The anime fandom and the word "lolita"

Morven said, about the word "loli":

I wonder what he could have meant by that. Are we "keen" in having other people see us as "creeps"?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Last I checked, we use the term because the medium itself uses the term unanimously. There is no discussion here.

edited 30th Apr '12 2:53:21 AM by burnpsy

I understand that we aren't suppose to use the word "loli" any more.

I wouldn't like to put words in peoples' mouths, so maybe we should just make what we can of the advice and use another term here.

I think the word already carries negative connotations, but to those unfamiliar with the word, it's simply another pedophilia term, therefore if we say something else we take a step further away from making ourselves look bad.

Personally I had never heard of Lolita before I learned the term "lolicon".

I'm happy to not use the word "loli", but I never saw the term as anything more than an anime/manga fandom specific term, and beyond seeing that it was based on Lolita, I've never been interested in looking into how it became a neologism.

edited 30th Apr '12 2:58:55 AM by UltimatelySubjective

In a nutshell.

Well, yes, but what does "taking a good hard look at ourselves" entail, exactly? What are we supposed to see?

How did that come to happen?

edited 30th Apr '12 4:13:57 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Loli is a loanword in Japan from the word lolita. This also lead to the creation of the term lolicon, which is a promanteau of lolita complex as it would be romanized after being written in Katakana.

Since many characters that can be referred to as lolis or lolicons appear in Japanese Media, it didn't take long for Lampshade Hanging to start, and...

edited 30th Apr '12 4:18:22 AM by burnpsy

The Japanese use the term extensively (maybe partially because cultural disassociation with the original work distances them from the term's original meaning), and Western fandom tends to use the term as well because of Follow the Leader, much like it happens with Gratuitous Japanese. I doubt the average Otaku even knows who's Nabokov.

I must say I didn't like the Unfortunate Implications in the quote of the first post. More thinly veinled "Admit it, you anime fans are perverted creeps" jabs.

Morven and Fast Eddie seem to be convinced of that. But are we, really? Or, at least, are the Japanese for whom these works are created?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

There are perverts everywhere, in every fandom. Go take a look at the staggering amount of erotic X Men fanfiction, for instance, or even Teen Titans (the key word being Teen). It's just Western official works have always been better at keeping their sexualization discreet, but really, Rule 34 exists because of a reason.

Just like not every anime or manga fan likes Hentai or Fanservice. But it's just hard for some people to accept that.

Morven and Fast Eddie are evidently looking from the outside of the anime fandom without bothering to even do their research properly, if at all, on the issue, and therefore their positions hold no sway whatsoever outside of this site, where Fast Eddie's word is law.

As for the fandom itself, I'd say we're about as diverse as fans of any other medium.

edited 30th Apr '12 5:11:18 AM by burnpsy

The Japanese do seem to have an obsession with innocence and youth to an extent greater than in other countries. Why? Perhaps it has to do with the absence of children in Japan.

Unfortunately for anime fans that often shows up in some Japanese anime, and while I think that most of it is not actually sexually driven, it can certainly come across that way to casual viewers. This is then used to tar all anime fans as creeps.

A disproportionate amount of animé seem to take place in schools too.

Must be boring to be an adult in Japan.

But anyway, I'm pretty sure that a normal person would never use the term "loli" to refer to a real child, even in Japan, and calling someone a "Lolicon" would usually be an insult.

Of course it is. Until recently, standard practice was to work at the same company with a stable position for your entire life. In addition, the crime rate is near-non-existent and their population is 99% Japanese. They don't even use computers for leisure things - they opt for phones aside from nerds.

All in all, natural disasters aside, things tended to be very stable.

edited 30th Apr '12 5:34:26 AM by burnpsy

What conclusions would someone outside the Speculative Fiction and Comic Book fandoms reach about the likes of the characters in Paul?

Is there a tendency in here somewhere? For "fandoms" to go into "perversion"? Even "mainstream", "totally-Western" "fandoms" such as Twilight, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Doctor Who, or Star Trek tend to be unable to resist giving their subjects some sexual flavor that is seen as excessive by outsiders.

The main difference being, I think, that, in the West, the creators of mainstream works don't go out of their way to pander to their audiences' sexual side, and let the work stand on its own merits. Yet the market is as competitive here as it is there, so why is it that, in Japan, a manga artist would feel pressured to learn to do good panty shots to keep their ratings high enough for their manga to survive?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

This statement Small Reference Pools at its finest. The majority of anime/manga don't have pany shots. Ecchi and Harem are just two genres.

edited 30th Apr '12 6:01:28 AM by burnpsy

Morven and Fast Eddie are evidently looking from the outside of the anime fandom without bothering to even do their research properly, if at all, on the issue, and therefore their positions hold no sway whatsoever outside of this site, where Fast Eddie's word is law.

All of which makes me wonder how long it will be viable to document and discuss tropes and works related to a category that the site's admin is so openly biased again.

Anyway, I'm taking bets on how long it takes for this thread to get locked.

As I mentioned in another thread, just because a given work is clean doesn't mean the fanworks for that work necessarily are. Rule 34 is in full effect.

edited 30th Apr '12 6:27:36 AM by TwoGunAngel

Right back at you. Thinking Echi and Harem being the only types of works with panty shots is downright naïve.

edited 30th Apr '12 6:44:59 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Fair, but most of the other genres don't have very many, if any at all, and I've gone through quite the load of works.

And that.

edited 30th Apr '12 6:41:40 AM by burnpsy

Name three which aren't considered ecchi, but do have pantyshots.

EDIT: And yes, I realize that this should be easy for people who actually know a decent amount of anime/manga.

edited 30th Apr '12 6:42:40 AM by Sabbo

The simple fact of the matter is that Anime and Manga has a great deal of diversity when it comes to levels of sexual content. No more or less than any other mediums. Yet somehow when Anime has sexual content it is treated by some as "creepy" and "perverse" and "pornographic" when a comparable amount of sexual content in a Western high school sex comedy like American Pie is regarded as normal and mainstream.

Animation Age Ghetto at work.

Medaka Box, Zetman, Claymore. Gurren Lagann technically only has one (besides all the constant nudity and Yoko just being there), and it only occurs in the first compilation movie, but it's done with fanfare.

edited 30th Apr '12 6:48:35 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

The part that annoys me about this whole topic is that as far as the Japanese language is concerned, the "con" in "lolicon" is the sexual part. They also have words like "siscon" "brocon" and "fazacon" which imply incest, but you'd never see anyone claiming that we should ban the word bro. Loli may have been derived from Lolita, but as a Japanese word there's nothing sexual about it at all. They also use it in fashion design, for whatever design.

Edit: "Con" being short for "complex", as in "mental illness".

edited 30th Apr '12 6:50:42 AM by Clarste

>Implying Medaka Box isn't classed as Ecchi.

Also, Zetman is classed as Seinen, which is targeted to adults. I'm fairly sure that gives it a free pass on sexual content.

In any event, the fact remains that the vast majority of panty shots take place in the two genres I mentioned, with them only appearing sporadically elsewhere.

edited 30th Apr '12 6:55:03 AM by burnpsy