This week's poll was suggested by jacob66. Delicate topic on lolis and shotas.

You can submit poll ideas here
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: If your mind and body didn't deteriorate, how long would you want to live?
Choices:
Less than 50 years - votes: 235 (4.3%)
50 years - votes: 70 (1.3%)
80 years - votes: 174 (3.2%)
100 years - votes: 217 (4%)
150 years - votes: 149 (2.7%)
200 years - votes: 199 (3.7%)
500 years - votes: 131 (2.4%)
1000 years - votes: 105 (1.9%)
Until life gets boring - votes: 3024 (55.6%)
Forever - votes: 1131 (20.8%)
There were 5435 total votes.
The poll ended: June 25th, 2022 10:06am PDT

This is of course assuming there are no other weird conditions. I recently listened to a podcast where they discussed if they would accept the method of immortality in Pirates of the Caribbean

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The first isn't really an excuse, though? If a person with a 100-year-old mind, memories and personality just happens to look like a child, it seems pretty inhumane to deny them an adult romantic/sexual relationship with a willing partner just because their looks make you uncomfortable. Depends on how the story deals with it, obviously, but when written properly, this kind of scenario is basically not loli/shota, imo.

That's actually all I wanted to say. I voted for number 3 because it's the only kind of loli/shota I've read (once, when I was naive young kid who wanted to say I've tried everything at least once), but I typically avoid this genre like the plague, and options 2-4 all seem equally terrible to me.

My favorite excuse is "They're an adult that regressed in age." It just sounds like a lie.
It also reminds me of when people say someone has "an old soul."

"He is F** agent under cover, so that's to think as a criminal."

They're not human (elf, vampire, etc). Specifically, the She's actually a 1000 year old dragon meme Nintendo of all people cursed us with. You can theoretically make a story about a pedophile work, Lolita 1955 is actually good, but these 1000-year-old whatever the fucks are an assault on the human mind and storytelling.

What a miracle Please Save My Earth is. One of the most miraculous thread-the-needle moments in all of manga. Not shotacon, I know, but that isn´t the question. The male lead is 5 years younger than even what Otoyomegatari got away with.

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Don't see why you would need an excuse. They're just drawings.

I dunno. They're all bad excuses.
I chose number 4, though.

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They're actually older than they look.

I mean it's just lazy, mostly for "lolis" the author just wanted to put an underage character because children doing adult stuff they found it funny or to sexuslise a certain character.

I mean I've read stories where they manage to use some of the other excuses well and in certain scenarios I can find it plausible to be carried out, but can't think of a "realistic" scenario where they have to use that one (except maybe human experiments in a scifi setting).

What I find repulsive is how underage girls are a Japanese aesthetical/sexual canon. Without it there are plenty of paedophiles, normalising it has no sense if the actual thing is illegal. It might be a consequence of Asian culture mystifying virginity or wanting the forbidden. I don't know ... I never put much thought to why and how that the age of consent there remains low nationally and then goes up in each region (or something like that). It makes no sense to me how that inconsistency persists.

For me, desensitization to loli/shota in manga and anime was bound to happen after over a decade of reading manga.
What I cannot get over is the age of consent argument. Namely human trash that attempt to justify their attraction to 13 year olds by unironically citing Japanese age of consent. Like bro, you live in California, should I call the police or something 🤣

I’ve never read any manga in this genre, but I’m going to vote for ‘they’re not human’ because I’m overall annoyed when authors try to use ‘they’re not human’ as an excuse for anything.

Lolita is a great book, but Humbert Humbert knows he’s trash and the characters meet a miserable end, which is how it’s been embraced by a mainstream audience IMO.

Lol at the 4th option. On second thought, it might actually the best one. Atleast it's not trying to hide or excuse itself. I abhor the entire concept anyways, but trying to justify it makes it worse for me.

So the full context of the original question is:
"Best/worst excuse for having a loli/shota as a romantic partner in a manga/anime"

As someone who likes lolis, I want to see more lolis in anime/manga in every possible way, romantic or not.

I want more age-defying lolis. I want more non-human lolis. I want more age-regressing lolis. And I want more young lolis.

It always saddens me how the loli, who is obviously always best girl never wins in any harem setting. Lolis deserve to be loved too. Preferably (but not necessarily exclusively) in wholesome ways.

I'm a firm believer in free speech. When it comes to fiction, there should be no limits and no need for excuses. Adding these traits to make a 'legal loli' shouldn't be for the sake of having 'legal loli' but because these traits make the characters more interesting.

Things like 'tiny senpai' or excessive intelligence for supposed age have their own appeal and don't necessarily have to be seen as 'an excuse for loli'.

While I'm not really into shota, I'll take the same stance as loli:
Everything is welcome. No excuse necessary. Add the traits if they add value to the characters.

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So to answer the question, the worst excuse is one that does not work within the context of its own story.

I won't be voting on those poll options because it's meaningless. Every story is different and different things work best in different contexts.

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Detective Conan is a prime example of how these traits can have their own value rather than being an excuse for shota/loli. The whole premise of the story is about forcing someone who is way too smart to be a child into the body of a child and him having to balance using his adult intelligence vs pretending not to have it. It is not a story about a shota dating a high school girl (though that is technically happening in this story as a consequence of this situation.)

Last edited by Koneko_Nyaa at 9:52 pm, Jun 27 2022

I mean, Konata's dad in lucky star is like the pinnacle example of "these authors know what they're doing".

If a story seriously tackled Highlander Syndrome, Turner Syndrome, or Kallmann Syndrome (the former of which appears to outright slow aging, and the other two that just affect onset of puberty), and the romantic implications of that, it'd be fine.

Instead, most manga-ka that want to draw "legal lolis" just do so, with a "hahah I drew her to look 12 but she's actually 20, I promise!". So no, the 1st one is definitely just an excuse to draw lolis as romantic interests, most of the time.

With that said, obviously the last one is the worst since it's the only one in which you're depicting a clearly pedophilic relationship. Kodomo no Jikan rings a bell. It even got an anime😕

Lol I think this goes to show just how desensitized weebs are to this. I think if you were to show like an average person some loli/shota-adult romances, they'd be like "hey what the fuck" regardless of the reason

But as a weeb... I'm not really sure. The worst REASON is the last one. But as an EXCUSE, I respect that the person showing the manga to me knows it is objectively weird and doesn't try to overexplain or justify it. There's no winning that argument. So in a sense "They're actually older than they look" is the worst excuse. It's not like people are into loli/shota because they are adults or magical. It's cause they look like kids

Last edited by Ceiye at 11:54 am, Jun 29 2022

this is a bad poll

I don't like lolisho but it's fiction. as long as they aren't hurting real children idgaf. I have a rough enough time dealing with the purity police in western fandom. They're already censoring shit for western release, just stop. Don't like it? Don't read it. as simple as that. (though yes, I agree they shouldn't put it everywhere in open eyes in Akihabara.)


...
okay, with more nuance, it actually depends for me. Nowi in Fire Emblem pisses me off because she's "supposed" to be a 1000 y/o dragon but she literally acts twelve. But if it's like, Eva in Negima, I don't really care, because she actually acts older. And then there are the "kids" in anime that go around killing people lol. Not my hobby, but I wouldn't care/judge. Most wota like that are only interested in 2D anime charas and don't care about 3D women, bc usually they grew up being ostracized/bullied/judged by their peers irl. Japanese fans, anyway. As they say in Densha Otoko, "anime fans don't commit crimes because they have anime they need to watch".
And then there are the western fans telling each other to kill themselves because they drew Venti lewds. (And I'm like. Get a life.)

Last edited by Baniita at 1:02 pm, Jun 29 2022

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