The Thousand-Year Loli and Philosophical War

[@Irontreebark48]

This was ... an okay video. As far as your aim to engage people i think you've done it cause you made me, a long time lurker, post this comment. I think where the video misses is through the framing of the loli question as it positions the diegetic 'watsonian' perspective as having a generally equal weight to the non-diegetic 'doylesian' pov. I would argue that it doesn't since these worlds aren't real and both sides aim to adress completely different things. They are -for the most part- conscious choices by the author. The critique of lolis is a critique of authorial intent whereas, the diegetic response assumes the critique is aimed at the text itself. This argument is very much also extended to critiques of sexism racism and in fact, relating to your blue lock video, fascism where you encouraged viewers to think of how elements of a text lend themselves to the normalisation of certain political structures. I think to frame the arguments in such a binary is stupid since most people fall in the middle and dismisses genuine criticisms of the sexualisation of child characters, i don't think many people had a problem with sprite from the celestials since the text is inherently aware of the implications of making a 1000year old character or whatever have the body of a child, whereas some authors and watchers are less critical and aware of the implications. I also think its interesting that you should bring up authorial intent as i think there is something to say about death of the author or lack thereof. I dont think that viewing these texts in isolation of the author as seperate to the reader is helpful, since para text and discourse surrounding media and authors influences how you consume a text. The fact that there is a trend (presumably, i dont really watch anime) around the sexualisation of child coded characters also influences perception of the trope.I would say im generally in the anti loli camp but still i think simple division of literay criticism into such a binary is unhelpful. I don't think its fair to condemn all instances of lolis. I guess (though i really doubt) that there are instances of genuine artistic intent asides from simply being a nonce. Edit: I think the fact that these characters are often very immature is another critique of the watsonian argument since this is more logically consistent with a doylesian perspective - it is probably not logically consistent to have a 1000 year old character act like a 10 year old especially without serious contrivance that probable further betrays a less than pure authorial intent.

[@theMoporter]

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?

[@Irontreebark48]

​@@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

[@Greenomb]

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.

[@Irontreebark48]

​@@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

[@Plake1]

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.

[@Zoomy]

Fun fact: people in desert environments don't wear next to nothing all the time. Quite the opposite, they tend to favour clothes that cover most of the body but allow lots of air to flow.

[@theMoporter]

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.

[@FD87]

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

[@Clickstop24]

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?

[@emilianocichanowski7894]

its fition Zoomy

[@quantummechanized2975]

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

[@dylankent9644]

The intro has me cackling, that's some genuinely good song writing.

[@alexandrudorries3307]

It’s certainly a strong candidate for a KZbin short.

[@Spectacular769]

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.

[@Quroe_]

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

[@devonbotney2762]

@@Spectacular769 I want it on my spotify playlist lmao

[@hoggo3789]

Peak introduction.

[@10puppyluv]

Bisky from HunterxHunter always feels like a bit of an odd addition to this conversation. Like yes i get that due to her transformation she does sorta fall into this category. But i feel like a key distinction here is that Bisky acts very much like an adult especially when compared to Gon and Killua who are the people she's primarily interacting with. She very much reads like a petite adult woman and as a petite adult woman i appreciate that a lot.

[@gliscorpropagandaaccount1764]

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.

[@Birthday888]

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

[@upg5147]

​@@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.

[@upg5147]

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.

[@Flufferpup]

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.

[@LimeyLassen]

My stance has always been "You're allowed to do it, I'm just confused about why you're doing it".

[@sumicmusic]

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

[@chukyuniqul]

@@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.

[@shineyydesigns7696]

​@@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

[@riynu7774]

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

[@theshire9173]

@@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

[@sentretsparkle]

The thing about the mha costuming thing is that it doesn't swing both ways. Bakugo's quirk is generating explosions from the nitroglycerin in his sweat, yet he doesn't need to expose a lot of skin to make the most of his quirk. He's been shown wearing full-body outfits that even cover his hands (where he usually generates the most explosions) and it doesn't hinder his ability the way it supposedly would for the female characters.

[@aidanquiett668]

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

[@SpoopySquid]

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

[@LAnite430]

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.

[@ZekeStaright]

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.

[@normal6483]

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.

[@THEDantefromDMC]

I think what bothers me most about the 1000 year old loli is that, in most cases, there is no focus on her perspective. I believe there is a genuinely compelling narrative to be told about an adult knowing they have the body of a child, yet still wanting to pursue relationships. It’s a dilemma of “if I find someone willing to be with me, what does that say about them?”. I find most anime and manga approach this trope from an uninspired, morally dubious angle, focusing more on the body and sexuality of the thousand year old loli rather than her personhood. Of course, her sexuality can be explored in interesting ways, however solely focusing on her body is very telling about the priorities of the author as well as the fans. tl:dr If the 1000 year old loli is characterized by only her body, then the author and viewer probably care less about the fact that she has the mind of an adult, and more that she has the body of a child.

[@angeldude101]

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.

[@theMoporter]

You would probably enjoy Baccano!

[@moltenboyo2163]

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

[@emilymoran9152]

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.

[@MonkAndra]

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...

[@jatorihicks5582]

I think that the reason why many people have a problem with that type of character is because they are sexualized. Many people would be fine with the trope if the 1000 year old loli wasnt put in sexual situations.

[@Pablo360able]

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.

[@TheThunderbirdRising]

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

[@kbbd6999]

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

[@theshire9173]

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

[@Lucien_M]

​​@@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).

[@maromania7]

It’s like if I saw someone knocking on my door holding a baseball bat. There are many situations where that’s fine! Maybe it’s Halloween and they're in costume, maybe it’s a neighbor asking if they can get the ball out of my yard. There are perfectly valid reasons with innocent and positive experiences that can stem from it. but I will still ask things like “what’s around them” “who’s with them” and “is it 3 in the morning and they’re masked.” The answers are going to influence whether I trust this person and their intentions.

[@gratox1730]

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.

[@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece]

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?"

[@ambufan3242]

​@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece nah, they are fine

[@juan-ij1le]

@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece I got lost in the metaphor

[@perfectpasta3155]

Ehhh to me I don’t think there is any justifiable explanation or questions you can answer to make attraction to a character depicted as a minor ever okay

[@welcometomylives]

Anyway, something I wanted to point out, your example of 'the hot desert sun' as an explanation for why a character might dress in a bikini or the like is a very common one, used in many pieces of media. On it's face, it SEEMS to make sense, many people associate heat with beaches and beaches with swimsuits, and people put on more clothing in the winter so they associate less clothing with summer. But it is, in fact, entirely the exact opposite of how people would dress in that environment; take it from someone who lives in a desert, dressing in a bikini all the time is going to get you sunburnt at best and skin cancer at worst, and even if you're a magical demon lord that can avoid that, it won't actually help you keep cool. Actual people that live in deserts wear fully covered, loose flowing garments to promote airflow, which actually cools you down more than a bikini ever will. As such, it makes the 'diagetic' argument weaker and exposes the non-diagetic argument more if people actually attempt to use it that way, so I found it quite interesting you used it as an example of something the diagetic reader might think of.

[@tentiapoe]

Thank you for explaining so thoroughly!

[@iconofthicc6086]

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

[@PhoenicopterusR]

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

[@Utrilus]

Realism is very boring most of the time.

[@bobjones2959]

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.

[@folgerkelley2715]

I think Watsonian arguments just mostly fall flat when in discussion of tropes because they’re *tropes* they *can* only exist because the work is part of a larger genre that exists outside of itself. If there WAS only one anime where there were sexually active 1000 year old little girls - it would be a huge meme - but it wouldn’t be nearly as suspect because it WOULD be way more contextual and specific and not “that thing that is done slightly differently by several other anime” and thus way less indicative of greater cultural dynamic, in the same way youre more likely to see someone day “Evangelion really changed the way mecha and child-world-savers are written in anime” than they are to say “evangelion really changed the way scenes of teenage boys masturbating over their peer’s comatose bodies are written in anime”

[@zyaicob]

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

[@otto_jk]

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.

[@legoboy468]

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.

[@Marcu3s]

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

[@theblasblas]

So what? None of that means that the author or viewers are predator. Really lolis are justifiedore from a Doylist perspective than a Watsonian one. Not every story has some in-world justifcatiom for the loli, sometimes that IS just a 9 year old girl. All depictions, however, can be explained by giving the Doylist reasoning that the author is simply treating that characters as objects of the imagination and thus it does not reflect his tastes or morality. Or even if it does reflect his tastes, then it is only his tastes insofar as it applies to fictional objects.

[@robinl7415]

For me, I think a big part of the issue is normalization. Speaking as someone who spent a lot of time in (Overwhelmingly male) weeb circles while presenting as female, I can absolutely say that some guys--especially as teenagers--will look to anime as an indicator of what real life people (Women especially) are like, and what's morally okay or not. Nerd communities in general can be really bad about this stuff, and I've dealt with an insane amount of sexualization and harassment even when I was a minor by adult men, and nobody ever did anything about it. I do ascribe to the philosophy of being inherently suspicious of authorial intent with situations like these, but I also feel like the normalization of objectifying and sexualizing specifically young girls is a necessary part of this conversation that can't be overlooked. As others have pointed out, this is not an issue that comes up very often at all for male characters, and when it does it's usually for the sake of a male power fantasy where they can be gross and predatory while having a built-in get out of jail free card by virtue of their age or appearance. Weeb communities are EXTREMELY hostile to women (Thus pushing them out, further re-enforcing the communities turning into circlejerks of men talking *about* women based purely off of anime and their own biases), and (most of) these people do interact with other human beings--including women--in society, and that's going on have consequences. I'm not arguing that we should have legal enforcement where if a character looks too young the author gets sent to jail or anything, but I *do* think heavy social pressures against the trend and scrutiny are warranted when, to be frank, we *know* why this trope appears over and over again, and it fosters toxic, unhealthy, misogynistic, predatory mindsets that have a reverberating effect on real-life human beings. Having to just sit there at 16 while male "friends" talk to one another about what they would do to you if they came in and saw you tied to a bed really leaves you pretty jaded about the way some men view women as first and foremost existing for their pleasure, not as human beings, and seeing people bend over backwards to explain why an in-universe justification means that their attraction to a character that is clearly meant to look like a child isn't weird... Doesn't really help with that. Mind, I'm not saying AT ALL that everyone who argues in defense of the "creative freedom" side of things is attracted to these characters, but it comes up (Including in this very comment section!) frequently enough that I can't just pretend that isn't a factor for a lot of people. Once you hear someone utter the phrase "irl loli" once, it isn't really possible to view this as a purely immaterial discussion of authorial intent vs diegesis anymore.

[@utubinator]

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

[@capdyn735]

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.

[@robinl7415]

@@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.

[@robinl7415]

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.

[@DotTiuri]

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)

[@crowlowin4330]

People so often act like “people can read and enjoy whatever they want and that doesn’t make them a good or bad person” and “the way media reflects and influences reality is important and worth analysis and criticism” are two contradictory statements when they’re just not

[@bobjones2959]

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?

[@ohnoma]

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

[@alecwoodard9464]

@@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.

[@EyesDontCry]

To me the answer is that both are true, but often times people will assume the truth of the latter argument without stating factual reasoning. So for example we have a story with this loli character (1000 year old or not) and somebody proposes "why did the author do this, clearly there's a reason they did it" with the clear implication being the author likes children. My issue with this is that yes it's obviously true the author had a reason, but you don't know their reasoning, you don't know if it's because they like kids or not, you are just presupposing that's true based on how YOU as an individual feel, and not considering that they may have a different perspective than you. Like unless you've got some sort of proof of them being wierd with real kids or saying something wierd about real kids, it's a pointless exercise to speculate. You are free to do it yourself and judge them in your own mind, deciding whether to personally support them or not, but to me it's a bit out of line to spread such speculation as though it were fact.

[@AroundTheBlockAgain]

@@bobjones2959 How do we prevent normalizing bad things? Easy. Teach kids and teens about things like consent - that nobody has a right to touch their body without their consent / an important health care reason - and then FOLLOW THROUGH WITH THAT FOR THEIR WHOLE CHILDHOOD. Also, putting content warnings on adult stories would help young kids and their parents avoid wandering into adult stories for adult audiences who already know The Bad Things in the story aren't supposed to be normal (and so adults who don't want to read those stories don't accidentally pick them up either). At a certain point, we have to trust that our audience knows sexual assault is bad, like we know murder and such is bad. We can and should still talk about "why is there so much sexual assault in these stories" the same way we can talk about "why death always the solution in these stories" or "why are all the women in these het movie couples saying 'no' but the man assumes they mean 'yes' and then everything is great"... but we don't need to witch-hunt writers / fans who enjoy / hate those stories, or make unsubstantiated assumptions about them. Both statements are true.

[@ScrubbinOpti]

I consider myself heavily on the side of "why did you put that naked child in your story, take it out" But I have to agree that the much more interesting argument is the battle between if the author's biases have to be taken into account, or is death of the author all encompassing. It's an interesting discussion in anime. An anime discussion... IF YOU WANT TO JOIN IN ON THE MONTHLY ANIME DISCUSSIONS, YOU CAN GO TO PATREON/EXPLANATIONPOINT

[@Kekkai_]

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.

[@upg5147]

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.

[@airplanes_aren.t_real]

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

[@bobjones2959]

@@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.

[@upg5147]

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

[@christophercombs41]

Not gonna lie, that song was amazing!

[@jossaccountofmadnessandmem1844]

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

[@muhammadabdullahhanif8860]

Wow, your opening song is fabulous. I cannot fathom how much effort you put to create and sing that song.

[@airplanes_aren.t_real]

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

[@Danielle-tn1qi]

Speaking as an English Major when considering both Doylist and Watsonian perspectives, I believe there is also another interesting point to consider, which is that when analyzing and critiquing media you actually have to keep 3 things in mind: The Author, The Intended Audience AND the Historical and Cultural Context in which the work was produced. Both Doylist and Watsonian perspectives (as well as most criticism) tends to ignore that 3rd one, because it requires the audience to do a little more homework than many wish to do when enjoying your typical anime/book/tv show/movie. SO I'd actually be quite interested to see what the Historical and Cultural Context of the Thousand-year Old Loli is. What sparked its creation? Where is it's first appearance in media? Was it a specific reaction to something that happened in a broader context of Japanese society? I don't have the answers to these questions I just think its interesting.

[@ilovethelegend]

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

[@Danielle-tn1qi]

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

[@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.

[@Danielle-tn1qi]

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

[@danmakuSuki]

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.

[@WitchLunaEstrella]

As a 4’11’’ 30-year old woman, my perspective on the thousand-year-old loli trope is…I suppose complicated might be the easiest word to go with. On the one hand, I get why people find it weird and questionable when stories use this trope, but as someone who’s struggled with feeling like an adult even now, especially in the context of sexual relationships thanks to some unsavoury things in my past, it’s almost kind of nice to see women who don’t fit the idea of an “adult” body type still being acknowledged psychologically as adults capable of giving consent (granted, it’s not exactly the same since I have quite the ample chest to make up for my lack of height, but my chest has been large since my early/mid teens so from my perspective, it still doesn’t really mark me as an adult even if other people might make that assumption). I think people, even the ones who say the trope is justified, tend to ignore the women who actually live like this and have to fight harder to be seen as desirable and capable of consenting due to circumstances outside of their control. It’s a messy issue with no elegant answer, but because it’s an issue that makes most people uncomfortable, it tends to be cut short before that perspective can even be considered.

[@HellecticMojo]

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.

[@shaun7142]

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.

[@HellecticMojo]

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.

[@normal6483]

@@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.

[@WitchLunaEstrella]

@@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.

[@maromania7]

On one hand, I’m fine with them being an adult, with getting into a relationship, I know people who carried more childlike proportions well into their adult life. My mother was 24 and people kept thinking she was a YOUNG teenager, Dad was treated as a predator constantly despite them having been dating since they WERE teenagers. This is something that does just happen in real life, and I know how INCREDIBLY frustrating it is for those people. This is something that CAN be done very well, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. But on the other hand, I may look with some scrutiny depending on the depiction and the person’s reaction. Are they acting like a child as well? How much sexualization is there, is it more than other characters, the primary draw, etc. And enjoyer, why are you interested in that? Is it the character, the concept, the body, the way they're acting? There are plenty of valid answers to all those questions, good answers even, but this is one of the few where there are wrong ones. and the younger they look, the more the question is raised. There's nuance here. Hell, "This is 100% a valid and wonderful case of it done right" and "I do not trust you, the specific viewer" aren't even exclusive. The reverse is true too. And this is of course assuming there's sexualization, because otherwise no issues at all. One of my favorite books growing up was "The Thief Lord," and *MAJOR SPOILERS* the villains were trying to find the fountain of youth to reclaim lost childhood. With the discovery that even if you WERE to de-age yourself you can't go back to being young mentally. More like a 50 year old loli at the end there, but her inclusion didn't instantly make things an issue, you know? if the book had gone on further to explore it, it would've still been fine, since the woman wasn't acting like a child.

[@Birthday888]

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.

[@chukyuniqul]

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.

[@DefaultFlame]

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.

[@Birthday888]

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

[@Atle-ez7ir]

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.

[@tyrant-den884]

Now the the interesting about the demon queen of Mushoku Tensei is that the main character does in fact find her cringe, but not lolis who are actually 12; those are fine, especially if he's related.

[@tyrant-den884]

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

[@tyrant-den884]

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

[@danielkells6021]

My stance on the Loli/Shota question has always been "Keep it to solely fictional characters & I'm willing to just let bygones be bygones, cross that line however, feet first woodchipper"

[@nacligang]

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

[@Mahlak_Mriuani_Anatman]

Whats a FF woodchipper

[@alecwoodard9464]

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

[@alecwoodard9464]

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

[@connorgrynol9021]

@@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?

[@Rynamony]

I guess the thing is that I dislike the assumption that what someone enjoys in fiction is in any way indicative of their real life attitudes, it feels too close to saying a thought crime is a thing, so if I find that someone enjoys reading or writing the most fucked up thing you can imagine, my general reaction would be "You do you" Haaaaving said that, there IS a pattern in anime circles where people have some really fucked up real-life attitudes towards real girls and real children, which is obviously bad, and there's no denying that has an effect on the media that's made and that the media that's made also has an effect on the community. So I'm in this weird place where I don't like judging the individual creators, but still disaprove of the trend they contribute to...

[@normal6483]

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.

[@alecwoodard9464]

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.

[@normal6483]

@@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.)

[@BigMeem]

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

[@alecwoodard9464]

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

[@kamuyking551]

this is why I've always said that it's good to be able to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in your head at the same time. at various points, I've heard both sides of this argument coming out of my own mouth, and it's always purely based on who I'm talking to, and how heavily they lean to one side of this argument, or the other. my own perspective tends to be more of a 50/50 comingling between "media doesn't have to be moral to exist" and "the author's depiction of certain subject matter is setting off alarm bells for me" without the need to abandon one in favor of the other. and this means that, when I see someone trying to hand wave the idea that the author's intent matters at all, or that anyone should care what certain audiences are finding indulgent about the story, I'm just as liable to argue for the Doyalist perspective as I am to argue for the Watsonian perspective when people start decrying a piece of art like Made in Abyss, to the point where they're calling for it's erasure. I generally think that adult people deserve the opportunity to consume media... we each deserve the chance to know a story for ourselves, and make our own decisions about how we feel. but at the same time, if the feelings we get off of a piece of media are massively uncomfortable, we deserve to be able to respond to the work with those thoughts and feelings. I think the biggest question is... what course of action do people want to see come out of this discussion? do the Watsonian leaning people want everybody to just pipe down about this aspect of the fiction, and stop pestering them about indulging in the exact thing that everyone else finds kinda gross for valid reasons? do the Doyalists want to cancel this piece of media? boycott the author? stop the work from being widely distributed? I think either would be extreme. if lolis are consistently your thing, to a concerning degree, then the price you pay for this interest is that you're probably gonna hear about it. the discussion around this topic is appropriate. and on the flip side, if you're calling for the censorship of a thing that you consumed and didn't like... the answer is no. you got to consume the thing and make a decision about how you felt. you will allow others to do the same. even if they don't agree with you, you have to deal with that like an adult. having a discussion about this topic is appropriate. and that's why this conversation will never end. because ultimately, discussion is the appropriate course of action. if a thing is going to be notably uncomfortable, but it cannot be prevented from existing, then talking about it is the only way we'll know how it's impacting our peers, and the culture at large.

[@molluscumlore]

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

[@salmonandsoup]

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.

[@kamuyking551]

@@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.

[@alecwoodard9464]

​@@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

[@salmonandsoup]

@@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.

[@magicalgirlmel3289]

Like many, I fall into the middle. I'm someone who isn't going to tell you that you can't do that in your story, but at the same time, I am going to roll my eyes at this archetype popping up YET AGAIN gavel in hand ready to judge the individual instance creepy or not. And like, this is something that you can do interesting things with. There is something it can say about worldbuilding. I just think the issue is that so often it simply doesn't. A character is constructed that is 1000 years old, supposedly, but not only does she look like a child, she behaves like one too. Personally, I wish we would get more cases where it is something like the character of Claudia in Interview with a Vampire. She was turned into an unchanging vampire at the age of 5, but over the decades that follows that, her mind matures while her body does not. She grows up mentally and emotionally, but nothing about her changes physically. She grows to resent that, becomes upset, gets angry that because of her vampirism she will never become a woman physically, her body will never reflect that she is indeed an adult. It takes the 70 year old int he body of a 5 year old and DOES SOMETHING with it. The story treats her as though she has lived all that time and doesn't just slap it in place for the sake of plausible deniability so that things can be done with a character that, by all metrics aside from the numerical age assigned to them, is basically a child. And I do think there is something to be said for the fact that so many time the age of characters in anime is indeed very arbitrary. Like, the characters in MHA are in high school rather than college because the target demographic for a shounen action series like that is teenagers and a high school character is going to feel more relatable to them than one arbitrarily a handful of years older and in the end it makes little difference in how the story as a whole plays out (aside from the constant question as to why teenagers are somehow more competant than adult professionals). However, I don't think that is something that usually can apply to the 1000 year old loli, as the shows that these show up in are not generally targeted towards 8 year old children who need a character to look/act like them for relatability purposes...

[@thedancingpikachu]

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.

[@awesomechainsaw]

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.

[@ArbitraryOutcome]

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.

[@Dragonwarrior125]

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.

[@MaxRavenclaw]

@@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).

[@mutedknght]

An important factor in this argument is that, often, the "narrator" or the "camera" is a character within the work as much as we like to be detached from it (and by this I dont mean someone like watson from sherlock or nick from the great gatsby), and within that work where the camera or narrator focuses is meant to be indicative of where the viewer ought focus and exist within the story. This is where criticisms of media like "Male/Female Gaze" come in to play as it will immediately indicate what sort of perspective the view inhabits, and if the camera or narrator of a piece of media consistently takes the view of sexualizing and perceiving these characters in sexual situations while also infantalizing them/removing the agency of these supposedly deeply mature and powerful characters, it directly undermines the world building and suspension of disbelief and almost forces a doylist reading of the text in these moments. Hence the meme: "Don't you think camera angles in anime can be kinda weird?"

[@ydahshet9428]

(before I watch the video, I am stating my argument and will edit after if any new insights come up) my argument has always, and forever been "do they ACT like a child?" if it's an adult shapeshifter or someone with a medical condition, then logicly they should not act like a kid. Have them be a wine connesoiur, make em stressed about finding work or doing taxes, carry peperspray and a taser for self-defence, and if they are a shapeshifter. Highlight that fact! have em shapeshift their romantic partners age when being flirty, a more aged and wisened look while at work, and small mode for curling up on the couch with the cat reading a book or shapeshift smaller right before movie night so the TV looks bigger. There are a thousand proper ways to do this and I have never ever seen it done RIGHT.

[@IAMA1]

Monogatari and Re:Zero do it right

[@Jownbrownisekai]

@@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…

[@ydahshet9428]

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.

[@Harleopet]

"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.

[@upg5147]

​@@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.

[@bubblefishy7]

What an absolute banger of an intro song, 10/10. Absolutely amazing, bravo. You can definitely start more vids with these sick tunes

[@allan526alec428]

I think a major issue is one of the suspension of disbelief, this trope usually is so contrived that it stretches the veil of the story so thin that you start to see holes in it, the reason that no one questions the in universe reasons as to why katniss volunteered as tribute is because based on everything we know it makes sense, where as in the 1000 year loli trope the explanation usually has 3-4 layers of contrivance and new lore shoehorned in to the explanation to make it seem ok. and when the author does that they can stretch suspension of disbelief so thin that we are left staring at the creation of the story and wondering why it "had" to be crafted this way. I tend to abide by "death of the author" or in terms of this video, I have a more "watsonian" perspective, but when viewing the story through a critical lens, when a good story has a sudden moment of bad and contrived storytelling, it's important to examine what might have caused a sudden quality shift like that, and if the answer is "an explanation to make an objectively gross thing slightly less gross" then the author wouldn't be compromising their vision to change how this character looks, but rather is compromising their artistic merit in order to include this trope. The fact that this is a trope at all should be cause for questioning the environment and cultural ideals around when these works were created. I don't think this trope is bad because I think the author's intent is the most important thing in a story, I think its bad because beyond being morally objectionable it causes a story to become more contrived with more confusing and irrational world building and lore. if a non-1000 year loli character had the same level of contrivance in order to explain their existence it would be universally accepted as poor world building, the fact that people only rush to defend it when it is a thinly veiled attempt to sexualize children should be raising alarm bells in everyone's heads. I've enjoyed shows that have used this trope, and have overlooked it when I like the rest of the story, but in none of those instances do i think it was necessary or made the story better. I'm not saying anyone's a pedophile because they watched a show that used this trope, but the fact that it is a trope at all should cause the community to speak out against its continued use, because it drives people away from the community, makes stories worse, and is objectively at least a little gross.

[@Pablo360able]

This is a very minor, irrelevant point, but it ties into a larger gripe I have with Online Media Analysis And Criticism(tm) so I'm gonna say it anyway. Your example of a Doylist explanation, "Katniss Everdeen takes her sister's place at the Hunger Games because she's the main character and without it the story wouldn't happen", is in my opinion a good example of a *bad* Doylist explanation. It's fallacious in that it starts with Primrose being chosen and asks why Katniss then takes her place. The real question is why Primrose was chosen first and Katniss *had* to take her place, as opposed to Katniss just being chosen. There are a number of answers one could give - "because it gives Katniss agency in a part of the story where it would otherwise just be boring to see her dragged along through situations she has no control over" and "because it gives a chance to show off her selfless love, a positive character trait that endears her to the audience" are both satisfying and probably both correct - but "because it's a story" is not an interesting or revelatory one.

[@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502]

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.

[@HellecticMojo]

this isn't a hunger games literary analysis.

[@Pablo360able]

@@HellecticMojo I did say it was irrelevant.

[@theMoporter]

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.

[@Pablo360able]

@@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.

[@TwilightWolf032]

My argument here is: "a fictional character is not a real person" And that's the end of the story.

[@sagemaster1357]

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

[@freshmadgod]

Real

[@icesans9491]

@@sagemaster1357 im sure nearly every lolicon know lolicon is weird lol

[@WolfyX3]

I've never been more disappointed in you for a video, Explanation Point. How dare you only make this video 10 minutes long? This is a super interesting topic of discussion! I would have loved a longer video talking about the history and cultural context of lolis in Japan and how they relate to the watsonian and doylist perspectives on the 1000-year old loli question, but thank you for your attempt at answering this question nonetheless. I enjoyed the points you made and the intro song was especially great.

[@NickiRusin]

you had me in the first part

[@Magmafrost13]

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

[@444gothicgirl]

The thing is that this is almost exclusively a female character problem and that's how I know its just sexualization otherwise it would be a 50/50 split.

[@Matt_History]

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

[@444gothicgirl]

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

[@alecwoodard9464]

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.

[@airplanes_aren.t_real]

​@@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

[@airplanes_aren.t_real]

​@@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

[@phlovejoy]

So cool that the Decemberists collabed with you. The Ballad of Loli Lover is right up there with Mariner's Revenge.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

Yeah it's one of those things where I can see both sides as you portray them, and I think that another way of looking at it is imagining the real-life version of this. Cause like there are literally people that exist in real life that for one reason or another have stunted growth and can still appear child-like despite being 20+ years old. And someone in that position deserves to do whatever they want with their own body just as much as any other consenting adult. But when it comes to fiction I can't help but lean a little more on the Doylian side of things since no matter how you slice and how many times people wanna invoke "Death of the Author," stories don't exist entirely within a Vacuum. There are times when it's easier to ignore some of the Author's personal views when consuming a work of media, like how tons of LGBT+ people enjoy the escapism that Harry Potter offers despite JK's views on some of their validity. But then there are other times when you say get to the point where Hermione is basically laughed at for wanting to change the status quo and improve the lives of the elves, and it's kinda hard to analyze that kind of scene without thinking about the political views of the person who wrote it. And the latter is what I think the "1000 year old loli" trope falls more in line with. It's very clearly almost never any kind of representation of real-life people with those kinds of medical/genetic conditions. And very rarely does the character tend to actually act like they're an ancient being that is far older than any human can comprehend. It's almost always a completely arbitrary thing that just happens to exist, whether it's because the character is a shapeshifter or they just happened to be cursed to look that way or whatever. And it's almost never even really acknowledged how weird it is beyond a few throwaway lines when they're first introduced. And no matter how hard they try to justify it, it's hard to look past the end result and think about the real reasons why things are the way they are. Another example I remember that was much more explicitly Doylian was actually from Shad's Book "Shadow of the Conqueror" where the main character is like 80+ years old and after a game of Sudoku ends up being reborn in a 17 year old body. But that's the thing, why do we know he's in a 17 year old body? Well because the book says so. If you were thinking about it in-universe, he would just appear to be a young adult that is at least well past puberty. The body itself was just created instantly for him so it has no true biological age, and his mental age is in the 80s. The number 17 has no right to exist in this context. It is purely through meta information from the Narration that we know that the character is now biologically 17, even though he almost certainly could pass himself off as being like 20 if he wanted to, because there's no way for a character to just look at him and magically know his body is biologically 17 years old. And as such there was no reason for the narration to clarify that, they could have just said "I'm in the body of a young adult" and left it at that. But no, he just *had* to be *exactly* 17 years old for some reason...

[@Ramsey276one]

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.

[@michaelchristie8329]

Explanation Point: The Musical when

[@stonks3507]

Soon!!!

[@arthurdurham]

I have the same perspective on this as I do for "countdown to 18" things. It may be legal, but if you're into it then you never really cared if they were adult

[@pisspissfallinlove]

What makes in-universe lore contestable isn't inherently Doylist. So much sexualisation hinges on the idea the characters are *forced* into that situation, so even the pro-loli audience is like "well, the character doesn't *want* to do that, it's because [lore, etc.]", suggesting that in a different scenario, these characters would not look Like That. "Why then did the author make that situation?" gains importance because a) the character's personality doesn't match the design and/or b) the audience can see clearer alternatives. It's less like "woah, the author's intentions are suddenly very important to me" (although there's no shortage of that) and more like genuine curiousity. When watching MHA, I genuinely thought Momo had no choice because items only come out of her sternum, perhaps as an homage to Revolutionary Girl Utena. When I found out she only needs exposed skin, my first thought was genuinely, "why that outfit then?" Momo is deliberately a smart, reserved, rich, and blunt character. It is hard to imagine she was like "yeah, I need exposed skin" and then went with a cutout swimsuit. And then such creators basically dig themselves into a hole because the characters are so openly intended for fanservice, they could not internally justify having a character who simply... wants to look sexy. Enjoys baring skin. Desires attention. The sexualisation isn't merely in putting a minor in revealing clothes here; it's also in giving them no agency when doing so. The fact is if you're making a reserved prim and proper teenage girl of a superhero, her first choice probably won't be a swimsuit. Likewise someone who looks and thinks like an 8-year old will more likely choose to look more like JoJo Siwa than Yoko from Gurren Lagann. When these two radically different characters end up in the same sort of revealing outfits, lore doesn't cut it. Overall, creators and pro-loli fans kinda want to have their cake and eat it too-all the appeal of a child without just openly being into children. Doesn't help that it's illegal, but still, it's tiring. With every new loli show, this discussion comes up again like it might genuinely be possible that the loli show is not a loli show but in fact an intricately designed artpiece that just so happens to cross some unfortunately placed boundaries.

[@AnonEcho98]

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.

[@aidanquiett668]

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

[@Mr0Bob]

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

[@aanrrat1354]

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.

[@polaris_draws]

@@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

[@TheSpeep]

I dont think theres any inherent problem with having a little girl character in a story, whether shes 6 or 666 years old, that can work, lots of potential there. Lots of people out there happen to be little girls as it turns out, and at least some of those people will have a story worth telling. I will get suspicious though when she's consistently dressed in swimsuits, thighhighs or bdsm gear, because that is weird. Even if its her own choice, because (lets be honest, no its not) someone wrote that character, and unless this is a DnD character who rolled a very unfortunate nat 1, that someone did decide for her that this would be the choice she would make.

[@PlatinumAltaria]

As someone who doesn't find such art intrinsically immoral, it's always weird when people use this argument. The actual argument is that in the absence of demonstrable harm we should still engage critically with media depictions of all topics.

[@NickiRusin]

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

[@PlatinumAltaria]

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

[@MaximillianRobesphere]

⁠@@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.

[@GoneZombie]

It's just so strange that none of those curses and whatnot ever land on a 1000 year old demon or dragon or whatnot who is male.

[@Nivexity]

To be simple and straight forward, many philosophical takes are based on presumptions about morality, that regardless of how disgusting or obscene the material is, you cannot dispute it if you do not make your values clear in the first place. This brings into question of what is actually valued, if the value is risk of harm, then ultimately all arguments against fiction would require evidence that the consumption of fictional content can lead to an increased risk of harm. However, if you value the obliteration of anything you personally or what you think the majority are disgusted by, then that is what guides your morality. In today's modern society, our judicial systems are largely based on assessing risk of harm and setting laws that follows this value. This would be the normative claim, we value risk of harm, thus fiction is entirely fine provided there's no evidence against its consumption. Disgust is not a viable tool for dictating morality and a lot of people begin with disgust and further attempt to rationalize it with presumptions about "self-evident" claims. Some are often arguments around normalization and consumption, neither of which are actually self-evident or backed by any evidence towards them.

[@rainyrouge5123]

Biggest reason I haven’t watched Seven Deadly Sins: It’s obsessed with shipping 1,000 year old lolis/shotas with adult/teenage characters and it creeps me the fuck out.

[@arempy5836]

"Officer, please, I can explain. You see, I'm a Watsonian..." "Oh, is that what they're calling it now, huh? Arms behind you're back, son."

[@SirGa1ahad]

your

[@atleyf3500]

I think a diegetic argument is always meaningless. Folding ideas made a good video explaining the concept of a thermian argument. Basically you could defend anything with it and it never addresses the actual issue. An exaggerated example would be something like this: “This work is racist” “No it isn't. In the lore of this world black people are just inferior to white people. It makes internal sense” And I don't even think that the intentions of the author matter in this case, a story should stand on its own. If a story has a problem I don't care about dietetic arguments or the opinions of the author. It's a problem. Themes, perspectives, framing, all that exists within the story. And refusing to engage with these things isn't an argument but just reflection. This youtubers video about made in abyss tried to justify the portrait of child nudity in it. Even though I don't fully agree with all the points he made they were actual points engaging with the story on a deeper level.

[@realperson69]

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 🎶

[@AC-dk4fp]

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.

[@atleyf3500]

@@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.

[@AC-dk4fp]

@@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.

[@theshire9173]

Whenever someone says that there are no nefarious intentions behind making lolis I always ask “then why are there never any male lolis?” If these characters truly are just coincidences for the world building then by chance there should be about the same number of thousand year old little boys

[@theshire9173]

@@nestharus I don’t know who those are, but three immortal boy outliers is not nearly close to match the number of loli girls, so it’s clear that this trope generally sexualizes girls specifically

[@OnlyLiarGameFan]

Male loli is as oxymoronic as freezing fire or smart Twitter users.

[@EnderPlayerTV]

shotas not lolis.

[@starspawn507]

I think how _well justified_ the Watsonian reason feels as compared to the Doylist one affects things a lot too. This might not be particularly useful to bring up, since "in-universe parts falls short" would be called a writing issue regardless of which side of the argument you fall on, but it's big enough that I want to bring it up. Like, I'm thinking of this mainly with Yaoyorozu's costume from BNHA. Yes, it's true that her quirk requires exposed skin. But even accounting for that, her costume still biased towards the "sexualized" side of things over practicality. Something like a sports bra would actually show _more_ of her stomach (and thus be more effective), especially if there's a zipper in the middle that can be opened partially or all the way to allow the same height of the torso to be used as her canon swimsuit-ish design. It'd also be able to provide more support for her chest (but like, this is anime, breast physics really isn't that much in focus ever). Thus, trying to argue that it's totally justifiable from an in-universe perspective feels like it falls flat to me. If she was a person who _wanted_ to have a sexualized costume, then her canon costume would be fine! At that point, it's now a character decision rather than a practicality one. But she's meant to be smart and is described as uncomfortable with it, at least at first. .. Or to talk about my idea in relation to a more generic idea of a young-looking immortal, does the character _feel_ like an immortal? Does their character actually use the fact that they're not just a child, or are they just a child numerically aged up to be "fine"? Because that's _something,_ it means they're actually _an immortal character._ If I don't see that, I'm left with only the deeply uncomfortable feelings of the story sexualizing a childlike character.

[@Yamartim]

I really love videos like this where someone tackles a discussion where people are very polarized to one side or the other and goes "actually youre both right and have valid points, now recontextualize your views and let's take the discussion somewhere more interesting" Lockstin did the same thing with his video on the palworld plagiarism debate and it was so good

[@toobig7150]

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?

[@rd0676]

@@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

[@wiimusic5671]

@@toobig7150 ok epstein

[@NickiRusin]

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

[@Serpuwig]

@@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.

[@ArcaneIllumination]

As long as no actual children are being abused, my opinion is that I don’t care. The second one of them is however, that’s a big problem. But it’s nearly impossible to say whether depictions like the 1000 year old loli in anime contribute to helping to cause that or if the people who do it would have done do without it. Especially when a good number of people who do abuse children seem to do it more for the power imbalance rather than an explicit attraction to children. Drawn images and actual photos depicting children being abused are not the same.

[@terminalpreppie8439]

"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.

[@kyuokuo]

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

[@_.__.._4._]

@@kyuokuo the fuck? the problem is that it makes even MORE people prone to do it and it normalizes it? Like yeah no shit, there's horrible people in the world, does that mean we should just make even more and make it the norm or something?

[@Ninthtry9103]

​@@_.__.._4._that's not really the creator's problem, if a six year old sees superman tank a car crash with 0 damage and he thinks he can actually jump infront of a car with 0 damage. Thats not supermans fault, thats not the creator's fault, thats not people who like superman's fault. Thats the parents fault for not telling the kid the superman is not real. So the child can make more accurate decisions and learn not apply the same rules,logic,morales to a work of fiction.

[@Ninthtry9103]

​​@@_.__.._4._that legit like saying superman is normalizing children to jump infront of cars and to anyone with there head on straight that sounds absolutely ridiculous.

[@thierrydecker8110]

One thing that often kinda annoys me when people discuss this topic is the massive focus on the "it's okay, she is 5000 years old", whether they consider sexualised loli characters acceptable or not. I feel like focusing on the character's canonical age or the definition of loli distracts from what I consider the more important thing. Whether someone considers it possible for the consumption or creation of things that are purely fictional to be a problem in the real world. I can see how this could relate to the Watsonian vs Doylist views. But I don't think the correlation is absolute. It's obviously okay to not be comfortable with fictional content involving any themes you are uncomfortable with for *any* reason. But I don't think anything contained within fiction should ever be equated to a real crime.

[@elk45]

Gotta love learning about philosophical concepts for the first time via debate over anime tropes! This channel truly provides me with an irreplaceable service. (Now let's just hope nobody asks me how I know about Watsonian and Doyelist perspectives)

[@gondolamedia]

If we take Watsonian and Doylist perspectives at face value then yes, both sides have a point, but more often than not Watsonian perspective is used to further lazy world building. For instance: "Why does this fantasy world have slavery in it?", Watsonian would argue that its for world building and to show how terrible certain people are but Based Doylist would point out that its because 1000 similar stories came before it that had slavery so the author decided to add it without any further consideration like the hack they are. Of course Doylist perspective could be used in a similar way such as "The author didn't include minorities in this high fantasy story because its based of medieval Europe, dragons, orcs and goblins are fine though". Kanna from Dragon maid would be a perfect example how both Watsonian and Doylist perspectives are valid and are not in conflict in eachother... until Kanna decides to play twister with Saikawa and you realize that oh, this is supposed to stimulate someone and they are prepare their "its just fiction bro, can't you tell reality from fiction???" at anyone who has a problem with that scene and you're done talking with weebs for an another day. I guess that's one of the moments you realize that anime is also product and you gotta sell those Blue-Rays one way or the other. I also know that you're steel manning the design of Kishirika Kishirisu but I have to ask, how many actual anime fans had their mind racing to detailed world building and lore theories instead of variations of "Cool animation" and "That's a child bro"? Trying to Watsonian yourself out of that one sounds like cope to me /jk. I guess what really hurts the Watsonian perspective in all of this is that if you talk to someone trying to justify your scantily clad children is that to an outside observer you sound like a weirdo trying to justify their perversions and to someone familiar would have already made that assumptions the moment you said "hear me out..." . Edit: I should also mention that people do not necessarily stick with just Watsonian or Doylist perspective but change depending on the context or that both sides can't reach the same conclusion.

[@Jetsetlemming]

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.

[@stonks3507]

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

[@rd0676]

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.

[@stonks3507]

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

[@CouchRadish]

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

[@aurtosebaelheim5942]

I once played as a 1000-year loli in a friend's Vampire The Masquerade game, initially this was an act of spite because this friend had a habit of derailing my campaigns and being generally disruptive, but I played her straight and grew to really like the character. She was a vindictive vampire-supremacist struggling to fit in with the modern world and desperately trying to stave off the demon that was trying to possess her, eventually giving up on human morality altogether because she couldn't manage it. She was a pretty terrible person all things considered, but her enemies were mostly worse. All this is to say, I'll generally accept the Watsonian explanation if I feel like the author cares about it. Played straight, the 1000-year loli trope can be interesting but 9 times out of 10 it's just a loli with an arbitrarily high number attached. If you don't sell me on the character being old, I'm going to ask questions and the answer is probably going to be "the author is a creepy pervert". The actual number is the least important part of a character.

[@lithrandil290]

I think you miss one important aspect of this discussion. "How is it portrayed?" Because quite often the problem isn't that they exist, there can be satisfying Doylist and Watsonian explanations for that The problem is that they are portrayed for sex appeal, which considering their design as prepubescent is bloody creepy. Like... if the character just existed as a natural consequence of worldbuilding and the author didn't try to put'er in compromising situations constantly? All fine, I'd still be confused why you'd choose to do this but... it's not that bad.

[@juanpablolamas5335]

This is a great video but I'm sorry. I straight up don't believe both sides are equal. Mind you, there are some good examples of this. Two that come to mind are from Yugioh sevens and MHA. Although the main difference with those is that them being their ages is actually reflected in their attitude. When you put a child's mind in a child's body, i'm sorry, that's a child. It's the main reason I cant keep watching dragon maid. Art is not made in a vacuum. At this point japan has a really big problem with perverts in general, and big names in the anime industry were recently outed for possessing actual illegal pictures and/or drawings depicting said things. I cannot take any watsonian argument seriously within a cultural context that justifies this behavior and portrayal.

[@SleightCreative]

Man, I haven't heard the term Wattsonian or Doylist s perspectives since I was in college, it's nostalgic. Also for the record I'm about as Wattsonian as I can realistically be

[@President-UwU]

9/10 times I hear the loli conversation it’s because the artist is putting the character in sexual explicit situations/posses so you know. Another good question is what about the reverse loli? Like in one piece the mind of a child but sexualized when they look like an adult? I feel like this just has too many moral road bumps to ever do. No matter how you cut it a piece of art is the artist communicating with you in some way. That’s the definition of art

[@Student.oftheRing]

whenever theres a group of people i disagree with on the internet, i usually just... dont interact with them, and if i dont like a piece of media, ill just not consume it

[@foggy8298]

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?

[@HitBoxMaster]

But that's boring!

[@theshire9173]

@@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

[@NickiRusin]

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

[@DMZZ_DZDM]

My idea is that if you make it look like a child, don't sexualize it. If that's a problem, then the conversation ends there

[@carnationfulcamera]

​@nestharus people usually don't like things for a reason. People don't like the 1000 year old loli because people don't like child exploitation or sexualization. And yes, not liking something and it also being illegal can happen. I don't imagine you like a lot of things that are illegal, like murdered or robbery even in situations were they are justified. I'm glad you aren't bothered by it but the fact is that characters that look like children and who's child bodies are framed are sexually attractive, exist in a world that has pedophiles and child abuse. Your argument isn't a good one and simply focuses on that fact YOU don't care. You are not the main character, other people exist and do care.

[@binkiebrew]

I agree. The fact that the author put it there is a red flag. Why is this child like character here? Why are they being sexualized? What is the author trying to tell us here? These are the questions I ask when I see lolis. And most of the time the conclusion I get is that the author deems is ok to sexualize children. It's usually blatant pedophilia that's covered up under the guise of "she's actually really old" and most people who defend lolis are pedos. So as a general rule, stay away from media that has lolis and stay away from folks who like it.

[@_.__.._4._]

@@carnationfulcameraagree but 1.child rape is not justified ever, unless you're talking bout the dumb justifications the anime gives for the loli 2.other crimes are absolutely justified in the real world (you're mixing up actual justification and poor excuses made from the author) 3. the majority does not mean the right opinion.

[@polaris_draws]

Part of this conversation has to include the amount of 1000-year old lolis. Like if Kirika Kirisu was the only character in Mushoku Tensei like that I think viewing that element entirely in a Watsonian view is fine. But she's not the only character like that in Mushoku Tensei much less the entirety of anime. Once something becomes that wide spread, becomes a trope that people just accept is a thing anime does, that's when you need to get Doyalist about it

[@highcaliber350]

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.

[@glilimith]

I think that part of the problem for me is that even when i want to accept the diegetic explanation for one of these characters, the author always seems to parade them around like they assume I am going to be attracted to them, which just keeps putting the question back in my head of "why did the author chose to make this character this way" and its (imo) self-evident answer.

[@Laiser]

That intro song was so good I demand all your videos start with them

[@eroschama]

I find loli to be distasteful, but that is a rather poor reason to either make it illegal or witchhunt someone who enjoys/makes content of it. The reason real world child exploitation is illegal isnt because its "distasteful" its because the very existence of it is predicated on the abuse of a child. A drawing is not a person, it is an object, you cannot abuse an object. I think the entire crusade against gross content in fiction is a completely wasted effort when there are real life children being harmed by real world problems that banning loli wouldn't fix. I just find this entire argument far too similar to the "video games cause violence" argument. It is a lot of people taking their (understandable though it be) disgust and fear out on something they can control instead of facing the fact that actually stopping violence is a whole lot harder than banning art.

[@ernestotorelli1209]

Good explanation, but I see two missing elements. One is that the doylian view could be nuanced into two distinct camps: the ones who ask "why did the author made Katniss volounteer?" and respond "so that the story can happen as she's the protagonist", and the ones who ask "why did the author make Katniss volounteer?" and respond "so that the author could capitalize on the trend of rebel teenagers fighting dystopic rulers". The former are still interested in the storytelling like the wattsonians, just at a meta level, while the latter directly jump to the meta layer to accuse the author of their specific grievance. The second is that most people are usually Wattsonian, unless they get triggered about that specific grievance, at which point they ignore all storytelling and just focus on how to interpret the author's intention to accuse them. The two positions aren't stable philosophical camps, they are tools we intuitively use for differently morally perceived situations.

[@mactep1]

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.

[@mactep1]

@@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.

[@superequinox4185]

The intro song is honestly worth a Spotify release

[@Leftistmushroom]

Normalize 1000 year old characters acting like they're actually a 1000 years old

[@NickiRusin]

so... insane?

[@Leftistmushroom]

@@NickiRusin Yeah sure that's cool

[@Canido19]

What does "acting like they're actually 1000 years old" *even* look like, though? All the examples we have are literally all fictional. For all we know, emotionally regressing to a state more comparable to that of a child is actually realistic well-enough past a hundred years. Hell, it happens before then, and we tend to call it "insane".

[@_.__.._4._]

@@Canido19 and tell me when that was ever shown or explored. What you guys are doing is coming up with excuses and mental gymnastics for things that are not even there. Not once has their sanity been mentioned, or that they ever regressed. It was stated that, well, THAT'S JUST HOW THEIR PERSONALITY IS.

[@Canido19]

@@_.__.._4._ I was speaking hypothetically, dude; in reference to how mentally regressing as one gets older is perfectly natural in plenty of cases. We just happen to *call* it "insane" IRL because, well, it would be really hard to explain how someone who looks and acts like a child "has [insert dementia or some other regressive condition brought upon by age here]" as opposed to that "just being how they are". There's actually a series I've followed for a long time where this is explicitly described as the case for a race of fairies that live long enough. They passively become "more powerful, more bored, and less sane; which is kind of a bad combo" with age (with the sanity slippage really starting at around the 200 year mark. To exemplify this, the premier example is a woman who often chooses to take the form and attitude of a prepubescent girl (she is really into the "creepy child" aesthetic) and her instability brought upon by having chose to not reset for centuries is a recurring source of drama.

[@typemasters2871]

The Thousand-Year Loli as a narrative device is interesting, to be exact I mean the concept of a character’s physical looking age and mental age being vastly different (western examples being Shazam with Billy being able to turn himself into an adult at will, and the ending of Narnia (spoilers) where the four kids grew into adults in Narnia only to return to being kids when they leave Narnia). This narrative device can bring up questions of “how can a child in an adult body navigate the adult world of jobs and taxes” or “how does an adult that looks like a child deal with people who mistake them as a child” or “can this adult in a child body use their lived experience to ‘redo’ their life better”. These questions only multiply once romance is added to the mix but most of the time the outcome to those questions either ends with the “mushoku tensei problem” or the “thousand-year Loli problem” where one is either mentally or physically looking younger than the other. You can definitely enjoy characters no matter how old or young they look but if you enjoy watching Loli look characters being sexualised then you’re on thin ice pal.

[@CouchRadish]

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.

[@typemasters2871]

@@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.

[@DefaultFlame]

I kinda fall on both sides of the argument. I'm generally more on the Watsonian side, but my opinion varies based on how the story executes the controversial parts. I have no problem with the demon empress loli in Mushoku Tensei because of how she is depicted, how she acts, and the way the anime handles her. However, the way the kids in Made in Abyss is handled does bother me. A lot. A single joke about why a robot boy would have a penis is one thing, but bringing it back over and over is another and having multiple characters, including otherwise respectable adults, pulling his pants out to look at it is also questionable, as well as the frequent references to and at least one depiction of children being suspended naked by ropes as punishment for misbehaving, and the semi-frequent scenes with naked children in general. There's also the fact that the kids in Made in Abyss is *explicitly* children, not 1000 year old lolis. I suppose the robot boy might be a 1000 years old, but he doesn't behave like it and Riko sure as hell isn't. I love the classically "weird anime" worldbuilding as well as the general plot in Made in Abyss, but the way the anime deals with its child characters bothers the hell out of me. You could keep every event in the show the same without making it so fucking creepy. Edit: Forgot to say, I was not expecting a musical opener. Pretty damned good, too.

[@WandererInSpirit]

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.

[@cockernugget48]

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.

[@NickiRusin]

​​@@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)

[@myersa80]

@@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.

[@DefaultFlame]

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

[@assailant8722]

Incredibly brief and unimportant sidenote: regarding your Hunger Games example of Watsonian vs Doylist analysis, I'd argue the more faithful Doylist interpretation is "Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her sister's place to demonstrate that she is a very selfless person (to set up her main character conflict later on), she loves her sister more than even her own life (to set up her primary drive for the entire trilogy), that she is fundamentally special to the environment she is in (to set up why she becomes such an important figure on a nationwide scale), and to make her more endearing to the audience so we are further invested" After all, "she's the main character and if she didn't the story wouldn't be about her" isn't super valid as an interpretation, because there's no reason from that basis that the story COULDN'T have just been about Primrose. Or just have had Katniss be selected herself. The reason she specifically VOLUNTEERS instead of being picked or the story being about Prim is for the aforementioned reasons. Can you tell I'm a Doylist? Bet you can't guess where I fall on the loli debate.

[@waitsbian]

opening song is absolutely fire

[@MoteofLobross]

There's no difference between a thousand year loli and a loli as old as they look. They're both drawings and don't real.

[@artemiygulyaev2280]

Seems like a massive case of missing a forest for the trees, where the trees is this discussion of authorial intent and the forest is the discussion about the morality of being attracted to prepubescent looking characters who act like children. The actual discussion is a battle of multiple camps : people who really think nothing can be morally wrong as long as it does 0 direct harm to real children; pedophiles who also have this position; and people who color all pedophilic content as immoral. Very interesting topic, just a bit incorrect choice of discussion imo

[@Pheonixco]

I always found the debate to be more that one side can't distinguish reality from fiction, and think censorship is an answer. And the other while possibly degenerate, can distinguish reality from fiction, and aren't hypocrites about it.

[@mattherson7877]

That song was amazing. Good job! 👍 The text itself obviously bears responsibility for its own content, themes, and interpretations, and the author may or may not bear the same responsibility, but does the audience bear any responsibility? Categorically, engaging with art requires projection. Would that be worth discussing, or is that merely the least interesting axis on which we can analyze a work? This came to mind when you said that how we feel about problematic content in fiction says a lot about us as an audience, though you took it in a different direction. Personally, I think the way people engage with controversial or problematic content in fiction often also belies a critical misunderstanding of (or lack of respect for) the many differences between fiction and reality, not just in simple terms of "real versus imaginary" but more so in terms of things like scope, focus, themes, meaning and divine purpose, suffering, catharsis, safety and comfort, psychological continuity, nonrealism, and so on, as well as how these differences affect what we can take away from fiction and apply to real life. This is not a value judgement; in fact, these differences make fiction (and narratives) capable of uniquely beautiful things. However, recognizing and respecting these differences is especially important in a culture increasingly drowned in media and narratives and decreasingly anchored to reality (touching grass). Anyways, I'll end my rant there. It's always a pleasure watching your videos. Thanks, and good luck if/when this video goes public! 🙂

[@Mercure250]

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.

[@Noob99-zzzz]

God the opening song was beyond GOLD

[@astuffedalpaca5365]

I think you raise some interesting points about how different sides of the argument view and place importance on the author’s intentions, but it’s worth mentioning that authors often don’t just put things in their stories to appeal to themselves, but to an audience. Sure, plenty of people who defend this trope aren’t personally into it and are more interested in defending a work they like overall, but there certainly are defenders who are excusing their own attraction to this trope and not the author’s. 1,000 year old lolis would not be so prevalent in anime if so many people didn’t actively enjoy their sexualization. And media catering specifically to that audience, and also pushing forth a more nonchalant attitude towards the sexualization of child bodies, is what bothers me. Not only is fiction impacted by the context it’s created in but fiction has its own influence on the world, regardless of authorial intent. Think about how bigoted stereotypes are often perpetuated by media, for example. that character might not fall into a harmful stereotype for diegetic reasons, but they still do, and it still furthers harmful worldviews, even if the author wasn’t being malicious. and where did many harmful stereotypes get so prevalent in the first place? fictional media. that’s why I find the trope gross, not because authors of it have bad intentions (but as you said, they usually do) but because of the message it sends.

[@TheThunderbirdRising]

I think the problem with this video is that no one actually believes the Watsonian argument. Like, who watches Mushoka Tensei and goes "wow, the author put in all this deep thought about the backstory of this character and the worldbuilding of this setting and that led to the inevitable outcome of this character looking like a mostly naked six year old." We all know it's just backfilled justification for the character looking like that. Do you actually believe the author was like "ah man I don't want to do this, but a half naked child is the only character design that makes sense with what I've written 😢" Of course not, the people trying to defend the Watsonian angle aren't actually making an argument for why it works to improve the story, they are making an argument for why it's okay to exist in the real world. And once you have to do that, you've basically already acknowledged that this is something weird and gross that normally wouldn't be considered acceptable

[@chaoticfrogs133]

There is another stance in this argument. We forget how media forms our worldview. When you see something a lot, you begin to get used to it to the point of normalizing. We have quite a few studies on it as well

[@theblasblas]

This isn't really an argument that pro lolis make because when it comes to fiction age doesn't matter. I am an adherent of the Doylist argument that fictional characters are mere dolls, objects of the imagination. We should not be judged as people for what we do to imaginary objects, regardless of what fictitious age that object is. Which is to say, 2 year old lolis are fine too.

[@toadsagejacob7896]

I personally fall into the "Brother, why did you include this almost naked child in your story?" and no explanation is going to change the fact that the author did this intentionally. Said author needs to be put on a watch list, that's all I am saying.

[@mek101whatif7]

How many kills have you carried out on CoD, my man?

[@kyuokuo]

Do you happen to enjoy violent music, movies, games or books by any chance? Probably not right?

[@_.__.._4._]

@@kyuokuo shooter games and games that actually depict violence in a good light are very different

[@skeletor8951]

Honestly I could easily go for a much longer-winded discussion of this topic because I think its a very interesting one, and being honest it made me realize that as much as I like to think myself staunch in my stances on media I have very much had impassioned disputes arguing for and against both Watsonian and Doylist perspectives of different anime (and media in general) as if they were the obvious way to look at the isssue. You made me realize I was being... Not hypocritical exactly, but that it's a more complex topic that I swing between sides of more often than I thought, and I feel like I can discuss these topics more meaningfully knowing that.

[@NickiRusin]

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

[@garbotoxins840]

For me, I think it depends. A very old character with the body of a child is fine, that can be an interesting and even funny character trait, like an alcoholic halfling that is prevented from buying alcohol. It depends what role the character plays, it's a very different thing to have the character be in the body of a child so that a child's body can be sexualized, in that case, it's a fantasy excuse for a pedophilia fetish. It's easier to tell if a character is sexualized when it's in visual mediums, like in anime there are a lot of male gaze camera angles, even panty shots, and those ecchi techniques are frequently used on these child bodies, and that shows the intent evidently, along with the stripper outfits like the example in this video.

[@sharkbird.4775]

It’s not just a matter of the author’s intention or what the content of the work says about the author. It’s a matter of depiction. Even if, in reality, MT’s author had been thinking purely in terms of worldbuilding when he came up with the thousand year old loli, it wouldn’t matter. The fact that she looks/acts like a child and is also sexualized would still be a problem. Through depiction, a work of art makes an argument about the world. Whether or not it was the argument the author was trying to make is usually not super relevant. Anime frequently argues, through depiction, that certain things are normal and okay that ARE NOT normal and okay. In this way, it causes harm. I’m not anti-artistic liberty or anti-sexuality in media. In fact, I think there should be more sex in media! I just think we need to think more about how we depict things. If you depict something morally reprehensible, the text should argue that it is morally reprehensible. It’s when there’s a disconnect that ruins these shows/characters for me, where the text presents morally reprehensible things as if they’re perfectly normal and you’re meant to be getting off on them. Of course, at the end of the day, artists can and should do whatever they want. But if they make something morally reprehensible, they’d better be ready for people to call it what it is. And the fans of it better be, too.

[@tonberry2670]

Keep in mind. The issue here is that anime has a culture around it. And the inclusion of this crap normalizes it within that culture and normalizes what it represents outside of that culture. And considering that this world lives under capitalism, most anime production is going to continue is going to profit off of that normalization. It's not acceptable

[@Perzyn]

I can see the Watsonian perspective, but I also think it is a very generous interpretation of the reasons why people defend 1000 years loli. The talk about curse and temperature of demon world could be considered a valid point if not the fact that these characters are way too often framed in the very fan service way. Which kinda reinforces the Doylist intepretation. After all I am pretty sure the same kind of Watsonian arguments could be applied to Ero Manga Sensei to explain why it is perfectly valid within the realm of the story to ogle the underage girls...

[@skeletor8951]

That intro is genuinely great, not only is it fun conceptually but you chose a non-standard sort of music (which I cannot for the life of me place) with an unusual meter that's more challenging to make sound good to do it.

[@icefang111]

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

[@ExplanationPointAnime]

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

[@seporokey]

I think this was a well balanced video, and I appreciate your authentic explanation of both sides of this divide. I think the best point here is that it doesn't have to be either or. You can both accept the in lore reasons that a character is depicted how they are, AND accept that the reason(s) that depiction came about was due to the author's will/ideas/fantasies/whatever. Good video!

[@__-nd5qi]

I find it funny that we all merk the innocent in gta and that would make us all mass unalivers

[@captaineflowchapka5535]

my issue iwith teh 1000 y old loli is a issue at learge with anime as myazaki said it :" the people that drew that [modern anime style] never saw real people or women" i dislike the ever sexualisation and bulshit proportion of charachter , i dislike the bad writting of reliance of trope on top of tropes . erotism is so prevalent and everywhere (the ammount of porn bait on internet and fan service in shows) that it lost its meaning , but most importantly the non stop exposure create a dehumanisation , you don't care that the story of taht particular hentai is rape because it is not shown , all that is shown by the image is the accepted lewdity of sexualisation , the pose the talk everything that you may look at is made to be sexualise. and the fact that such level of distance and dehumanisation with character is the norm in a lot of anime make a problem ever worse if something is drew ,behave as a object of desire ,of lewdity using those trope and design technique , and that it framed as envyable , will your brain be turned on? the answer is yes because that what trigger the reptilian response , it is the rest of the brain that overide if other stimuly go agaisnt . but when the story and evything make it "it not a child " and the body is one of a child you have what i call the erk zone : you are both digusted and like "that sexual" even if you don't feel arroused and just erk you still regonise it at sexual the existence of 10 00 year loli can be interesting , to explore taht weird ass sensation that some people may find themself into , but like all sort of errotism in 90% of anime it is unsavory , un interesting and straight up annoying to deal with stop sexualing charcahter for no fucking reason, you don't need someone being a walking neuron activater to have interesting design and if you do it for worlbuilding , well explore that them make it important in the story

[@NickiRusin]

great take!

[@Basteal]

You can have an ancient child character. No one cares unless its half naked, and at that point, how it emerged is pretty odvious.

[@Rattleboneses]

Idk friend, I think not considering the context in which the things you enjoy exists when that context is available to you is irresponsible at best and intentional negligence so that the viewer doesn't have to think about why they enjoy looking at the practically naked child characters at worst.

[@Dacronhai]

the thing about creation power girl (which is an absurdly overpowered power btw) is that there is no reason to specifically expose the skin on her chest, and considering she needs unobstructed skin to pull out stuff it would actually make more sense to wear something like a crop top or pull stuff from her back which she could more easily make into a big uncovered surface

[@SpoopySquid]

Cop: Step away from that little girl, sir Me: No, officer, it's not what it looks like! You see, she looks like a ten year old but she's really a 1,000-year-old dragon! Cop: We know, sir [handcuffs the dragon and throws her in the back of the police car]

[@ColeTrainStudio]

I am staunchly on the Doylist side here and I don't believe there is a valid argument against it in this case. That fact, along with oversexualization rampant in the medium, pushed me away from anime for over a decade and I am only slowly wading my way back into the medium. I see two major flaws with this argument that, for me, disallows the diegetic excuse: 1. Our media influences our real world behaviors and our beauty standards. To illustrate this point, look at the physique of your average male (or female) movie star pre-Marvel movies and post-Marvel. Look at the unrealistic expectations to look like men (and women) that spend 8+ hours each day training their bodies with the capital to hire personal chefs, not need to work, get performance enhancing drugs, and to get the best plastic surgery that money can buy. So, if you have characters that act and look like children while sexualizing them, you are telling the audience it is okay to sexualize people that act and look like children. The argument against that feels both obvious and like common sense: "I know that it's a child, therefore I know it's wrong to sexualize them and won't do it." It is anything but. Even if you don't overtly sexualize children, exposure to it normalizes it, as is mentioned in the beginning of the video (you have to try to explain to people why there is a sexualized child in the show, performing mental gymnastics along the way). If you don't believe me, tell yourself that you do not have the time or the wealth to look like a Marvel movie star and then go look in the mirror. Do you feel any better about that normal amount of body fat that you agonize over losing or the lack of muscle definition? 2. Similarly, the diegetic reasons always fall short of being plausible. This was sort of explored in the video, but think about a scenario where a real 1000-year old adult would stuck in a child's body. A child turned into a vampire at a very early age is a perfect vehicle for this discussion. The body never ages, but the emotions and mentality would. There would be a massive amount of mismatch between the two. For instance, does a vampire turned as a child ever go through puberty? If not, would that vampire be asexual since the hormones never happened? Assuming they did have a sex drive, what trauma would they have endured attempting to have romantic relationships? They likely wouldn't be able to form relationships with the average person, given the the fact that they look like a child. Would the people that would actually show interest in them be predators? How would every romantic partner being a predator change their perspective on people as a whole? What would the power dynamics in these hypothetical relationships be and how abusive would they be? On top of that, how would it feel to be perpetually treated like a child for eternity when you have more lived experience than anyone else on earth? What types of behaviors would that result in? I am a writer myself. It is very easy to tell when something has been written with a lot of thought put into versus being strictly there because the author wanted it there. I have never seen a loli be written with any sort of nuance. It has always been strictly there for fan service.

[@ColeTrainStudio]

@@flyingchimp5012 Please refer me to the inconsistency you speak of. Additionally, your comment does not critique my argument in a meaningful way for a few reasons: 1. Actual crimes perpetrated against minors was not covered in my comment. I said that sexualizing children in media normalizes it. I compared that to how popular contemporary movies have changed modern beauty standards in a toxic way and how sexualizing children could lead to the same. You could argue that this is slippery slope fallacy. I would argue that one look at a hentai site shows that not to be the case. 2. Normalizing the sexualization of children is morally wrong even if it doesn't result in crimes. There is no valid argument against this. The abuse of power cannot be removed from this scenario. To avoid being sensationalist, I would compare it to bribery. It is something that isn't always a crime legally, but goes against the actions of a moral society. To appeal to pathos as well as logos, imagine having a child; now imagine that any percentage of the population would be okay with your child being sexualized to them, even if they didn't act on it. 3. Even *IF* every study showed that there is no relation between consumption of loli content, what is the function of the loli content in the first place? What does it exist to do? If the answer to that question is not a nuanced exploration of human condition, then it is an invalid excuse, full stop. 4. Do you have proof that every study ever produced on the topic had not resulted in actual crimes against minors? Who was surveyed? In which nation(s)? Did those studies only look at reported crimes? Do those studies also note the rates at which sex crimes go unreported or are dismissed by police departments? How are minors defined (under 16? under 18?) in these studies? Who paid for each study? Who conducted each study? How long ago were the studies conducted? Can their results be repeated? If they can, with how much consistency? Where can I read these studies and their results in full? Are they on JSTOR? Google Scholar?

[@izzymosley1970]

The loli debate seems to be one of those forever conflicts in the anime community. Like subs vs dubs except people like to take it a lot more seriously. In fact I can't think of any other debate that is taken as seriously as this one.

[@upg5147]

Probably because it's not just a take on taste but usually devolves into a take that you are doing one of the worst crimes imaginable.

[@lambtoken2708]

​@@upg5147 Genocide and rape seems much worse tbh

[@johnnyaugust5015]

​@@lambtoken2708 So is fawning over children in that way

[@HellecticMojo]

@@lambtoken2708 are you implying child molestation isn't rape?

[@connorgrynol9021]

@@HellecticMojobecause being attracted to a fictional character is no different than molesting a minor? By that logic, any form of fictional rape is equivalent to real rape, no?

[@lunareclipse8573]

Nice song, but it's a bit weird that you put no weight on the fact the pro-loli side is incentivized to analyze such characters in the context of their media. Doing otherwise would reflect poorly on them - just like the racists that don't like being labelled a racist (because being a racist is bad) they know being pro-sexualization of children is bad (or at least seen so by decent human beings), so any scrap of an excuse to deny the implied accusation is on the table, whether they actually believe its justified or not. You could only arrive at the conclusion you did by taking everything in this "war" at face value, but that is a naive way to look at things.

[@sprazz8668]

You don't choose between the two perspectives, they exist simultaneously and address different things. If the author writes a semi-nude child because they or their audience wants to perv on them, you can't dismiss that truth by just looking at the text in a vacuum. Perving on naked lolis is still a thing and that is still a problem, therefore the trope isn't ok. Of course you can just ignore it and enjoy the show, but it's still like.. bad

[@OHHHHUSBANT]

Get filtered

[@alestanealonraskin6155]

I feel like that we should base off diegetic logic, but there’s many ways diegetic logic can be interpreted by the author and if those ways result in a surplus of scantily clad 700 year old demon girls and a copious amount of 14 yr old sideboob we should consider why they took “that” path to fulfill their diegetic logic

[@CouchRadish]

Its hard to view that sort of media through any sort of diagetic lens because fictional stories cannot will themselves into existence and that no story cannot be created without the biases and desires of the author taking part in it.

[@collinbeal]

I'm going to preface this by saying that I am a music enthusiast and that folk, both contemporary and traditional, is my forté; your songwriting was very good! I have to remark that it was lovely how you shifted dynamics for some structure and to emphasize certain remarks; that is a strategy employed by skilled folk artists in this style of neotraditionalist folk. I think the only thing that could improve this song is a frame drum to add some low end to the downbeats and a tin whistle to octave the melody and add some ornamentation; generally, though, it was irreproachable and eminently enjoyable.

[@ExplanationPointAnime]

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

[@collinbeal]

@@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. 🤯👍

[@ExplanationPointAnime]

@@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!

[@Ferlan-dc8sm]

The intro was pure art

[@vpaul4374]

The intro was absolutely amazing. EDIT: The analysis was on point as well, very well done.