According to editor and critic Akira Akagi, the term's meaning 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.

The meaning of lolicon in the otaku context developed in the early 1980s, during the ' lolicon boom' in adult manga (see § History). It is distinct from more formal words for pedophilia ( yōji-zuki or pedofiria clinically, shōniseiai or jidōseiai ) and child pornography ( jidō poruno ). Lolicon also refers to sexualized works which feature such characters, and fans of these works and characters. Due to its association with otaku ( manga and anime fan) culture, however, the term today is more often used to describe desires for young or young-looking girl characters ( ロリ, 'loli') which are generally understood to exist and be satisfied in fiction, though the meaning of the term remains contested and for the public at large still carries a connotation of pedophilia. In Japanese, the phrase was adopted to describe feelings of love and lust for young girls over adult women, which remains the phrase's common meaning. Lolicon is a Japanese abbreviation of ' Lolita complex' ( ロリータ・コンプレックス, rorīta konpurekkusu), an English-language phrase and wasei-eigo derived from Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita (1955) but in Japan more associated with Russell Trainer's The Lolita Complex (1966, translated 1969), a work of pop psychology in which the author uses the term to describe adult male attraction to pubescent and pre-pubescent females. Cultural critics generally identify lolicon with a broader separation between fiction and reality in otaku sexuality. Opponents and supporters have debated if the genre contributes to child sexual abuse. Child pornography laws in some countries include depictions of fictional child characters, while those in other countries, including Japan, do not. The lolicon boom faded by the mid-1980s, and the genre has since made up a minority of erotic manga.Ī moral panic against 'harmful manga' in the 1990s has made lolicon a keyword in manga debates in Japan. The artwork of the boom, strongly influenced by the round styles of shōjo manga (marketed to girls), marked a shift from previous realism and the advent of 'cute eroticism' ( kawaii ero), an aesthetic now common in manga and anime more broadly. 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 phrase 'Lolita complex', derived from the novel Lolita, entered use in Japan in the 1970s, when sexual imagery of the shōjo (idealized young girl) was expanding in the country's media. Associated with unrealistic and stylized imagery within manga, anime, and video games, lolicon in otaku (manga/anime fan) culture is generally understood as distinct from desires for realistic depictions of girls, or real girls as such, and is associated with the concept of moe, or feelings of affection and love for fictional characters as such (often cute characters in manga and anime). 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 characters and works. 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.

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