As part of the February Round Robin, I’ll take a serious look at the many nuances of the lolita complex. This post will remain mostly serious in nature and is fairly lengthy. Grab a Cherry Coke and make yourself comfortable. tl;dr territory ahoy!

The lolita complex is a phenomenon that has swept over the otaku masses in the past decade, give or take a few years. In the past few years there has been an outbreak of shows focusing on casts of young girls, all varying widely in how much they sexualize the girls. Some shows are more or less fairly “innocent” like Ichigo Mashimaro and Manabi Straight while others are much more sexual in nature such as Kodomo no Jikan and Moetan. Of course when you boil it all down, all these shows share a commonality — the focus is on the young girls.

Why are lolis so popular? A lolita is symbolic of innocence and purity, and there are certain types of people that want to… “Pick the fruit before it’s ripe,” as Malzias so delicately puts it. I’m inclined to agree with his logic. The increasing popularity of the moe archetype also plays a part in the popularity of lolis. When I think moe, I think loli. To me, moe embodies a character that is supposed to be innocent, pure, and maybe a little naive, basically a character with a childlike personality. Something I’ve been thinking about is that when we assign the moe tag to a girl with breasts, the term suddenly becomes curvy moe (ex. Mikuru Asahina, Kotomi Ichinose). We don’t intrinsically think of a girl with breasts as moe unless she has childlike properties like Clannad’s Kotomi.

Though only somewhat related to this argument, I also wanted to discuss DFC, better known as the Delicious Flat Chest. Why is it we have an acronym to describe a flat chest? Any otaku worth their salt knows what DFC means, thus the word has ingrained itself into our subculture, and is further indicative that the DFC has become a coveted characteristic. All lolis are DFC, but not all DFC girls are lolis.

In the not-so-distant past, shows with young girls as protagonists used to be aimed at a predominantly female audience. Of course there were also males that watched these shows, but it wasn’t cool to admit it. The stigma of a show centering on young female leads has faded over time, and somewhere along the line liking young girls has become less taboo. Anime producers discovered this and began pandering to the new lolicon demographic.

Ten years ago the thought of a magical girl show for guys would have sounded preposterous. The most prominent magical girl show back then, Cardcaptor Sakura, was clearly intended for a female audience no matter how you look at it. Sure there were guys that liked it here and there, but it was uncool for males to talk about the genre openly. Fast forward to 2004 when Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha hit the scene as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It looked and sounded like your typical magical girl anime focusing on a couple 9 year old girls, but something was very different about it… Mainly the fact that it mainly targeted the teen-adult male demographic. You can make the argument that the MGLN’s shounen action is what oriented it to a male audience, and that much is true, but the characterization and presentation tell a different story.

There was something about how Nanoha and Fate were portrayed that was very sexual. The transformation sequences in the first season were fairly milquetoast but became very sensual in the second season, MGLN A’s. Fate’s original costume, with the skintight bodysuit, thigh-high stockings and super short skirt that left little to the imagination, was extremely provocative, especially for a character that was supposed to be 9 years old. You can’t deny that Fate was designed to turn normal guys into lolicons and make them gush gallons of blood from their noses.

The first two seasons of Nanoha had a fair amount of sexuality, but aside from the points above was quite tame overall. We’re just opening the floodgates because there’s an abundance of shows that sexualize lolis to a much greater degree. Kodomo no Jikan and Moetan are two very guilty culprits, so let’s go with those. These two have been around for awhile and are notorious for the amount of loli ero in them. Those two can pretty much be summed up as a whole lotta loli ero and not much else.

Lower on the loli ero spectrum are Koihime Musou and Strike Witches. Koihime Musou doesn’t focus exclusively on lolis but is still quite raunchy and indiscriminate in the ridiculous amounts of fanservice which includes lolis in addition to all manner of boisterously buxom females. Strike Witches fans affectionately refer to their show as Pantsu Witches while the denouncers call it Pantsu Witches with a different tone in their voice. Strike Witches is certainly no stranger to fanservice and makes a point to flash tons of panties (with an occasional bath scene) at the audience.

A decade ago I know we would never have seen loli fanservice shows hit the airwaves. Who would have ever guessed shows focusing on pre-pubescent girls would ever be so popular? The loli phenomenon has swept over the anime industry like an unstoppable tsunami and has prominently established its own niche. Have we gradually grown accustomed to the emergence of loli fanservice shows? The mentality of anime has changed. Lolis are almost an obligatory requirement for anime now, especially school dramas and slice-of-lifes. They’ve really become a fixture in current anime. When I watch any current anime, it’s surprising when a show doesn’t have the obligatory loli show up in the supporting cast.

Have we grown accustomed to the presence of lolis and loli fanservice? Is the emergence of shows pandering to lolicons a fad or has it firmly cemented itself into the fabric of the anime industry? We can speculate all we want, but the answer is we don’t know.

The lolita complex is the otaku community’s worst kept secret, the elephant in the room if you will. It’s neither taboo nor condoned in the main community, and there are those on both spectrums that make their arguments for or against it. I will say one thing though. It’s only in the otaku community that people regularly express lolicon pride.

It’s easy to just lump all lolicons together, but there are different classifications in the lolicon segment. There are those that adore lolis without sexualization and simply think of them as cute (or moe if you prefer). Then there are those that sexualize lolis to the nth degree. It’s the latter that I would more strongly implicate with pedophilia than the former. The textbook definition of pedophilia is someone that is sexually attracted to children, which the lolita complex encompasses regardless of the “lolis are only 2-D/fictional argument”. Yes, it’s an ugly word but the truth is the truth.

All said and done, I would be a hypocrite if I totally blasted lolicons. After all, Fate Testarossa and Shana are two of my favorite anime girls, though they’re exceptions to the rule (and it’s debatable that Shana is merely just DFC). Most lolis are cookie cutter moe and dropped into a show simply to boost ratings. I’m generally indifferent to lolis and don’t care about them unless they do something to really distinguish themselves from the cookie cutter pack. I’m neither for lolicons, nor am I against them. I don’t care if you like lolis or if you hate them. What you do is your own business, and you’re probably mature enough to know the implications of being a lolicon.

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