How did the lolicon genre begin in anime/manga?

Question

I have always wondered how the Japanese got the idea of making animated productions including underage girls and the obsession with them. When did it start? Did the idea originate in Japan? Was it welcomed by the actual anime public?

Answer 1

Appears to have started in the 1970's, but over time the definition got a little cloudy and changed from being pedophilia to more of an obsession. There was also controversy similar to violence in video games linked to violence in real life, where one party suggested that lolicon could fuel sex crimes toward children, while the other party maintained that if anything it decreased the chances by letting people live out their fantasies through manga/anime.

There is a lot of referenced material here.

Lolicon (ロリコン?), also romanised as lolikon or rorikon,is a Japanese portmanteau of the phrase "Lolita complex". In Japan, the term describes an attraction to underage girls (whether prepubescent, pubescent, or post-pubescent)or an individual with such an attraction. It is also commonly used when referring to lolicon manga or lolicon anime, a genre of manga and anime wherein childlike female characters are often depicted in an "erotic-cute" manner (also known as ero kawaii), in an art style reminiscent of the shōjo manga (girls' comics) style. Outside Japan, "lolicon" is in less common usage and usually refers to the genre. The phrase is a reference to Vladimir Nabokov's book Lolita, in which a middle-aged man becomes sexually obsessed with a twelve-year-old girl. It was first used in Japan in the 1970s and quickly became used to describe erotic dojinshi (amateur comics) portrayals of young girls. Laws have been enacted in various countries, including in Japan, which regulate explicit content featuring children or childlike characters. Parent and citizens groups in Japan have organized to work toward stronger controls and stricter laws governing lolicon manga and other similar media. Critics say that the lolicon genre contributes to actual sexual abuse of children, while others say that there is no evidence for this claim. Studies of lolicon fans state that lolicon fans are attracted to an aesthetic of cuteness rather than the age of the characters, and that collecting lolicon represents a disconnect from society

Answer 2

Adding onto Angelo's answer, the rise of the trend seems to coincide with the rise of idol culture in Japan.

The idol phenomenon began during the early 1970s, reflecting a boom in Japan for the musician Sylvie Vartan in the French film Cherchez l'idole in 1963, with Japanese title (アイドルを探せ Aidoru wo sagase) in November 1964.

The term came to be applied to any cute actress or female singer, or any cute male singer. Teenage girls, mostly between 14 and 16, and teenage males, mostly between 15 and 18, began rising to stardom. One in particular, Momoe Yamaguchi, was a huge star until her marriage and retirement in 1980.

Idols dominated the pop music scene in the 1980s, and this period is known as the "Golden Age of Idols in Japan".

Perhaps somewhat as a result of this, kawaii-ness soon came into fashion - especially with schoolgirls. Schoolgirls are commonly fetishized in the sleazier section of society anyway, so this could be where the trope slipped into anime's fanservice.

It's not really a definitive answer, but I'm of the opinion that television reflects society, rather than life reflecting television (although, there is some of that) - So I would say that it came from the gradual shift in attitudes in Japan, rather than a new idea that was introduced to anime.

And I suppose it wasn't too much of a shift either as many shows would have had young female characters already because they were targetted at a younger audience and it was just a case of moving them to more "mature" shows, which by their nature contained fanservice.

Some recommended reading:

• Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential: How Teenage Girls Made a Nation Cool By Brian Ashcraft

• Routledge Handbook of Sexuality Studies in East Asia

Answer 3

As far as animation goes it all started in 1984 with the release of two different works called "Lolita Anime" that had nothing to do with each other.

The first of them also counts as the first ever pornographic anime to be released. Some will claim that the honor should go to the 1970 release Cleopatra, but if you watch it you'll see that there isn't really anything pornographic about it.

That, and it led to the creation of the anime porn industry.

The reason for that is that at a few years earlier it was found out that anime fans would buy VHS releases intended for renting at prices of over $100 for 30min worth of animation. That was around the time VHS became a thing everyone could afford. And branching out to porn was the natural progression of that.

As to why the characters featured were underage, the most convincing thing I've heard was about how a law defining obscene material was written. It was in such a way that the defining factor was pubic hair. By depicting children instead of adults they could skirt around that law.