because "readers had no attachment to lolicon per se" and "did not take as objects of sexual desire", a majority of readers and creators of erotic manga moved towards the diversifying bishōjo works featuring "baby-faced and big-breasted" characters, which were no longer considered lolicon. At Comiket, lolicon manga declined in popularity by 1989 following developments in erotic dōjinshi, including new genres of fetishism and the growing popularity of softcore erotica popular with men and women, particularly in yuri manga.