The Thousand-Year Loli and Philosophical War 

I like this comment and don’t disagree with it, as an anime fan. I’m interested how you got to watch this video if you don’t watch anime, did a friend link to it?

​@@theMoporter the youtube algorithm gods sent it to me as well as the blue lock video probably cause ive been known to watch all sorts of videos about media analysis and criticism

I was considering writing a similar comment but you perfectly summarized my view of this matter. To expand on some things: I think it’s also very important to specify that the “doylesian perspective” in this instance comes from the fact that there is a huge problem with sexualization of children in a lot of “anime-adjacent” media the first place. That when we talk about the problems of a sexualized child-coded character, we aren’t talking about that character in a vacuum but as a part of a much larger and substantial problem. Also when it comes to diegetic explanations of specifically the sexualization of female characters (minor or adult), these often still don’t hold up or present a warped perception of realism. For example, in Momo Yaoyorozu’s case if she needed exposed skin, why does she need a boob window specifically? As a teenage girl wouldn’t she specifically object to her outfit having a boob window like that, knowing how it would most likely lead to her being sexualized and creeped on? Accepting this as an “utility-based” outfit ignores equally effective and much less problematic alternatives and assumes that most teenage girls would be willing to wear an outfit like this in the first place, regardless of what “utility” it might hold.

​@@Greenomb yes i think this is a really good comment highlights how people tend to view the author's 'logic' as absolute especially when it is simply choice, as though these arent crated stories in which logic is an easily definable universally agreed upon thing, like if your going to do a loli, at least let it be smart and interesting and say something meaningful artistically

Criticism without familiarity with the text always leads to pretty silly assumptions, consider the fact that many of these characters come from novels, where one would have never gotten to see them and that was/is the most likely scenario for any such novel. Its also a somewhat infrequent trope but not a new or rising trend at all. And part of the comedy is they talk "in ye olde English(or Japanese rather)" very often and its more a joke in writing about contrast of looks and attitude. And yeah, of course people also like how they look, but drawing the line between short and actually underage in a drawing is pretty iffy. Weirder still is the obsession people who dont watch anime have with this trope, since the lolibaba(meaning: grandma loli, actual name of the archetype) is not actually that common, and much more frequently underage looking characters just ARE underage and act that way, which is fine too, you can have underage characters in fiction I gather. Answering the question(?), yes, there's quite a few cases of clear artistic intent, not all but actually many of the most popular ones are like that, hence their popularity(not always of course), sex sells but many are selling, gotta stand out in some other ways too.

This! Sunburn is a thing. And if the argument is that they don’t burn, then they can just as easily not get heat stroke.

That is during travel. When in urban desert regions or in a sheltered village, its still hot even with cover from the sun

THIS was why his example was exceptionally terrible for his point imo. You look at any character from a real life desert region in media for example and they dress in the complete opposite of skimpy black denim or leather; its all light fabric like linens to allow air flow, (usually) light colored or white clothes to avoid absorbing all of the heat from the sun, and big and loose fitting to keep from sticking to skin when it sweats. Its the MGS quiet problem. WHich raises the question, when the reason for the clothes makes no sense based on even an in universe explanation is THAT then the point to accuse the author of designing the outfit and working backwards?

its fition Zoomy

but shes a demon, heirs no sun in hell, only hot, so minimal clothing would actuallt be valid and more than reasonable, plus shes broke so maybe its all she could afford and gives credince to her lazy nature, perhaps she made it herself out of a random shirt she found, cutting it up into both the top and bottom parts

It’s certainly a strong candidate for a RU-vid short.

Just finished watching the video, and maybe I should have done that first before commenting. It turns out Explanation Point is already a few steps ahead of me on that. The song is apparently available for download on his Patreon.

This song made my day. What a work of art.

@@Spectacular769 I want it on my spotify playlist lmao

Peak introduction.

that's how I feel. I think that the author is allowed to do whatever they want, but the issue to me isn't exactly that there is a child character that is half naked in the story, it's more about what that says about the person who is defending it. What value does their nakedness add to the story or their enjoyment of it? Especially in people with patterns of lolicon behaviour, I can't overlook that the 1000 year demon loli is a justification for people's children fetishes

@@sumicmusic I certainly can't see why people would get defensive when you implicitly accuse them of wanting to diddle kids. Seriously, look at who's starting the shit. If it's the guy pre-emptively defending the thing then yes, your point might very well stand. But if it's someone hurling accusations, people are gonna defend themselves. I mean hell, I'm not into lesbians but I still felt the need to argue against someone claiming liking porn with lesbians in it is homophobic. Personally, I don't really care what others do that's between them, jill and jesus because I sure as hell ain't deluding myself that grandstanding at someone online is gonna prevent them from eventually LARPing as a lolicon, I only really care if by speaking up I push against normalizing such conversations in the open. So again, unless someone starts pushing for that shit openly they can whack off to whatever their gross little hearts desire. But many people are delusional, and so many lolicons or less socially aware weebs fight them on it because seriously, most people only care to enjoy whatever gets them there in peace and shaming ain't gonna do squat, realistically. Also "patterns of lolicon behavior" lol, if by that you mean child predators then unless they're someone who you can view in a larger context like (I've recently learned) Vaush then you don't have a fucking pattern to point out because the thing about pattern is consistent repetition, and that ain't happening in a comment thread someone inhabits over a couple hours to a couple days. You are huffing your own farts if you think you can glean anything about them aside from things they say about themselves outright (far as you're inclined to believe them) from that. And if by lolicon you only mean people who enjoy loli shit, then you don't not care about what other people do alone, as you should.

​@@sumicmusicWhen I see this I always think of that villain from the Batman animated series, the actress who didnt physically age. We see this not as some kind of taboo perversion but an unfortunate medical condition that caused immense damage to her psyche. It essentially is a thousand year loli but its treated with respect and has an actual point to her character rather than an excuse to make a "legal" child character

to me you should be not allowed to do it and the fact that you do it makes me question you morally....

@@shineyydesigns7696That sounds much better than what anime is doing. There’s a character in Invincible that has a similar condition where it’s treated respectfully. She addresses that dating is impossible for her because the only people who want to date her are creeps. It’s treated tragically rather than an excuse to pair up a child and an adult

I mean there's also the fact that if he accidentally bumped a wall while wearing a cutoff shirt, he'd just kill anyone near him

​@@aidanquiett668talk about "going out with a bang"

There’s also Mirio who has an early gag where he has to strip in the regular school uniform because it doesn’t phase with him, but he later reveals his suit is made with his hair that works with his Quirk. Somehow this doesn’t apply to Toru, whose Quirk also applies to her entire body… or she’s just a nudist lmao.

Well he needs to sweat so covering up more should be his goal. & his suit is designed to get his sweat into his gloves for use and storage.

Superman and Starfire are both solar powered alien superheroes from DC comics with super strength and laser vision. One of them wears a full body suit and the other wears a bikini. No one in-universe has ever commented on this.

Yeah fr. She's never really sexualized to begin with. Plus, it's quite clear that she is manipulative (and I love that for her) and it largely serves as just another element of her toolbox.

I also don't think Bisky was sexualized in anyway? So yeah. Bisky was an odd addition.

​@@Birthday888 Technically the demon princess from the video is not sexualized in Mushoku Tensei (yet). If you want to say she is then that opens a whole different can of worms.

I agree and it lets her stand out from the other characters in design. I don't actually remember another loli beside the twin ai girls from the same arc. In all fairness though, it's easy to use the argument that he just wanted to add a loli. The only thing that really makes it stick less is his track record is better than most I would argue.

She's very similar to Veronica from dragon quest XI too. It's just a fun way to make the character cute and unassuming but also able to keep up with the rest of the adult cast.

Like, I don't think Biscuit Krueger from HxH is ever sexualized (and not inhumanly old either but she was mentioned in the video). Closest is the creepy serial killer guy but he's a creepy serial killer and even that's a surprisingly asexual encounter.

I think this is the main issue. Almost every time it comes up, it's "this 1000 year old dragon looks like a little girl....and they're wearing basically nothing" No one would complain if the 1000 year old loli just wore a dress and acted normal about it

That and they often act incredibly immature despite their supposed age, which really hurts the diegetic argument.

Yeah, I don’t see people complaining about Frieren, probably because the show makes a point about how despite being over a thousand, she still looks like a teenager, so adults don’t find her sexually attractive

​​@@kbbd6999 That part doesn't matter as much as the sexualisation aspect. There's a lot of characters that fit into the archetype without being sexualised and nobody bats an eye(I.e. Zen-Oh from Dragon Ball Super).

Most stories tend to take the viewpoint of the "more relatable" normal (usually male) lead, viewing the strange characters such as TYOLs from the outside. I always find the perspective of the individual being othered to be more interesting than the bland protagonist that we usually get, not just in spite of, but often _because_ of their more exotic attributes and experiences.

You would probably enjoy Baccano!

Fun fact that’s essentially what the character monster girl in invincible goes through. Her whole power is that she can essentially transform into the hulk, but the more she does it the more she ages backwards. So she starts to look more and more like a child, and that’s a real conflict she deals with. At one point she does straight up say “I am an adult woman who wants to be in a Relationship, but I can’t because anybody who wants to be in a relationship with me would be a pedophile.” It’s pretty well done imo

It isn't an anime, but 'Fledgling' by Octavia Butler does just this. Our main POV character is a vampire who looks like a child, but is actually about 50, which is still young for a vampire but not actually the same as being a human child. And she needs to essentially gather a harem of humans to survive and in the process the humans also sort of lose their free will. There is a point in the beginning where they could say no to her...and then later they can't. It is an uncomfortable story, with questionable elements on all sides - but the questioning is clearly the POINT.

In Mushoku Tensei, there's some hints that there are other perspectives to be had on it but since the perspective told is Rudeus' and he doesn't care, it's just accepted. Kishirika Kishirisu has a fiance, Badi Gadi. They're both 1000-year-old immortal demons. Badi's family can reform after being blown apart like liquid metal and will form a smaller, child-like version of themselves and grow up from remaining pieces if some are lost in a blackhole or something. Kishirika's kind just respawn in the wilderness as a child when they die. Badi won't lay a hand on her while she has a child's body so they can't get married until she can keep herself from dying over something stupid long enough to grow up. Hence, their 1000-year engagement. Again, though, it's Rudeus' perspective and he doesn't care until the epilogue when his son is on the receiving end from someone else. Anyway, there's another, different kind of story that I heard of that seems to do well telling a different perspective, though of something different from the 1000-year-old loli. Haven't read it myself yet though. It's a light novel with one of those 'reincarnated into an NTR manga' stories. The kind of story were a very anti-NTR guy becomes the delinquent who 'steals the girl' only to find out that the delinquent was an actual person with a life and issues they were working through and so is the girl. There's one that tells the girl's perspective enough that she's considered more the main character, emphasizing that she's not an object to be stolen but someone who's made a choice. That the other guy isn't entitled to her just because he pines for her or because he's her childhood friend but never experienced a romantic arc with her the way she and the delinquent did. Hmm, now I want to dig around more for novels with different perspectives, rather than settings, but that's kinda hard with asian novels these days. Now, even if they wanted a female protagonist, they'll just have a 40-year-old man reincarnate into a loli instead...

For me it's the existence of a pattern in the anime movement. If, over the course of a month or year, a different person shows up with a bat every day, each with a different yet valid reason to have that bat at my doorstep, I'm going to become suspicious regardless of the validity of each 'diagetic' reason. ESPECIALLY if these people are fantasizing about or watching content depicting people having their skulls bashed open in their spare time.

Yup, if I was the guy with the baseball bat who had to knock on someones door for legitimate reasons at 3 am. I would put the pat down a few meters away from me before knocking because I get how sketchy that would look. And then ask if it's okay if I pick up my baseball bat. With an "I guess it is obvious why I did not knock on your door holding it, right?"

​@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece nah, they are fine

@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece I got lost in the metaphor

Thank you for explaining so thoroughly!

moral of the story: do your fucking research before making characters half naked

​@iconofthicc6086 yes, good lore > naked because magic.

Realism is very boring most of the time.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. It's not so much a diagetic argument as an ad hoc one used to justify a writing decision.

Exactly. Art cannot exist in a vacuum and neither can its consumers

As a watsonian discussion of tropes is inherently very worthless pursuit to me outside of mapping genealogies of ideas. Doyleians always just assume that the context is worthwhile without ever justifying why it is so. I don't do so, there's only me and the text. Context illuminates only itself, never the text. I don't think armchair Freudian psychology of the author counts as saying anything about the work.

Sure, but the problem people have with 1000 year old Lolis isn’t necessarily the existence of that character archetype. You could write a story about an immortal trapped in the body of a child and make it genuinely compelling if you wanted to, as long as you actually wrote a good story out of it and didn’t portray them as a fun fetishbait quirky anime girl. I think batman beyond did something like that if I’m remembering correctly. The problem is that this condition is portrayed as cute and desirable and sexy by most anime, it isn’t shown to be a curse or interfere with the character’s life in any way most of the time. For an analogy: Shinji’s scene in the hospital isn’t trying to portray his actions as morally okay, it’s supposed to show his fracturing mental state and feelings towards Asuka. And that’s fine I think. But if you did the same scene but portrayed it as wacky anime antics, you’d rightly get a very different response.

@@legoboy468 It was BtAS, not Beyond. Babydoll episode. Great episode.

They aren't contradictory, I think where it gets messy is when we start to ask what practical steps we can take to address the second thing. Do we ban certain things because it might unintentionally contribute to the normalization of bad things? If so, how do we enforce that, and is it fair to do so against people who are just partaking in something they enjoy without hurting anyone else?

Those are two different ways to consume media, I'm not gonna take a comedy to heart like a would aot

@@bobjones2959 I feel like bringing in the legislative element is a consistent red herring I really can't say I've ever found to be a meaningful point of discussion. We're not the United Nations, we're not Congress, there's no reason to act like it. We're having a discussion about morality here, and ultimately the worst thing to come of this is somebody saying "me no likey" and trying to get a twitter mob together. We're not making policy decisions so I don't really feel the need to have a ban discussion, TLDR.

I usually fall on the side of world building and in universe lore but if we are being real these 99% of the time these authors aren't even consistent in their own world. When I notice that I'm pulled out to then siding with the "why did you put that naked child in your story, take it out" or whatever variation of that. With the example in the video, the "looking and acting like a child" has never and will probably never be addressed in the story. There are also other clans in the same region who are literally fully clothed. So the only reason it's the case is because the author specifically wanted it this way even at the cost of consistency.

Death of the author should not be all encompassing in the sense that nothing can be taken from the work unless stated directly by the author OR the opposite. It's different to know where the line is though.

Imo there's a lot of great ways to portray that without it being moraly iffy It can be used in comedy but also in horror, I feel like the issue starts when the portrayal is unnecessarily vulgar or sexual or for shock value Ironically made in abyss has great examples of both

@@Kekkai_ You say that but worldbuilding is endlessly malleable. You see a character designed with skimpy clothing justified in-universe as it being a cultural norm due to the warmer climate of where they're from, and ask why other clans from the region don't share that same cultural aesthetic. The author could point to the fact that those clans don't share the same culture and adapted to the climate in other ways, or maybe had religious or cultural practices that forbade that kind of dress. There are any number of excuses an author could use to justify any given worldbuilding decision they made because they are ultimately in full control of their universe. At some point we just have to come clean and acknowledge that's what all of it is: excuses. The world does not exist independently of the author, the author is not forced to follow some arbitrary unchangeable principles or rules which insist a 900 year old being MUST look like a loli and dress skimpily. All of that arises from a set of rules the authors came up with themselves, and there is simply no getting around that fact unless we want to ignore the fact that stories must inherently come from (and are shaped by) storytellers. I like death of the author since it breaks free of restricting ourselves to just looking at author intention when the text could mean so much more. But strict adherence to that principle to the point where we ignore very obvious points of author intent is just dishonest. We can choose to prefer death of the author as a tool for text analysis while also acknowledging that author intent does still exist. Not to mention death of the author can still come to the conclusion that the 900 year-old loli is bad. Because death of the author is analyzing what the text itself says, through what it chooses to leave in or out, what it chooses to emphasize to the reader, how things are framed, etc. And very often, the 900 year old lolis are still sexualized and have their agency removed for the purposes of fanservice or levity, which isn't a great look regardless of whether or not we choose to acknowledge the author's role in making it turn out that way.

@@murderman8578 Everyone else is having a productive conversation. Why can't you?

Honestly, a possible 'fix' to the Momo thing is either making everyone 18 or above, or, giving Momo a pervy side that she's ashamed to showcase due to her prim and proper background, and using the "I need exposed skin" as an excuse both in and out of universe. Or, y'know, just grab both options.

The thing for momo is that she clearly doesn't care about how she looks while doing hero work. She ends up flashing her teammates a few times just because it was the easiest way to make a larger object. So for her costume, I can easily see her realizing she needs maximum exposed skin while still following laws around exposure and decency, so she just went with an off the shelf costume and modified it with her utility belt, since the actual outfit doesn't seem to be cut up as much as just manufactured to be revealing

I thoroughly enjoyed this analysis of the issue, but by God reading 'the appeal of a child' in this context made me sick

This is why I think Kishirika Kishirisu is such a great example for this argument. Thinking in Watsonian terms, Kishirika does not and would not care about a few stares from perverts. Her personality is characteristic of and consistent to all other immortal demons and she is shown to be a fully independent and important person outside of whatever Rudeus is doing. Simply put, does Kishirikas form impose upon the world and distract from its themes for pure fan service? No. Does she exist as she does because the author is a pervert? Probably yes. Is it fine to be entertained by her as she is depicted, that's up to you.

@@AnonEcho98 Genuinely the best way to make fan service not only less uncomfortable but better is have all the characters involved be into the bit

pseudo-paedophilic bard core was the last thing I would have expected from this channel but it was its most welcomed

good comment and watned to say, I'm sorry you have had such a horrible experience in weeb communities. A lot of parts of the anime/Japanese pop culture fandom have become very progressive and with lots of women and queer people in them. I hope you have found communities like that, or will

This is my main contention with the sexualisation of thousand year old lolis (and even more so characters that are children in appearance, personality and canonical age, such as Sagiri from Eromanga Sensei). I don't really care what the in universe explanation is, and I don't really care what the author's intent is, one need only look at stories that ended up being picked up by the people that the movie was criticising, such as American History X or Fight Club to see that what the author thinks about their work doesn't necessarily matter. In the end, by arguing about authorial intent or in universe justification, we are ignoring the very real power that fiction holds over us. There's interesting research into the presentation of suicide in fiction and how that effects real world suicides, there is research into cars exploding in movies leading to people mistakenly pulling people out of vehicles and for a positive example, diversity in media leads to a decline in bigotry.

@@capdyn735 Very much agreed! Admittedly, I'm pretty disappointed in this video the longer I ruminate on it. I fully believe it's well-intentioned, and I think Explanation Point's.. well, explanations of his thoughts and where they come from were well-articulated. Similarly, I think he did a good job being even-handed looking over the some of the reasonings people have for feeling the way they do (On both sides of the issue), but.. Emphasis on *some.* It might be presumptuous of me to say so, but I feel like there might be some blind spots coming into play here, as I can't really think of any other reason *not* to bring up the real-world implications and misogyny (Unless someone was arguing in bad faith of course, but I genuinely do not think that's the case here). Saying that the anti camp's *only* concern is what the author's intent was really drives that impression home for me. If you haven't personally experienced it, it isn't always something that might immediately occur to you, and I can see why that might result in someone viewing this as just an interesting philosophical discussion on how we view media and not as something that reflects deep flaws in our society and, in turn, reverberates into the lived experiences of actual, real-life people. Similarly, not delving significantly into the fact that some people are in support of this trope explicitly because they're attracted to children (Or character who are clearly meant to look like children) strikes me as negligent. At least as of yesterday (**EDIT:** There's actually someone doing it literally right now under the pinned comment lol. Stay classy, youtube commenters), there were people in these comments who clearly felt emboldened by the defense of the trope within the video and were arguing that it's actually totally cool if "someone" finds a child character hot, even if Explanation Point never said that. As you said, fiction has power over us, and to me it is irresponsible to argue in defense of this trope without acknowledging the way it normalizes attraction towards and the sexualization of children. Imo the trope does exist almost exclusively as a shield and excuse, and this is even acknowledged in the video as being a fair stance as it pertains to authorial intent, but there's very little mention as to how that extends to the audience, instead coming off as whitewashing "pro-loli" people as just being really super invested in worldbuilding. This video wound up turning my wife off of Explanation Point entirely even though she was previously a big fan, and while I'm not to that point (Because again, I really do believe it was well-intentioned), it is very saddening to see a generally progressive anime youtuber (When that side of the internet can be.. Kind of a minefield) leaving out such massive aspects of this issue and inadvertently emboldening some really disgusting people to proudly proclaim and defend their attraction to animated depictions of children.

Addendum (**EDIT:** a heavily edited one, since this comment got auto-filtered rip. Dunno what specifically tripped it up, so apologies in advance for a truly horrendous amount of censoring), it's worth mentioning that SA is also normalized like heck in anime, often with the only consequences being (To quote Explanation Point) "le epic anime p-nch" before everyone just moves on, and this does extend very frequently to underage characters (..Or characters who look underage, yada-yada). Sometimes it's even portrayed as the victim secretly w-nting or being into it (Looking at you, Cagaster), and it's just.. Again, I really don't think it's possible to just pretend these trends exist in a bubble. There's a reason why it feels like every other male protag winds up with a harem of girls inexplicably fixated on him in spite of the fact he's the literal most boring person in the entire universe; it's a fantasy being packaged to young men. There's a reason that the main character of A Certain Magical Index solves half of his conflicts by p-nching w-men in the f-ce, why he can refer to Index having "a pdf file body" while she's RIGHT THERE and only face the consequences of an angry blush while he does the stereotypical anime "bwwhuhhuh uh I-Index h-h-hold on now.. 😨" before everyone moves on like nothing happened. There's a reason that Seven Deadly Sins has Melodias -ssa-lting Elisabeth FREQUENTLY and it being justified in text cuz his backstory means he's ~entitled~ to her, even though he (spoilers I guess) helped raise her. From the parts I managed to stomach watching, she never even seems to really defend herself? Just standing there doe-eyed while this dude gr-pes her without c-nsent. There is a reason for that. There is an audience they are trying to appeal to by including that stuff, and it isn't a good one. Media influences us, and it's naïve at best to treat all anime like it's just works of genuine passion and artistry--with sometimes individual bad actors including shady stuff--without any capitalistic incentives that might encourage people to appeal to the lowest common denominator in their audience, which in turn can re-enforce or instill unhealthy mindsets in said audience (Particularly in the case of, again, teenage boys) by giving a warped perspective on women and what is and isn't okay in terms of mindsets and behavior. I'll cut myself off here cuz between all my comments and propensity for wordiness I know I'm approaching thesis territory, but yeah. Point is, I'm not sure if this is maybe in part a desensitization issue? Not trying to mind-read here (And genuine apologies if I'm overstepping), but if someone's literal job is to watch the weirdest, most trash-tier anime out there, I can understand why this stuff might kinda blend into the background after a while, especially given it's so common. 1000 year-old dragon girl who looks 9 wearing barely anything? Seen that 400 times. Boy marries a Moomin? Now *that's* a brand-sp-nking new flavor of messed up. But whether or not that's the case, this video wound up kinda missing the forest for the trees in my opinion. It's all fine to discuss diegesis and authorial intent, but the issue just isn't that simple or inconsequential.

Uh, yeah. Good point. I think these characters can add something to the story (even if they usually do not) but there is no good reason why this should pertain to a single gender except the creepy ones. I have seen some good gender switched versions but they are few and far between. I can really only think of a few quickly. (detective conan, venti, Jamie Welton, Shirokuro Sansui)

@@Tb0n3 her entire lineage, the immortal demons, all have those vibes. Because they are immortal, they never needed to develop intelligence.

@@Tb0n3 the more you learn about her the more vague that explanation gets, but basically: yeah.

...To TVtropes. Surely they have a lead on the Ur example.

Eh maybe, TVTropes has some good stuff, but I'd be more interested in a Deep Dive@@ilovethelegend

So, in anime in manga, it looks like we've got some candidates from the early 90s; I'm noticing that a lot of these actually seem like they're shojo series; things like Magic Knight Rayearth, Sailor Moon, and Fushigi Yuugi, with one exception being noted harem anime Tenchi Muyo! (Well... Tenchi was on Toonami, but I was like six at the time and not really interested). I haven't seen any of these and am just going by the "Really Seven Hundred Years Old" trope example page (I think there are older anime and manga on the list, but the example characters in those aren't lolis, either by nature of being males or appearing to be in their 20s) but it feels like this is a good place to start.

That's true, I didn't see the really seven hundred years olf until the end of the 2000s with one of those Vampire manga that was really popular at the time but it may have existed before then.@@ilovethelegend

Aren't all 3 of those Doylist? The Watsonian perspective looks purely within the context of the story, which is separate from all 3 of the contexts you mentioned.

I feel like you should keep it in your own section and away from a larger group if you're going to sexualize the character but if you're going to be normal about the character than it's completely fine

Whats a FF woodchipper

@@Mahlak_Mriuani_Anatman It's a regular woodchipper, except we stuff people who draw suggestive art of Kanna into it feet first.

@@nacligang Nah. If you find sexy dragon lolis titillating you should go to therapy. Drawn CSAM is no better than regular CSAM.

@@nacligang”keep it in your own section” hm? So just to reword your logic, morally controversial content should not be neutrally or positively depicted within mainstream storytelling, correct? It should have its own little side niche instead, is that right?

I'm split between really wanting a standalone version but being to scared to put it on my Playlist

The issue is that it's almost never used as a representation issue piece. It's either a fetish or a gag. I think the "Uuuuuuuuuoooogh cunny" meme speaks for itself.

Whenever this discussion comes up, I think about a friend of mine who went out with what we might call a real "thousand year old loli". She was actually 24, but she could easily pass for a middle schooler (I think she was 4'9'', and she did have a baby face and was as thin as a rail). Should my friend be looked down upon because he went out with someone who looks so young? Well, much like with anime, I think it depends on the context. My friend did say that he found it off putting at times, but he really did like her as a person, and you could tell that based on the conversations they had, and the fact that they are still friends despite breaking up the better part of a decade ago. However, one time when they were getting ready to have sex, she went into the bathroom to put on something "fun". She came out wearing a sexy schoolgirl outfit, and the look he gave her apparently made her want to defend herself so she commented that her previous boyfriend got it for her and loved it. I do feel sorry for her because she is trapped in a body that distasteful people are attracted to, and everyone else has trouble working around. It would be nice if more anime (or really any media) would take on this topic, beyond a one-off episode or comment.

But TYOL isn't a representation trope. It's not in there because short people need representation, it's in there because the author liked it.

@@HellecticMojo That's actually how most representation works, though. Representation isn't strictly, "Did the author include this type of person for a sociopolitical agenda?" it's, "Did the author include this type of person, and how did they depict them?" Including a Black guy because you think Ancient Egypt is cool and want to have a pharaoh is still representation; it might be bad representation depending on how you write him, but even bad representation is still a type of representation. (And it might even be good representation on accident. Author intent doesn't factor in, otherwise authors could coast by on good intentions.) The real question is whether the TYOL counts as a representation of adults who look young or a representation of children. Technically it's neither, because it's a case of coding not representation. (Which is different.) And the thing about coding is that it changes from case to case, leaving it vague and open to interpretation. Like how people interpret the character Pearl from Steven Universe as white because she has light skin & hair and blue eyes; even though her actress is Filipina and she wears clothing with Filipiniana elements. The character is technically neither white no Filipina, but she has coding that can be read in multiple lights. And as a result, different people can achieve different readings from the same character.

@@HellecticMojo Notice how I didn't mention authorial intent at all. My point has nothing to do with why the trope exists, it's to do with the effect the trope and the discussion around it has for women like me.

This yeah. It mainly depends on execution, and if the physical appearance of the character actually adds anything to the character. Otherwise, it's either a trope being used because it's a trope (much like how all generic Light Novels have to have a tsundere female love interest), or it's fetish bait. Neither of which are indicative of good writing.

Okay, look, I'm too lazy to fully explain it so I hope putting it this way makes sense: Do you not think it's kinda unfair for petite women to feel like them being represented and shown as attractive needs to be justified? I mean it's just a different body type they can't really do anything about, and last I checked it's not really kosher to make people feel like being attracted to them can be shameful if it's for immutable, intrinsic reasons like this.

On the character side there's also the behavior and general maturity of the 1000 year loli in question. Do they seeem to behave like they are some ancient being from a long lost age, or do they behave like a child? I don't have a problem with the demon empress in Mushoku Tensei, despite her being dressed like a stripper halfway through her act. I have a lot of problems with Made in Abyss, which isn't even 1000 year lolis but explicitly children.

@@chukyuniqul I mean, I feel like there's a difference between the proportions of petite woman and that of a female child.

Yeah, that’s pretty much the thing. The issue that a lot of people take with the trope isn’t just that the character looks too young to be doing this stuff with, it’s that the character *acts* too young to as well. The assurances that the character is a thousand years old and just looks this way because of a curse or something ring hollow when the character doesn’t act like they’re grown up and quite experienced, but like the physical age they present as. The 50-year-old loli at the end of The Thief Lord didn’t suddenly stop acting like she was 50 because she looked like a child, and there’s examples like this in anime too, best I can bring up rn is Jahy from The Great Jahy, who acts childish sometimes, since she’s clearly not gone through a decent number of what would be formative experiences for a child, but still ultimately is effectively presented as an adult stuck in a child’s body. And yeah, this might be overfocus on Doylist analysis, missing the story’s internals for its author, but Doyle has to write Watson. The way the character acts, even ignoring trends in an author’s work, says a lot about whether an author was doing this for a narrative reason or for their own enjoyment at the narrative’s expense. “She’s 1000 years old” all you want, but she’ll have to convince me of that herself, and if the little girl wearing clothing that’s in competition with bathing suits for exposed skin can’t make me believe she’s really an adult, it gets hard to buy any of the other explanations about why she looks like this either, because I can see Doyle hiding behind Watson.

Remembering a show that did something adjacent to the idea sort of. Dr. Ramune had a character who is the old mentor character reincarnated into a child's body. The only time she actually acts like a kid is when she is going to school, since she is actually physically that age, and when she is using the fact she is/looks like a kid to get actual predators arrested.

See also Tanya the evil. Being forced to be a little girl is just one of the many things piled atop the shit that Tanya has to deal with, and the Narrative in the Book form regularly deals with this as it’s written in the state of Tanya’s thoughts. There’s a moment in the books where Tanya can feel the temptation to throw a tantrum like the child she is, and is immediately disgusted and repulsed by the impulse. As well as another moment where Tanya’s like “This is so sad. People should be more considerate for me I am a girl after all…. WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST THINK?” And immediately devolves into a suppressed frenzy of panic. As well as a few moments like this where Tanya is horrified to realize she’s losing parts of the salaryman she once was.

Same here, especially since there's also the other caveat of no real consensus of "what is the fine line between a character being child-like or not" as well as ensuring we don't end up in body shaming territory.

Yeah, where I fall into the debate is just, not liking how the archetype is used 99% of the time. It doesn't help that people who want to defend it often don't aknowledge why someone would find it distasteful if not fundamentally uncomfortable. I've seen plenty of media about an older woman trapped in a younger looking body, and lord knows I'm not touching people calling actual adults "child coded" but those stories do not approach the characters the same way anime often does. i.e fanservice and beyond. The culture around the archetype is often where the majority of the conversation is directed anyway; what is done with the characters in the narrative to "entertain" and what people do with them in their own time. If the narrative actually does nothing significant with the character, my eyes are gonna narrow and I am going to ask how the character is meant to entertain an audience. Usually the focus of the camera is answer enough.

@@awesomechainsaw Thank God Tanya didn't also behave like a child, that would have been the cherry on top. That being said, tantrums are related to maturity. The MC is not at all a child given they kept their personality so I don't see why he'd be at all tempted to throw one. In any case, I don't know about the books, but I don't recall anything like this happening in S1, which led me to believe the whole loli thing was just lolicon bait. Maybe the book does it better, but after seeing S1 I was disgusted with the series and refused to watch any more (the loli thing was almost insignificant to my other issues with the show, though).

you had me in the first part

Seriously, when he started the thanking patrons bit I was like "so are you doing this in the middle of videos now?". Felt like there shouldve been like 20+ minutes of discussion after where the video ended

Yep, personally I find the anti crowd more scary and the pro crowd more annoying just because thank the lord lolicons are not widely accepted by society. High profile actual pedos unfortunately are, but if there's one thing I can count on it's that if I met a lolicon irl I could blackmail them with that knowledge if they aren't the son of a millionaire or something. But online good god they will not shut the fuck up. What makes the antis (man I hate that term but it's the best I got) a tad scary is that many seem to take a very virtue ethics position on things, which isn't bad in itself but then they apply it irl and are like "actually we should make loli entirely illegal!" Which no matter what you feel about loli itself, is a very very very bad idea because the difference between "sexualizing fictional children/childlike characters" and "nothing going on here" is entirely subjective with too much grey area to let cops work with. But they don't seem to realize this, so when politicians wrap some law with "oh but it's to protect the children!" They fall hook line and sinker without realizing these people only tangentially mean stuff like loli, with the major target being anyone they hate that this law would now justify imprisoning (people who are openly queer are often targeted by "protect the children" type laws, for example. Also if we did really ban "loli" you bet they'd be shooting people then using hentai on the victim's twitter that could maybe possibly not really be considered loli as an excuse). It's scary because it's a relatively common position that sets you up to be a useful idiot basically. "Antis" who think it's really annoying to get flashbanged by a surprise lingerie child are correct though lol

I guess part of the problem comes in where it's always a "legal loli" and not a "legal shota". There's a lot to say about the sexualization of girls and women IRL, and it's almost always girls and women and feminine people being objectified and treated as things to be consumed, not as people. That's *not* to say it never happens to men/boys/masculine people (and they should be believed, supported, and the perpetrators called out), just that it's more systemic when it comes to girls/women/feminine people.

@@salmonandsoup this is true, and an extremely important part of this discussion. especially because, somehow, when you get cases like Meliodas from Seven Deadly Sins, or Rudeus from Mushoku Tensei, the guys still end up feeling like perpetrators and not victims. like, we as audience members understand on an intuitive level that the "legal shota" isn't there to tempt and titillate women... he's there to grope and leer at women, with the excuse that he's just a young boy displaying childhood impropriety. except he's not. and I think that kind of cracks the 1000 year old loli assertion wide open. because here are shotas who know full well that they're adults, have adult interests, and pursue those adult interests and lines of thinking, even in ways that feel uncomfortable for us to see coming from their child bodies. by comparison, most 1000 year old lolis still behave like kids, or are ambiguous, or ambivalent to their true age... or sometimes, 1000 years is still young for whatever species of thing they are, based on their full life span. which undoes the excuse, because that means she's still a child in mind and body. but the biggest difference, to my thinking, is that when it's a 1000 year old shota, we're usually in his head, or invited to relate to his POV as a main character. it's why, when a lot of people talk about lolis, they'll end up talking past her. they'll talk about the author's intent, her characterization and whether or not it supports what's been done with her, or her character design. meanwhile with shotas, people will just talk about him like he's some guy. we'll talk about rat man Rudeus and his horrible misdeeds, or Meliodas's infractions against women... because we're more convinced that they own their actions, while lolis feel like sock puppets that the author is using to craft indulgences. deep down, we know that Rudeus and Meliodas are written so that the audience can wear their POV like goggles, and be along for the ride while they do whatever inappropriate stuff they can get away with. we simply do not get that from lolis. this is a massively clear way to determine who something was written _for_ vs. who something was written _about._ for the most part... stories about legal shotas are written for men. stories about legal lolis are written about women.

​@@kamuyking551 For sure! I think the only semi-contemporary property that includes a shota character in a traditionally "ogled loli" role is Kobayashi's, which is IMO not only one of the most disgusting examples of everything we're talking about here, but Shouta isn't even the subject of the sexualization in any of his scenes. Even when an objectified shota character is written in contemporary anime, he exists to further the sexualization of Lucoa instead of for his own sake like so many other lolis. I think there's a bit of that which has to do with boys not being seen as neary as "cute" - just look at the all-male depictions of demon children in Amagi, for instance - but just as much it's because the audience being cultivated just doesn't find young male bodies sexually gratifying like it does young female bodies

@@kamuyking551Extremely well put! And like, the answer is not “more legal shotas!”, the answer is better writing. The answer is treating all characters as full, real people. The answer is treating real human people with dignity and respect. Like, in a vacuum, I don’t really care about the wacky anime bullshit. I just don’t like it and won’t watch it if there’s too much. But when that wacky anime bullshit has a real effect on real people that is genuinely observable on a grand scale in the world… that’s not kosher. If things are labeled properly with warnings, that’s good. That lets people make informed decisions.

I feel the same way. On a somewhat related note, it's like how portraying dark skinned characters as sexually liberated criminals is a negative trend that contributes to racism, but that doesn't mean that every author should be punished when they write a dark skinned character who isn't a morally pure virgin. Individual instances might be fine, but a social trend is a collective issue that's more than the sum of its parts. (Although obviously there are gonna be instances where it's clearly worth criticism, but those instances usually require interpreting the themes and symbols of a given work, and I don't trust most people to do that reliably.) Of course, there's a difference between media about bigotry and media about interpersonal evil or individual experience. Bigotry is a social phenomena that has a long history of using mass media to influence public perception. Interpersonal evil, when localized to a small group of people, doesn't really exist on the same scale and thus isn't affected much by public perception. It's the difference between showing a character getting tortured and exploring how it affected them vs. showing a character getting tortured and depicting it as an effective and moral interrogation tactic. One of those is about an individual's experiences, one of those is about a government policy.

I can see where you’re coming from, and agree to a large extent that few things should be wholly off limits for discussion in a work of media. That said, like ExPo talked about in the Blue Lock video a bit ago, media makes normalcy, and it’s important to recognize consciously that a piece of media is advocating for something horrific. Also, there’s a point where you enter Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid or Eromanga Sensei territory, where a piece of media is just brazenly depicting CSAM, at which point any fans of the property should deeply examine whether they need therapy.

@@alecwoodard9464 Dude, "CSAM" is a term explicitly made to *only* refer to real life material of real people. It was created because people kept using CP to refer to shota and loli and were spamming law enforcement agencies, keeping them from taking down the real thing. Blurring the meaning of the term harms victims of CSAM, and you should really reconsider how you talk about this kind of thing. You're actively doing the thing that victims and child welfare advocates *don't* want you to do. (Also, therapists aren't moral authorities. They will actively suggest you explore your desires through a safe space like fiction that doesn't hurt other people, because their focus is on individual mental health not broad social ills. Whether or not any of that is good thing is up to debate, but if you treat therapy as Goodness & Normalcy Counseling you're just shooting yourself in the foot.)

The problem being I guess, is that the media one consumes inevitably affects your actual attitude in the real world.

@@BigMeem Somewhat, yeah. Depictions in media normalize things, you see this all the time.

I took a month of classes with a 5-foot, 40Ds woman. *Natural* Didn't know I was BiGay at the time but it sure kept me in the workshop! XD Seriously the Stellar Blade SoreJaWs outcry reminds me of the very unique people I met in my 40+ years of life One of my grade school classmates had the voice of a pro wrestler AT AGE 10! Recognized him by voice alone 25 years later.

your

Soon!!!

Monogatari and Re:Zero do it right

@@IAMA1 Yhea, but in case of monotatari the author FOR SURE just wanted to make some underage looking characters to drool at 😭 (even tough the characters are internally coherent in the story) Re;zero also has a lot of “loli” characters, specifically if you read the novels. But at least they aren’t sexuallized like in monogatari…

Got an insight and am now curious if me writing has anything to do with my argument? As someone who has to consider what characters wear, do and look like, I often find my characters almost moving out of my own control, I get a sense of wrongness when I go off my own script, a dissatisfaction that "no this is not what they would do/wear/say" and wonder then if this has made me more tolerant to the watsonian side of the debate. I am however, also now acutely aware of the doyalist side, and feel like I should at least go back and re-evaluate some conclusions by examining the same material from this new perspective. with the newly gained knowledge that doylian and watsonian perspectives need not be separate.

"4 Cut Hero" has a fun twist on why the shapeshifting dragon is in the form it is. Because the MC was kidnapped as a child by it, it shapeshifted to his age, as he grew up he realized that if he ended up loving the dragon he would be eaten, so he told her that he loves her in the form she used when he was young. Therefore making him not attracted to her physically. Though that doesn't stop her from flirting with him and making advances on him because she still believes that that's the preferred form and age the MC likes.

​@@ydahshet9428Even the most detailed and strict of authors (in writing their story I mean) let their characters lead them around from time to time. It's part of the process and you can argue that says something about the author but how much or how valid what that says is, is what varies.

I don't see how that makes his explanation bad. Simplified, yes, but he's not going in depth on an explanation of the hunger games. As a short example, it's fine.

this isn't a hunger games literary analysis.

@@HellecticMojo I did say it was irrelevant.

The Watsonian answer is extremely easy to answer. The Hunger Games uses a lottery system to pick child tributes, but a volunteer of the same sex can take their place. Primrose got chosen at random. It’s essentially a metaphor for conscription lotteries, which are certainly not satisfying, but that’s kinda the point.

@@theMoporter I'd argue along the same vein that's a good example of a bad Watsonian answer, because the interesting dimension of the question is Katniss's character motive, not why that's an option for her.

could you elaborate on your "actual argument"? English is my second language and I straight up don't understand what you mean

@@NickiRusin For example: we can show violence in movies, but we should also think about it when we see it, not just consme it.

⁠@@PlatinumAltariaIf we go along those lines, that’s simply an analysis of the violence within the narrative. The real world explanation would be that some people find violence entertaining and would give money to watch action flicks. Overall, people aren’t constantly analyzing things (though with the advent of cinemasins, perhaps there are more people doing that) while they watch it.

No it isn't. Shotacons are a thing and they're just as gross. If not worse because they don't even pretend the boy is of age

@@Matt_History shotas are far far less common. That’s the whole point I was making

100% right. Even in the rare situations where a shota does make it into something mainstream, they're very rarely sexualized in the same way that lolis are. In most cases, childlike male characters are either - like Chuckles McPedo in Mushoku or GR*pist in MHA, arguably - there to be able to get away with being disgusting lechers in ways men with older bodies cannot, or - like Shouta in Kobayashi's - are there to accentuate and fetishize the sexualization of an accompanying female character. The "sexy dragon loli" archetype simply does not exist for male bodies in popular media, and characters in perverse situations in underage male bodies serve an utterly different purpose.

​@@444gothicgirl + when it's with shotas it's usually a power fantasy of the author and the eroticism comes from how other characters interact with them(usually a young boy being pursued by an older female) as opposed to the 1000 year old loli in which they act on their Sexual autonomy that is vindicated by the story

​@@alecwoodard9464 part of me kind of wonder how the wider anime community would react to both archetypes being reversed, having a shota character be treated like a 1000 year old loli, my guess is that it wouldn't go past the "men's rights" chuds that love to scream "men can be victims too" at any and all conversations of assault even if the opposite was never implied We sorta had that in chainsaw man with himeno and denji but the people calling out the problematic aspects got quickly drowned out by the "IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME" crowed

Counterpoint : While fiction is not a perfect mirror of reality, I'd say people tend to prefer things like great character arcs because they are, in fact, reflections of reality, or a reflection of real ideals, or things like that. In other words, while not being a mirror, fiction works best when it has ties to reality, be it in its themes, characters (we tend to prefer characters with depth because that's more true to life), stories (fighting a demon lord might be unrealistic, but fighting against a threat or struggling through life are things we see in our world all the time), etc. If fiction has zero ties to reality, then it becomes impossible to relate to it whatsoever, and it's therefore virtually impossible to enjoy. While the differences with reality makes fiction unique and powerful, good fiction is also more powerful when it is grounded in reality in some way or another.

Exactly. I feel there isn't really a logical way to end up with Kirisu as a character without the trope being a major factor in the design process.

"But it's nearly impossible to say if 1000 year old depictions contribute to that" No it's not, there are people literally in this comments section talking about the abuse and harassment they've received as minors from people in anime communities.

@@terminalpreppie8439 And? they would've gotten harrassed in other places as well if they met the wrong people

Shame you rarely if ever can have actual discussions like this without someone jumping the gun. I usually defend the lolis even when I actually don't like them besides Tanya (because she's cool) I often compare it to a game and what boomers say about them. Would you want to do the stuff you can (and are forced) to do in GTAv cod, CS go and etc?

@@toobig7150Tanya (if you’re referring to Tanya the evil) wasn’t sexualized. 0 fan service, 0 stuff on screen that would have the FBI knocking on your door. Just a badass kid committing war crimes

@@toobig7150 ok epstein

​@@toobig7150pretty one-sided take, but you do you

@@toobig7150 Apples and oranges. You're comparing the sexualization of child-looking characters to playing a (shooter) game. Aside from both being fiction, you are talking about two completely different mediums and I don't know about you but I would find it pretty concerning, if someone got sexual satisfaction from killing NPCs in GTA V.

so... insane?

@@NickiRusin Yeah sure that's cool

I believe it’s folk music (or at least folk adjacent) Think like ‘Cotten eye joe’ or ‘the devil went down to Georgia’

I was going for an Irish folk song type of feel?

Agreed, i feel like a lot of people will specifically take the Doylian view for this specific point, but are just fine taking the Wattsonian route in any other issues, like violence, gore, drugs and generally illegal activities.

@@thatguythere6161 You "don't understand why age of consent laws are even important in the first place", the reason we have an "age of consent" is because kids aren't mentally or physically mature enough to be or make decisions related to sexual activity, and doing so could result in lifetime mental/physical damage, or in them being preyed upon by someone more experienced, so we agreed on a safe age and made a law about it. Like that guy said, this obviously doesn't apply to fictional characters, for obvious reasons, this is at best a moral discussion, and bringing law into this only makes your side look worse.

The problem is this trope nearly solely exists for the sexual titters of the audience and the charactization of said "thousand year old" is anything but what someone who is that old would realistically act like. Frieren is probably one of the few recent examples in Japanese media that shows how someone who lives for that long would percieve the world around them.

@@CouchRadish true, the concept of lived experience and physical appearance not matching up is it’s own concept that is similar but different to the more common concept of “let’s sexualise a character that looks like a child”. The second concept usually tries to justify itself with “they look like a child but dress sexual because X, Y, and Z” but I normally find holes that allow characters to dress decently whilst still following the lore. I.E. “the country is very hot”, well the Loli could wear a very baggy shirt or poncho, “her power requires her to have exposed skin”, well she could wear something that covers her chest area but keeps her back or belly exposed.

Literally all I wanted out of this comment section was for someone to praise my irregular meter ;-;

@@ExplanationPointAnime my second forté is progressive music, and I'm so inured to complex meter that the switching between 4-5-3-5-3-4 as you trailed melodic lines over the bar line just sounded natural to me 😅. My favorite music artist, Joanna Newsom, frequently uses polyrhythms in her music, and my second favorite music artist, Ichiko Aoba, will write a sprawling linear song that is constantly changing tempo, so a tight little metric gambole such as is presented here just sort of slips under my radar. It must be said though that blending a complex meter seamlessly into a song is a skill unto itself, and no mean feat. This has raised my estimation of your saucy jig even higher. 🤯👍

@@collinbeal Well, nobody's ever compared me to Joanna Newsom before, but I think that means my musical career can rest easy. Can't get much higher praise than that!

But then again, it's still weird the put them in sexual situation. btw, I understand and agree with your first point

Real

as another commenter said, it's good to be able to hold two contradicting opinions in your head at once. I don't think it counts as hypocrisy, especially if you realize what you're doing

What’s problematic in your example is not actually the racism, nor the superiority/inferiority dynamic, but rather the use of races with straightforward real-world analogues. If we use nonhumans instead and better avoid real-world analogues, then it could easily be a metaphor addressing the ethics of animal treatment. The diegesis here is important. It makes a big difference in how we tell what the metaphor is. Of course, so can our knowledge of the author. And so can our own biases as readers. It’s a careful dance. 🎶 DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE 🎶

Dan Olsen is a super smart guy but the origins of that video in his disgust and failure to understand Claymore makes me question his perspective. Made in Abyss is BODY HORROR FOR GOD SAKE. Any discussion of it that ignores that element is just media iliteracy. Yes it looks like a cute series from the covers but it was a webcomic hosted on a mostly horror site and the dichotemy between the covers and the content is part of the theming. Yes it treats the pre-pubescent body in an uncomfortable way but it is actually about biology, speculative zoology and the horrors of embodiment its not supposed to be sexually gratifying. Even if the writer has certain inclinations most people with those inclinations find them disturbing and need ways to process them, statistically you can give the writer the benefit of the doubt.

@@AC-dk4fp analysing a work using genre conventions, themes and framing is a valid form of media criticism. Because those are actual arguments and not what I am criticizing. Because they actually engage with the text. "The portrayal of nudity in this work is thematically important and there to shock the reader" is an actual argument while "she is actually a thousand years old" is a worthless thermian argument.

@@atleyf3500 My problem with the 'she's 1000 years old' is that a lot of the time that's nothing to do with the story and is from a foreign cultural perspective to the author. Americans are obsessed with Age of Consent Laws and similarly ages of legal alchohol consumption in a way that's really weird to my British perspective. I don't think the Japanese care that much about them either except when you have foreigners mocking their now reformed and never relevent central age of consent law. The Japanese do pay attention to legal drinking laws in fiction but that's kind of a joke. Legal loli is a 4-chan joke based on an American view of pornography that's quite culturally different to Japanese hentai which is much more confident with combining pornography with narrative depth and more extensive story telling than American porn is which would exclude a lot of H games into the "erotica" category. 4-chan culture tends to treat everything as 'porn' because its easier to defend enjoying porn in that culture than it is to admit being sappy and empathetic because of the way adolescent bravado shapes its netiquette. I've never seen a Japanese story make a joke like the 'Romeo and Juliet' law in that one Transformers movie I only know from video essays. 'Legal loli' is a term used by the American anime fandom, the more common but non-equivilant Japanese term is 'Loli Baba' which means "a child who talks like an old woman" and is a completely different interpretation of the trope and is more concerned with the Japanese concept of 'Gap Moe' which the English language fandoms never talk about. There are definitely Japanese paedophiles who draw immortal underaged characters but they don't care about the 'technically 1000 years old therefore legal' sense on any level other than escaping child porn laws through a purely theoretical technicality that would never pass in front of a real judge or jury in the first place. The Manaket characters in Fire Emblem (who don't count as Loli Baba and aren't designed for Gap Moe and the Gap Moe they do inhabit is 'child but over-powered in battle war criminal' instead) are children from a species that age slower they're narratively underaged and not sexualised. The fact that they're 100s of years old and physically and mentally children when adopting human form has nothing to do with Age of Consent laws that are designed based on human puberty. 'Legal loli' or 'actually 1000 year old loli' is an outside perspective that has nothing to do with the story and more to do with American fetishisation of the concept of 'being of age' than anything in the intent of the Japanese writers. I rewatched Dan Olsen's Thermian Argument video and I think he fails to do what you approve of. He's entirely concerned with setting detail and apparent mysogyny/racism and never talks about thematic analysis (outside of the incidental and underdeloped discussion of the themes of Galaxy Quest). By Dan Olsen's definition 'she's 1000 years old so its not child porn' isn't a Thermian argument unless there's an actual legal framework in the fictional society that accepts that as a loop hole in their legal system.

I don't think the stuff with Kanna and Saikawa is intended to be "stimulating". They're cute, and they're undeniably just children. There's no fig leaf on their appearance, no attempt to justify their existence, and they're not really sexualized either, they just like each other. The focus of those scenes is always on Saikawa's gay panic portrayed humorously, not any sort of voyeuristic angle.This isn't a matter of Watsonian vs Doylist, there's no sexualization to be explained either by Kyoto Animation having an ulterior motive or by the characters' place in the world. They're just normal kids (one happens to be a dragon kid but still for all intents and purposes normal lol). They're in the story because it's a slice of life story about Kobayashi forming a found family that's surprisingly normal despite the supernatural aspects of some of its members.

@@JetsetlemmingThey’re talking about the twister scene, though, which absolutely sexualizes them.

Watsonian perspective also falls apart in cases where the author is just plainly reflecting their preferences. A lot of people have referenced mushoku tensei but, first example that comes to mind for me is seven deadly sins- where every main romantic story beat involves an adult/child romantic pairing. Like, I’m sorry, there’s no in-universe explanation for that.

@@rd0676 Even with Merlin and Escanor, despite being the safest ship, still has a child being Merlin’s true form.

What in-universe explanation exists as to why said child is wearing thigh high socks@@Jetsetlemming

Cause they wanted to. I'm guessing the author wants to juxtaposition the cuteness of a character with it's sexual side. Similar to how you will sometimes get lolis who are cute but have a very sharp tongue. It's weird, yeah. But nothing criminal if you ask me. It's the same as writing 3 books about toxic relationship with a millionaire and becoming the bestseller like with 50 shades of grey.

@@czipcok1994 both are horrible, 50 shades is a romanticisation of abuse

@@DiXtionRap Exactly. But we don't see too much outrage around it or other books like it. It's just a case of "we find one thing way more disturbing than another". And I'm not blaming anyone for being disturbed or grossed out about it. But if we are not saying "women who read 50 shades of grey actually want to be abused by men" why are we discussing whether liking or drawing lolis is making you a pedo? Or another loud topic that was "violent video games make you a criminal" etc. I think people are way better at separating fantasy and reality than we think. Also to your original post. I think people have a twisted view on purity/youth and romanticise it to extreme. The idea of corrupting some pure has always been popular, hence the "good girl in the street, bad girls in the sheets" fantasy people hold too. Lolis are just the extreme of it.

@@czipcok1994 Loli is pedophilia

​@@DiXtionRap and yet there has been zero evidence of your claim, and plenty of evidence to the opposite. if you are unable to separate fiction from reality then you have a mental issue. past a certain age, even children understand that fairy tales are just fairly tales, and have no bearing on reality.

great take!

Loli and harems are both gross fetish bait that shouldn't be published in any work actually trying to be good.

I think your issues about made in abyss is still Watsonian in it's essence, because it's more about errors about how the *characters* are and how they are acting. It's something in the story that's unsettling and creepy and, to some, quite disgusting, because of what's happening inside the story itself, not about reasons outside of the story. The author's intent does not matter as to how they want the scene to be seen, but rather how the readers see the scene.

Mushoku Tensei does the same as Made in Abyss regarding sexualising characters that are explicitly children, doesn't it? I don't really get why you're fine with MT but not Made in Abyss.

​​@@cockernugget48In MT the main character's behavior is shown to be really rude and weird in-universe. Compared to Made in Abyss where adults are more or less casually going "yeah lemme take a look at this child's loins". This would be a Watsonian argument, if I understood the video correctly. If you look at it purely from the Doylian side, the two shows become a lot more similar (and problematic)

@@NickiRusin I mean, it's pretty obvious that the Watsonian explanation for how naked children are treated in MiA is that they aren't treated like anything, much like MANY instances of older or less advanced civilizations that even exist today you will occasionally see kids just running around without clothes on as late as 8-9 years old. This is simply because if they rough house with their clothes on they will ruin them, and there's not that many clothes to go around, so it's better to get filthy playing in the dirt without them then wash off once they get home. Hell, for an example from classical literature just look at Huckleberry Finn, at some point there's a scene where both Finn and the escaped slave he's traveling with get completely butt naked to go diving into the river and the story treats it as perfectly normal because, back then, by far the more socially egregious thing was that Finn was swimming with a runaway slave, not that he was naked while doing so.

@@cockernugget48 I said I'm ok with the demon empress specifically. I said nothing about Rudeus the pedophile.

Feel like recommending any books or articles on the subject? I could always look it up, but this specific phrasing seems really useful to me.

it sells, usually

@@Blizzic ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/speechact.pdf is a good (though technical) history that is available online. I came into the idea of speech as act through theology, so that may not be a good route for you, but I personally found Paul Ricoeur a great asset in delving into language (and therefore into "text" since, in the philosophy of language, any form of expression whatever the medium is included in the term "text"). His "Hermeneutics" was helpful to me.

Heck, there are a few examples of that. There's that one actress in Batman: The Animated Series who has a medical condition that causes her to look like a child forever, which (Understandably) doesn't wind up being great for her mental health long-term, and they take that seriously and *never* sexualize her. There's also Babette in Skyrim who, while a very minor character, does exemplify what you're talking about almost exactly by pretending to be a child to get people to let their guard down/lure predators so she can assassinate them.. Cuz she's actually a vampire who's most likely older than the Dragonborn by a good deal. Similarly, she's never sexualized. I've heard there's also an episode of SVU that delves into the concept (Similar situation as the Batman example, medical condition, etc), including directly addressing romance and sexuality, but I haven't personally seen the episode so I can't verify how well it's handled. As far as anime goes, to my recollection Log Horizon also touches on this with the female lead (Though she's just a normal adult who happens to look young), but I haven't seen it recently enough to recall many specifics. Point is though, like you said.. It seems like anime very rarely bothers actually exploring any of that, which makes it pretty obvious that the 1000 year-old demon running around looking and acting like a small child whilst barely cl-thed isn't born from genuine creativity and interest in the character as a person.. The point is what their body looks like. As several people have pointed out, the example of that demon lady's "clothes" (If you can call them that) being sensical because Hot Weather™ is actually wildly inaccurate, which just undermines the idea of it being a legitimate diegetic explanation entirely. I'm sure that was just a mistake on Explanation Point's end, but still. There's really no reason to believe that it's anything other than an excuse to include nasty crap while pretending we live in a world where "nuh-uh, she's actually a 60000 year-old vampire ;:-J" magically means we're not looking at what is clearly meant to be viewed as a hyper-s-xualized child.

​@@robinl7415 I'm also reminded of the french cartoon Wakfu, where the protagonist Yugo is one of those species that ages really slowly. However it's not the same trope considering that he's 12 at the start of the show, but he has to deal with the dread that he'll continue looking like a child while his friends grow up. It gets even worse when he falls in love but thinks it can't work because it'll eventually look like an adult is dating a child.

Most people don’t like being campist tho If they hear there’s a good anime, watch it, and like parts of it but think loli shit is weird, it’s not like it’s exactly fair to say “just shouldn’t have watched it. Skill issue” y’know?

But that's boring!

@@foggy8298So true. I liked Made in Abyss but can’t stomach the constant child nudity. I stopped watching, but it’s a shame that it was good outside of that

​@@theshire9173 there's an appropriate russian proverb, "a spoonful of tar ruins a barrel of honey"

I was looking this up a while back. It’s possible to show playing violent video games leads to either a small or non-existent change right after a game is played, it’s basically impossible to test whether these games increase violent behaviour over time. There’s no way to make sure there’s a control, nor to blind it. Retrospective studies can’t prove or disprove a causative effect. We do know that repeated exposure to violent imagery dulls the reaction of the viewer, but that’s… kinda obvious.

@@theMoporter I probably put it poorly: many studies have come to the conclusion that there is no evidence that video games cause violence. I was using the idea of "video games cause violence", which has never been proven, in the way of "lolis cause paedo behaviour." I don't blame the media, in fact, it may even be an outlet, as lolis aren't real, thus no actual person will be hurt.

Another actually not garbage example I can think of of this is Monster Girl from Invincible. She's not 1000, she's a 24 year old stuck in a child's body and she has a lot of difficulty navigating the world while stuck like that.