Posts Tagged ‘loli’

It seems that all over the world, law enforcement is dawning to the fact that Japan produces artwork that some people might consider to be questionable. Just when everyone thought that the scandalous trial of Christopher Handley was behind us, earlier this week a manga translator in Sweden was fined 25,000 SEK ($3000 USD) for possession of child pornography after a search of his possessions revealed ownership of 51 images of loli art deemed to be child pornography. I’m purposely avoiding the use of the ‘porn’ here since I have no idea what the images actually contained though we can probably guess. The search was allegedly initiated in the first place due to a custody battle with the defendant’s ex wife in which she twice wrongfully accused him of sexual abuse towards their child.

In this case everyone including the judge and defendant’s lawyer expressed some doubt at the ruling. To quote the judge preceding over the case, Nils Palbrant, he stated

“There’s a clear conflict between freedom of speech on the one hand and general regulations regarding children’s rights on the other.” “It was however our view that the protective aspect weighed more heavily when taking into account the intentions of the legislator. The aim of the law, as described in the preliminary work that led to its creation, is not just to protect individual children but children in general.”

Today it seems that Canada has joined in the battle to save the rights of fictional children by sentencing a man in Ottawa on child pornography charges stemming from his arrest earlier this year. After a search of his possessions (part of a nationwide sweep) revealed 1,974 images of children in sexual positions or situations (only 3 of which weren’t cartoon images). The man was submitted to psychological testing but failed to meet the criteria to be labeled a pedophile and was instead sentenced to 90 days in jail (to be served on weekends) and 3 years of probation.

Additionally he must submit a sample of his DNA, have no unsupervised contact with minors under the age of 14 and have his name on the sex-offender registry for 20 years. Assistant Crown Attorney Mark Holmes, said of the case “To call them cartoons is to trivialize them.” Really Sherlock? (see what I did there?) Because to a lot of us it looks like you’re spending a lot of time fighting a pretty trivial part of a larger issue.

I’ve made my feelings about these kinds of charges fairly clear in the past but for the sake of being redundant here it is again; protecting children is important. No child within the real world should have to go through abuse be it physical, sexual or otherwise. Fictional children however can be abused however they want because guess what? They don’t exist. There are no rights being violated here because fictional 2D drawings haven’t been granted the same rights that you or I are fortunate enough to possess in any single country (including their possible country of origin).

It’s a sad trend that we’re seeing play out but sadly it might actually be the way of the future.

<Image via Pixiv>

“Loli Bill” Status Now Set to Back Burner: So last week when I said that I didn’t think anyone had anything to worry about, this is kind of what I was assuming would happen. ANN reported today that the controversial bill which would have banned all erotic visual depictions of characters that looked or sounded like they were under 18 years old. Japan is a conservative country but this was just not going to pass and I don’t see it passing in the near future.

What does concern me however is just how OFTEN these arguments are coming up lately. It’s only March and loli characters have been the center of some media storm or another more than a couple of times already. My otaku sense (which is sort of like a spidey sense but less likely to get me sued) tells me that this isn’t going to be the last time this topic breaks into the news cycle this season.

Sora no Otoshimono Gets Second Season: A new wraparound manga jacket has revealed that the fan service friendly harem series will get a second season. I know that I’ve been harsh with this series in the past (because it’s… you know, terrible) but I’m glad that fans of this series are getting a second season. It could have been worse, it’s not like Akikan is getting a sequel… oh, right.

Last Durarara DVD to Include Unaired Episode: Revealed late last night, Durarara will be getting a special unaired episode on DVD. With so many presentation angles from Baccano being used already, it sounds like this will be an episode which will be used in a similar way to tie up loose story ends. After reading the news, I popped an email over to Crunchyroll to see if there were any initial plans in place to stream it upon its release but haven’t heard back yet. If I hear anything regarding that, I’ll be sure to share the news as soon as I can!

GOSICK Gets Anime Adaptation: Closing things out this time is just a quickie announcement; the light novel GOSICK will be getting an anime. The mystery series takes place in a European city where two kids solve mysteries involving local urban legends. Sounds interesting I guess. No word on when it’s out/who’s putting it together but I’ll keep you posted as always.

So there I was earlier this week thinking about some of the titles have been coming out lately. Sure, there has been some good moe out there like K-ON and just recently fans were given a loli fix with To aru Kagaku no Railgun. But surely there has to be more out there… where is our loli, slice of life, moe bait series? Oh… right here apparently.

Earlier this week, Weekly Shonen Champion magazine revealed that a TV anime adaptation has been given the go ahead for the gag manga Mitsudomoe. The series centers on triplet sixth graders: the sadistic Mitsuba, the athletic Futaba and mystery solving Hitoha Marui and they daily adventures in school. I’m not really familiar with the series so I’m not sure what those daily adventures involve but it’s been running in a shonen magazine since 2007 so obviously there’s something in it that is drawing an audience (I meant besides the triplet lolis though I’m sure that has probably helped in no small way).

As with 90% of the magazine announcements that get reported, only the initial detail of a series being in the works was revealed. Naturally that means no word on cast, crew or a release date but new details and images will be debuting in the next two issues of the magazine. Guess there’s nothing to do now but wait patiently for images of triplet lolis to appear on my screen. Have I said triplet lolis enough times yet in this article? Didn’t think so.

<Via Moetron>

New feature time! In addition to other regular and semi regular features on the blog, today is the birth of the newest, ‘Otaku Review Salutes…’ This one is different from other features as instead of the usual rants, these are going to be pictorial salutes to a new theme every month. Starting this month, the first week of each month will be the home for my top five picks from whatever theme or category gets chosen for the month. How do themes get picked? I make them up as I go along.  For the first edition, I wanted to do something fun so for the month of November Otaku Review salutes… lolis!

Whether you love them openly, like them secretly or just feel a little creepy whenever they invade the anime you watch, it’s hard to ignore the loli once she appears on your screen and love them or hate them a good loli character has saved more than one average series in the past (Divergence Eve anyone?). For me, a good loli character has to have a certain level of charm without being annoying. Cute catch phrases and charm points aside, a loli character are one of the harder characters to write well and one of the easiest to laugh at when they are created poorly. So below the cut (in no particular order) are my top picks for favorite loli characters from my adventures through anime.

Who are your favorite loli characters? Who do you think should have been on the list? Share your picks and links to images in the comments throughout the month!

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