“That’s not my point, Zephyr, and I think you know it.”

The “she’s actually 1000 years old” phrase is the new “age is just a number”.

This is a fanart I wanted to make many months ago, but, after seeing the hilarious video Cilvanis made and considering there are many TF2 videos about Scout loving loli characters with that funny voice generator, I think it would be appropiate to talk about this right now, especially from the perspective of a graphic designer.

As much as I enjoy watching or reading fiction, I don’t understand why so many anime shows, japanese games and mangas have this whole loli approach. I don’t get what a writer or a character designer gains from that. But, most importantly, I don’t understand why somebody would be turned on by this, especially then they try to justify it, they sound like a priest from a church or one of those who search videos of little girls dancing in a suggestive way.

I remember I’ve played a game many years ago which had this type of archetype: Fire Emblem Awakening. In Awakening there’s a character named Nowi, who’s an ancient dragon in the body of a little girl wearing suggestive outfit. And, since the game gives you the option to marry couples, I didn’t give that option to Nowi ever. And I don’t care about the “immortality” themes she often adresses. I’m pretty sure you can do that without having a loli wearing some questionable outfits. Lost Odyssey uses the immortality theme to talk about personal stories and, as far as I know (because I haven’t finished the first disc), they don’t have a loli.

Don’t get me wrong, Awakening is a great game, one of the best ones in Nintendo 3DS. But that doesn’t excuse the design of Nowi. It’s probably the only thing I didn’t like about the game.

Even my favourite games have this, like Blazblue. In Blazblue there’s a vampire called Rachel and, while she looks like a kid, she’s one of those 1000 years old. I always found this very weird, but the fact she’s not interested in anyone and she is fully dressed instead of wearing a suggestive outfit makes me tolerate her.

I don’t often talk about this online because I remember I adressed it one time years ago (maybe in 2014) and suddenly a troll with an anime avatar talked down to me suggesting that “I’m a snowflake”, “I support censorship” (even though we were not talking about censorship) and “I’m a SJW”. There’s always someone like him anywhere online. I took some of his replies and adapted them to Zephyr’s dialogue. It’s not only justifying the lolis, it’s also looking down to other people just because they don’t like lolis as much as they do, which is kinda creepy. They’ll use the “snowflake” argument, they’ll use the “you’re one of those SJW” argument, etc. And sometimes I bring up the responsibility thing, asking if you’re ok liking stuff like this.

And then there are some stuff I’ve read and heard about Mushoku Tensei. All I’m gonna say is that I’m glad I dodged a bullet. But it’s the type of thing you’d see in the anime community. So, not my fandom, not my feelings.

By the way, we’re talking about japanese visual design. Wouldn’t be logical to ask for them to go nuts in creativity and offer crazy and unique designs, like the From Software games, the Ghibli films, Angel’s egg, Berserk, the Monster Hunter games (which have incredible monster designs) and the Fumito Ueda games? Wouldn’t that be reasonable instead of being conformist about this?

I’m assuming this is very frequent because it’s a cultural thing and because of, among other things that reinforce it (like social approbation), designing lolis wearing questionable outfit is socially accepted and normalized. While I’d love to see something new and different, I don’t think we’re gonna see a change in anime industry. Most of the season announcements are either shonen, isekais or visual excuses for fanservice and they rarely bring something different to the table, not because they wouldn’t like to do something different, but because they know people will get interested in this anyway based on the success of franchises like Dragon Ball, Naruto, Sword Art Online and One Piece. They want to capitalize it as much as possible.

I think the least we can do, like many people, is to adress it occasionally.

Like Katie Tiedrich said one time: Here’s a cool thing if you’re making a game or something: don’t put an adult character in a child’s body. It’s really creepy! Another cool thing is don’t also put them in garters and a bikini top? I mean… why would you be ok with degenerate stuff in your anime to begin with?

These are my thoughts on lolis. Sorry that this is atypical coming from me, but hopefully we could get to a conclusion together.