Overview

Japan Age Of Consent Increase refers to the change in Japan's age of consent laws federally from 13 years old to 16 years old, a change to a law that has existed for over 100 years, in February 2023. This change, done as part of a nationwide change to sex crimes definitions and perception, was first seen as more symbolic than pragmatic by many, with Japan's age of consent being a somewhat common meme within the Lolicon community and anime communities as a whole. Following the announcement of the law change, memes, takes and various reactions to it became widespread around the internet in early 2023.

Background

On February 17th, 2023, it was announced via @TheJapanTimes that a panel at Japan's Justice Ministry proposed the change, due in part to Japan being one of the lowest age of consent countries in the world and them trying to overhaul their views on sex crime legislation.

Almost immediately after media coverage began reporting on the increased age from 13 to 16, memes and reactions started to spread around social media platforms, with one of the most common early reactions being that Libertarians were crying over the news, such as the reaction by Twitter user @_sn_n^[1] on February 17th receiving over 1,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Online Reactions

As the weekend went on, more people became aware of the revised law and then proceeded to make memes about the change, with a large amount of the reactions and memes being split into one of two categories: Those who were saying the action is performative (as Japan's individual prefectures all had laws that had a raised age of consent) and those who were clowning on anime and lolicon fans for this being perceived as emotional damage for them.

For example, Twitter user @veemohere^[2] tweeted out a Joever meme with the caption that weebs just lost the timeless defense of lolicon images being that Japan's age of consent at 13 normalizes them, garnering nearly 60 likes in 24 hours (shown below).

Another common sentiment and theme that became prominent online following the news were people creating caricatures of weeb lolicons (affectionately named something with cunny in the name) acting as though it was the end of the world that the age of consent law was changed despite it having almost no real effect to their life. This is seen in the screenshot uploaded by user @SpectralAurora_^[3] in which the Twitter account @loliconepstein is distressed over the news (shown below).

Various Reactions

Search Interest

External References