The anime fandom and the word "lolita"

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

I find this hard to believe. Hollywood, American comic books, Western TV series... I dunno if this is just a case of limited exposure but I generally find Western works to be more sexual work overall. Especially since, you know, they're much more explicit with the sex part.

I dunno about Claymore, but I think Medaka Box and Zetman ARE ecchi. Especially Zetman because of SPOILERS the whole orgy thing.

edited 30th Apr '12 6:53:20 AM by fillerdude

Actually, Zetman is even worse than Ecchi. It's filed under Mature, for reasons other than that, not to mention (as my other post said) it's Seinen and therefore targeted at adults.

edited 30th Apr '12 6:54:36 AM by burnpsy

What is even more annoying is that Lolita is a perfectly legit Spanish name, yet people are treating it like an obscenity.

Often the same people that that litter their own posts with actual obscenities and made the "Offensive trope titles aren't a reason for renaming" argument whenever someone tried to change a trope title that came across as being racist or uses pejoratives terms to describe disabled people.

the creators of mainstream works don't go out of their way to pander to their audiences' sexual side

Clearly you've never watch Austin Powers or James Bond, to name some of the milder examples.

edited 30th Apr '12 7:02:45 AM by Catbert

Medaka Box has tons of panty shots, but somehow the artist manages to make them so unsexy that it's sometimes hard to tell. It's impressive in its own way.

Not to mention the "siscon" thing which I don't really get... besides having a Stalker Shrine he doesn't do anything creepy, ever, yet his beloved younger sisters trash him around like he's trash... Then again my admiration for that writer keeps growing an growing. He's so subversive.

edited 30th Apr '12 7:03:18 AM by TheHandle

So... This thread will probably be locked if it's seen as a continuation of that locked one over in Wiki Talk right?

Before that happens, are we allowed to use the term "shota" at all, or is that exempt because it doesn't have the background that "loli" has?

edited 30th Apr '12 7:04:46 AM by UltimatelySubjective

Now that you've brought attention to the word, I'm sure it will get banned.

Honestly, if what you want to say is "kid" and not "paedo-bait", why not use "kid" instead of "shota" or "loli"?

Wouldn't be surprised if it was exempt, really. 'Loli' seems to be the word that is infinitely offensive and evil and disgusting and all that other stuff. Even though shota's basically the gender-flipped version.

Considering that "shota" has much the same connotations as "loli" does (the Cute Shotaro Boy trope got renamed, if I'm not mistaken), I'm erring on the side of not using it myself. I personally don't use either term.

edited 30th Apr '12 7:08:34 AM by TwoGunAngel

There's a Double Standard at work, obviously, but that's because Western Society is still in the process of "taking a good, hard look at itself". Just look at the polemics around parity laws and such: clearly people don't understand very well what they are fighting, because it's kind of hard to see one's own eye, so to speak.

That article provides a surprisingly narrow definition of the term... most shotas in shotacon stories are nothing like that...

edited 30th Apr '12 7:10:12 AM by TheHandle

Cute Shotaro Boy was renamed not because it was considered offensive, but because people kept using it to mean Cute Shota, which was not the actual definition of the trope.

Seems like an understandable mistake. That's a bad name combination if I've ever seen any.

Insulting an entire fandom in a blanket statement and then prematurely closing the discussion strikes me as abuse of power, as well as downright rude. If you're going to be Poisoning The Well, the very least you can do is provide an adequate substantiation of your claims, and make more than a token show that you are open to evidence that contradicts it.

edited 30th Apr '12 7:13:58 AM by TheHandle

Maybe we can just use "rori" instead?

Urgh, I remember someone suggesting Token Rori as an option to replace Token Loli.

The fetishizing of little girls in anime is problematic, but I don't think the words we use for it are the issue. No matter what you're calling it, it happens, so it seems pointless to come down hard on the word 'loli.'

That joke it's so bad it made me consider chuckling. Not bad enough, though.

Plus, it would sound like an Irish name.

And we don't want the Irish upon us, do we.

edited 30th Apr '12 7:34:14 AM by TheHandle

Oddly enough, Wikipedia give Rorikon as a legit Romanization, though I've never seen it used anywhere.

It's probably because of the localization issues, really. Japan doesn't really have an L or a C to work with in their language.

It's the literal reading.

It's technically valid, but since it's based on 'lolita complex' the correct romanization would use l and c rather than r and k.

edited 30th Apr '12 7:48:27 AM by Arha

I don't see much problem with using the word without out of habit, without any direct sexual context.

Saying that neutrally calling a kid a loli is inherently creepy just because it originates from that novel, is almost like saying that calling a female dog a bitch is sexist, because the word is also a sexist slur, or that calling a stupid person dumb is offensive to mute people.

It doesn't really matter what a word could also mean, or what alternative meanings it used to have in it's etimology, if it isn't used in that sense in a given case, it's not actuall the same word, it's just a homophone.

If the same people that complained about that also complained about us using "Bitch" as a slur against females or derogatory terms for disabled people in our trope titles, then at least they would have the benefit of consistency. As it is, they just come across as hypocritical single issue wonks.

edited 30th Apr '12 8:04:12 AM by Catbert

I don't think that anyone would even link "Lolicon" to Lolita, unless they actually looked into it.

I think it's akin to saying that calling your Burning Software "Nero" is unfunny, offensive and maybe even too soon.