Writing in The Book of Otaku (1989), feminist Chizuko Ueno argued that lolicon, as an orientation towards fictional bishōjo, is "completely different from pedophilia", and characterized it as a desire to "be part of the 'cute' world of shōjo" for male fans of shōjo manga who "find it too much to be a man". A moral panic against "harmful manga" in the 1990s has made lolicon a keyword in manga debates in Japan. l] [42] While erotic, Azuma's manga was also viewed as humorous and parodic; only a minority of readers found his style erotic at first, but a large fan base soon grew in response to the alternative to pornographic gekiga that it represented. Christine Yano argues that eroticized imagery of the shōjo, "real or fictive", reflects "heteronormative pedophilia" in which emphasis is placed on the ephemerality of childhood: "it is as child that [the shōjo] becomes precious as a transitory figure threatened by impending adulthood". During the " lolicon boom" in adult manga of the early 1980s, the term was adopted in the nascent otaku culture to denote attraction to early bishōjo (cute girl) characters, and later to only younger-looking depictions as bishōjo designs became more varied.

In Japanese, the phrase was adopted to describe feelings of love and lust for young girls over adult women, [8] which remains the phrase's common meaning.Like moe, lolicon is still used by otaku to refer to attraction that is consciously distinct from reality; [24] some otaku identify as "two-dimensional lolicon" ( nijigen rorikon) [g] to clarify their attraction to characters. Rorikon: Nihon no shōjo shikōshatachi to sono sekai [ Lolicon: Japan's Shōjo Lovers and Their World] (in Japanese).

At the time, all eroticism in the manga style featuring cute girl ( bishōjo) characters was associated with the term, [20] and synonyms of "Lolita complex" included " two-dimensional complex" ( nijigen konpurekkusu), "two-dimensional fetishism" ( nijikon fechi), "two-dimensional syndrome" ( nijikon shōkōgun), "cute girl syndrome" ( bishōjo shōkōgun), and simply "sickness" ( byōki).

Cultural critics generally identify lolicon with a broader separation between fiction and reality in otaku sexuality.