lolicon

thumb|A manga-style depiction of young girls wearing lingerie. Lolicon artwork often blends childlike characteristics with erotic undertones. In Japanese popular culture, is a genre of fictional media which focuses on young or young-looking girl characters, particularly in a sexually suggestive, fetishistic or erotic context. The term, a portmanteau of the English-language phrase "Lolita complex", also refers to desire and affection for such characters (, "loli"), and their fans. Associated mainly with stylized imagery in manga, anime, and video games, lolicon in otaku culture is generally understood as distinct from desires for realistic depictions of young girls, or real young girls as such, and is associated with moe, or affection for fictional characters, often bishōjo (appealing girl) characters in manga or anime.

The phrase "Lolita complex", derived from the novel Lolita, entered use in Japan in the 1970s. During the "lolicon boom" in erotic manga of the early 1980s, the term was adopted in the nascent otaku culture to denote attraction to early bishōjo characters, and later only to younger-looking depictions as bishōjo designs became more varied. The artwork of the lolicon boom, which was strongly influenced by the styles of shōjo manga, marked a shift from realism, and the advent of "cute eroticism" (kawaii ero), an aesthetic which is now common in manga and anime broadly. The lolicon boom faded by the mid-1980s, and the genre has since made up a minority of erotic manga.