Legal Loli

About

Legal Loli is a term applied to fictional females with prepubescent physiques while at the same time being older than the legal age of consent, sometimes reaching to up to thousands of years of age.^[5] While supporters of legal lolis believe attraction to them isn't the same as attraction to normal lolis due to their different age and mental capacity, claiming this makes them a seperate group from normal lolis (or "true lolis"); critics often argue that their age is merely an excuse by the authors to create a grey area, stating that due to a shared physique with prepubescent lolis they are the same as normal lolis.^[6]

Origin

By definition, lolicon is a portmanteau of the phrase "Lolita complex," which describes an attraction to young or prepubescent girls.^[7] However, amongst anime fans, the term loli has come to describe characters with solely the physiques of a prepubescent girl due to the frequently similar physiques of females from varying age groups in anime and manga.^[8] This has lead to fans of the loli genre to add adjectives to the term, in order to seperate loli-like characters of different age groups (shown below).

Spread

The argument of the character's age amongst fans of legal lolis eventually became a target of mock by critics, which spawned the phrasal template "It's ok because she is actually X years old." On April 8th, 2013, webcomic artist Awkward Zombie released a comic titled "Minor Setback."^[1] The comic centered around Fire Emblem: Awakening character Nowi, a member of the Manakete race of dragons who can turn thousands of years old and because of this keep a young physique for an extended period of their lives, showing the reactions of the other characters over her scantily clad attire. Prior to Awkward Zombie's comic, Nowi's physique and behavior, alongside her attire, was already a topic of discussion amongst fans of the game, who frequently questioned its appropriateness.^[9]

On January 20th, 2016, the Facebook page Interstellar Dust created a Starter Pack derivation titled "It's ok because she's actually hundreds of years old,"^[2] featuring several popular and common examples of legal lolis who are hundreds of years old in their canon backstory. In the following 3 months, the image managed to gather over 650 shares. Alongside, the image was also shared on Tumblr,^[3] where it gathered over 4,100 notes; and Reddit,^[4] where it gathered over 850 points with its Imgur upload gathering over 61,000 views in that same period.

Top Left: Rory Mercury (age 961) from Gate Jieitai Kanochi Nite Kaku Tatakaeri | Top Right: Frederika (age unknown) from Hitsugime no Chaika
Bottom Left: Shinobu Oshino (age over 500) from the Monogatari Series | Bottom Right: Nowi (age around 1,000) from Fire Emblem: Awakening

Over the years specific characters have become more notable examples among both fans and critics; most commonly these come from anime and video games with a large fandom. Alongside the characters shown above, additional examples of more common ages include Konata Izumi (Age 18) from Lucky Star (shown below, left) and Tatsumaki (age 28) from One-Punch Man (shown below, right).

Oppai Loli

Oppai Loli is a term used when a loli character has notably adult-sized breasts, but otherwise retains their child-like proportions; with oppai being the Japanese definition of breasts, commonly used amongst anime fans to refer to large breasts. This has lead to fans arguing that attraction to oppai loli can be justified due to the presence of adult features. Although the debate already gained traction since 2007 over the character Yoko Littner from Gurren Lagann (shown below, left), it returned in 2015 over the character Hestia from DanMachi (shown below, right); who received a notable influx in fanart over her peculiar character design and is even nicknamed in her canon backstory as "Loli Big-boobs."

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References