Lolicon

Lolicon (spelled ロリコン in katakana) or “Lolita complex” is a Japanese-originating slang from the 1970s deriving from English literature in the 1950s/1960s. It can refer to either a person with a fascination for adolescent girls, or a genre of manga (usually pornographic) intended to appeal to such persons.

1970s

• ★ ハイ . コン ( ヘイジ　コンプレックス ) 5~10
  ★ アリ . コン ( アリス　コンプレックス ) 7~12
  ★ ロリ . コン ( ロリータ　コンプレックス ) 10~15​
  (English translation below)
  Hei-Con (Heidi Complex) 5-10
  Ari-Con (Arisu Complex) 7-12
  Rori-Con (Rorita Complex) 10-15
  • 27 July 1979 in volume 2 of シーベル編集部 (Cybele Henshuubu) magazine, top-right corner of last (54th) page 54
    • preceding categories are based on Heidi of the Alps and Alice in Wonderland

• Cool off, lolicon count! Watch out before you get burned!
  • 15 December 1979 about 1h19m31s into Japanese film ルパン三世 カリオストロの城 (Lupin III: Cagliostro no Shiro = Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro) where Lupin (after removing his bearded disguise) insults the older Count for wanting to marry the film's adolescent damsel Clarisse d'Cagliostro

1980s

It's difficult. [My female protagonists] immediately become playthings for Lolita Complex males. In a sense, if we want to depict someone who is affirmative to us, we have no choice but to make them as lovely as possible. But now, there are too many people who shamelessly depict [such protagonists] as if they just want [such girls] as pets, and things are escalating more and more. —Hayao Miyazaki in 1988

• The Lolita Complex, commonly called Lolicon. Tis an ailment of the soul in middle-aged men, wherein they fall for bishojo... Let us pray.
  • 10 February 1982, the monk 錯乱坊 (Sakuranbou) aka チェリー (Cherry) narrating 6m50s into anime-original story あゝ個人教授！ (Ā Kojin Kyōju = "Oh Lone Teacher!") episode 16a/32 of Urusei Yatsura after Sanjuro Kuribayashi falls for seventeen-year-old Lum Invader

• It's difficult. [My female protagonists] immediately become playthings for Lolita Complex males. In a sense, if we want to depict someone who is affirmative to us, we have no choice but to make them as lovely as possible. But now, there are too many people who shamelessly depict [such protagonists] as if they just want [such girls] as pets, and things are escalating more and more.
  • Hayao Miyazaki, 1988 interview with Animage, Animage, vol. 125, November 1988. Retrieved June 8, 2007.
    • young female protagonists in films Miyazaki had released by that time included Clarisse, sixteen-year-old Nausicaa, thirteen-year-old Sheeta and ten-year-old Satsuki Kusakabe

1990s

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• Hey, Tamamo! Tell me the truth! What exactly is your business today? You're in the surgery department! It can't be! You're... It could not be!No! It can't be! (screams) You want to see the chests of grade-school girls as a lolicon? And you can do whatever you want with your doctor status! No way, no way! Ah, stop being my rival already!
  • autumn 1996 by Meisuke Nueno, 4m33s into episode 39 of Jigoku Sensei Nūbē (originally a manga from 1994) speaking to Kyōsuke Tamamo after he gives physical exams to Kyōko Inaba and the other girls in Class 5-3 in Dōmori Elementary

2000s

• It's because the technology for immortality was accidentally made during your experiments to create a lolicon's world. You froze the appearance of every woman in the world at age twelve.
  • 12 March 2005, Sabato Mihashigo in episode 1 of Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan

• Takechi: "I can't kill her. Killing a little girl... is not the samurai way. Capture her alive."
  Matako "Senpai!! You're such a lolicon!! She broke in here, we can't be so soft!"
  "I'm not a lolicon, I'm a feminist. I must be considerate towards female enemies. Such is the path of the feminist."
  • 3 February 2006 in volume 11 of manga Gin Tama, page 5 of chapter 91 満月は人を狂わせる ("Mangetsu wa Hito wo Kuruwaseru = "The Full Moon Drives People Crazy") exchange between Takechi Henpeita and "Red Bullet" Kijima Matako regarding mercy shown towards fourteen-year-old Kagura of Yorozuya

• Konata: "I was just wondering... If a guy in our class confesses his love for me or Yu-chan... Does it make that guy a lolicon?"
  Soujiro: "Well, they're in the same class year... so technically it wouldn't. But in this case, there would be an emphasis on your appearances... Hypothetically... If you were a thirty-year-old who looked like a grade schooler... Then you could say that guy is into older women... This is quite a complicated issue. It's hard to come up with a strict interpretation."
  ..
  Konata: "If you fell in love with mom, and you dote on a daughter like me... That makes you a lolicon, right?"
  Soujiro: "Hold it right there. I think you're a bit mistaken. I like normal girls too, not just little ones. So you should say I'm also a lolicon. Though I suppose it depends on the character we're talking about."
  Konata "Either way, you fail as a human being."
  • 2 September 2007 exchanges between seventeen-year-old Konata Izumi and her father Soujiro Izumi in ここにある彼方 ("Koko ni Aru Kanata" = "The Yonder Here") episode 22 of Lucky Star

• Aogami "To be able to enjoy scolding from a child like that...Kamiya-yan you'll gain plenty of experience points!"
  Kamiya "So not only are you a lolicon, you're also an M? God, you're hopeless."
  Aogami "It's not like -I like lolis- but rather -I also like lolis-"
  • 4 October 2008 regarding Tsukuyomi Komoe in episode 1 of the anime adaptation of "A Certain Magical Index" (reference is absent in chapter 3 of the manga which this scene was adapted from)

• In this case you obviously have read lolicon, and I haven't. I don't know whether you're writing from personal experience here, and whether you have personally been incited to rape children or give inappropriate hugs by reading it. (I assume you haven't. I assume that Chris Handley, with his huge manga collection, wasn't either. I've read books that claimed that exposure to porn causes rape, but have seen no statistical evidence that porn causes rape -- and indeed have seen claims that the declining number of US rapes may be due to the wider availability of porn. Honestly, I think it's a red herring in First Amendment matters, and I'll leave it for other people to argue about.) Still, you seem to want lolicon banned, and people prosecuted for owning it, and I don't. You ask, What makes it worth defending? and the only answer I can give is this: Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to own material that you believe is worth defending means you're going to have to stand up for stuff you don't believe is worth defending, even stuff you find actively distasteful, because laws are big blunt instruments that do not differentiate between what you like and what you don't, because prosecutors are humans and bear grudges and fight for re-election, because one person's obscenity is another person's art.
  • Neil Gaiman, Why defend freedom of icky speech?, Neil Gaiman's Journal (1 December 2008)

2010s

Score one victory for children and one defeat for sexual predation – right? But was the man really Lolicon? Tests are indicative, not infallible. What if he wasn’t? Whose victory is it then? —Kuchikomi in 2015

• Kuki-chan, the truth is... I am a lolicon! I am a lolicon. A true lolicon. My strike zone for women lies between seven and twelve years old. In other words... Anyone works for me. Even you... Lolicon is not a disease! It is a way of life! Even I realize that I'm a pervert! But all the same, Chifuyu-chan was willing to accept me. Just being able to play with Chifuyu-chan satisfies me!
  • 27 October 2014, fifteen-year-old Jurai Andō speaking to nine-year-old Madoka Kuki about nine-year-old Chifuyu Himeki during "Capricious Lady", episode 4 of When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace

• Megumin: “Are… are you okay, Kazuma? Did you deplete your mana? I should say that was a close one. If things escalates…”
  Kazuma “I would be labeled a lolicon. Too close… ah, Megumin, sorry to trouble you, but can you help me wipe my body? I am completely out of mana and can’t move. I will catch a cold if I lie down here.” I lay face down on the floor, asking for her help without seeing Megumin’s face, but…
  Megumin “… Hey, why will you be labeled a lolicon if you bath with me, explain clearly. You have guts to say such things when you can’t move.”
  • 28 February 2014 (English translation 22 August 2017) in volume 3 (2nd chapter: part 5) of KonoSuba light novel series

• Lolicon? Asuna-san, as a member of the medical practice, that's a term you must never use .. pedophilia should be distinguished from the vague concept commonly referred to as "lolicon".
  • 20 February 2015, in episode 2 (ロリコンはどこから病気なの？ = "Rorikon wa Doko kara Byōki na no?" = "In What Point is Lolicon a Disease?") of anime series マンガで分かる心療内科 ("Anime de Wakaru Shinryounaika" dubbed "Comical Psychosomatic Medicine") psychologist Dr. Ryou speaking to Nurse Asuna

• LOの担当さんから打ち合わせの時、
  「このキャラ９歳にしてはちょっと幼く見えますね」と言われる。
  じゃあ設定を変えて８歳ということにしますかと答えたら、
  「LOの読者層が求めているのは９歳で、８歳は幼すぎる。絵の方を変えて！」と言われる。
  LOのこだわりはこの次元なのだ。
  When I was making arrangements with my boss:
  "These characters look a little young for 9."
  When I suggested making them 8 instead:
  "LO's readers want 9-year-olds, 8 is too young. Change the picture instead!"
  This is the level of fine-tuning at LO.
  • 27 November 2015 tweet by Amagappa Shōjogun, manga artist for Comic LO (an acronym standing for Lolita Only) translated into English 3 December 2015 in AnimeNewsNetwork article by Eric Stimson entitled "Manga Editor Provides Glimpse of Lolicon Magazine's Standards"

• “We’ve been using MMPI for the past five years,” Shukan Bunshun hears from an unnamed school board executive in an unnamed prefecture. “It’s possible, certainly, that Lolicons or people with other questionable sexual tendencies will find ways to hide that. On the other hand, we have noticed that, compared with prefectures that don’t use MMPI, our episodes of obscene behavior have decreased – to zero, in fact, over the past couple of years.”
  From another school board official in another prefecture Shukan Bunshun hears this story: A young applicant came across to examiners as very impressive. His written test results were tops. In interviews he conveyed fluently and convincingly his ideas concerning education. And yet there was something ever so slightly odd about him. He seemed, at times, to be looking about him furtively and uneasily. Perhaps it meant nothing.
  On the other hand, you can’t be too careful where children are concerned. The board sent the applicant’s MMPI to a qualified counselor for expert scrutiny. Sure enough, the expert detected Lolicon tendencies. The man was not hired.
  Score one victory for children and one defeat for sexual predation – right? But was the man really Lolicon? Tests are indicative, not infallible. What if he wasn’t? Whose victory is it then?

• Kuchikomi, "'Lolicon' teachers a growing concern", Japan Today, (July 22, 2015).

• Kazuma Satou "I almost got branded a lolicon."
  Megumin (cracking her knuckles) "Why don't you explain exactly why getting into the bath with me makes you a lolicon?"
  • 19 January 2017 exchange in "A Friend For This Crimson Demon Girl!" s2e2 of KonoSuba (Megumin is a flat-chested girl who was thirteen at the time, Satou was sixteen)

• Megumin "I will be fourteen next month."
  Kazuma Satou: "Wait, fourteen? Seriously? You're not gonna be a loli character anymore?"
  Megumin: "A loli character!?"
  Kazuma Satou: "Oof...I was this close to becoming a certified lolicon for real..."
  Megumin: "Why don't you tell me how bathing with me certifies you as a lolicon?"
  • 9 March 2017 (English translation 14 November 2017) in volume 5 of Konosuba's manga adaptation (chapter 25) with similar dialogue as well as a unique new exchange added preceding it

• I'm actually quite shocked, too. This country is full of lolicons. I can understand finding little girls cute, but... you people take it too far.
  • 23 January 2019 by Naofumi Itami ~2m55s into 災厄の波 ("Saiyaku no Nami" = "Wave of Catastrophe") episode 3 of The Rising of Shield Hero lamenting the new attention that his bodyguard Raphtalia is getting from villagers (flashbacks are shown of them giving her unsolicited gifts) after having matured from her initial pre-pubescent form into a mid-pubescent form

2020s

• CD Projekt Red first got the character design for Rebecca and they were like 'She's a loli. Lolis don't exist in Night City. It doesn't fit the Cyberpunk 2077 aesthetic'. But Trigger was like 'No, the loli must stay.'
  • September 2022 statement on Twitch by female producer for CD Projekt Red, quoting a conflict between CDPR and Studio Trigger, the creators of Edgerunners
    • 16 September 2022 article by Rhiannon Bevan of The Gamer reported on this

See also

Child pornography