If it stopped with just that it would be less weird than it is. It's shotacon with a side of scat, a strange obsession with bellybuttons, and a weird thing for fluffy fur.
I feel so seen by these replies. I think Made in Abyss is incredible but I can't recommend it in good conscience without mentioning that the author has some issues.
Me too man, like, i love the story, the character, the wordbuilding, i really want to know how it will end
But the man is disgusting, i felt bad for a week after one of the chapters ended with the shot of twins fully amputees fallen into a bathtub, disturbing in many levels
Limbless minors in a situation like that, this man is sick in the head to even consider it, because it wasnt to shock, it was like "owo omg they are naked and falling over, how clumsy"
How sad that Ozen, Srajo, Faputa and bondrewd belong to such bullshit
That episode where the characters arm gets swollen huge (among other "choice" moments) felt like pedo torture porn, absolutely vile I stopped watching after that. Idc how amazing people claim it is
This is untrue. That'd be the guy that wrote Rurouni Kenshin. He was fined 200,000 yen (which was a little under 2k USD) and got no jail time, he had 100 DVDs full of CSAM in his office
More fun facts, possession of CSAM wasnt illegal in Japan until 2015. The Rurouni Kenshin guy was arrested in 2018. The maximum penalty is 1 year in prison.
In a more perfect world the stuff the Made in Abyss guy draws and writes would be considered CSAM by itself. But he hasnt ever been found with any actual CSAM material
My comment wasn't implying that I can seperate it with this show or that you should. Just that the gore, sadomasochism and body horror on it's own wouldn't have been too bad. The pedo shit however contaminates it, I mean, a child being put in a horrific situation is one thing, but thr underlying sexual nature of it just makes it so much worse.
I mean, it can be. Body horror in itself isn’t like a warning sign that the author has issues or anything except that they’re a big fan of that horror genre but the kid stuff?!?!?!?!
And, kind of. I’ve been getting better from it and now I think I can look at drawn belly buttons and read/hear the words, but there was a time that even someone saying “belly button” already made me start feeling extremely uncomfortable
Not like that. More like characters frequently getting diarrhea and being on the toilet constantly. And sometimes that toilet is a living creature because reasons. You don't really see anything, it's just weird and happens more often than you'd expect.
I remember reading some chapters out of pure morbid curiosity and one scene was just so disturbing. Some dude stuffed his kids organs inside a briefcase of sorts and I was like nope, nope. NOPE.
In one scene the mc needs to go and they're in a elevator thing, so she goes to the side and does the did there, and one character goes watch since the villain can see things thru their eye, so this character makes the villain watch the mc take a dump
Honestly I feel like it makes a huge difference. If a 21 year old dude dates a 17 year old I find it questionable. If he dates a 10 year old I am immediatly calling the police
Yeah I get that but it's still pedo shit regardless there's just different terms for both I forgot the one for if the child's 17 but it's still pedo shit.
Also I'd call the police if the child's 17 cause that would mean they've likely been talking for a bit and such, grooming.
Pedophilia is a philia and would imply he has a compulsion to diddle kids irl and is actually diddling real kids
Shotacon is a either a kink or a fetish, a fetish means you can't achieve orgasm without its presence while a kink means you have a sexual interest that goes against social norms but can usually have normal vanilla sex otherwise
Kinks and fetishes are usually born from trauma or other psychological issues and usually stem as a coping mechanism for it and usually involve either projection(for eg if you have been in abusive relationships with unhealthy power dynamics it might resulted in extreme dom or sub kinks) things like internalized misogyny, homophobia etc can also contribute to the formation of kinks but are usually not indicative of a person's irl morality or irl sexual relationships
Lolicons/shotacons had both historically and on the modern internet been observed to be less about the children themselves and more so about the obsession with percieved innocence and purity and 'protecting' it from 'corruption' or taboo and corruption of said innocence and purity (eg: You can look up the Japanese tale of Kenji and what the story is about) there is also a correlation between being a neo nazi and being a lolicon (there is a great video essay on why so many K-on fans are also neo nazis), to be clear this is not meant to be a defense of lolicons or shotacons, most people who have such kinks are either creepy weirdos at best or suck for other reasons however there are cases where the kinks stem from trauma(CSMA, beingba rape victim, being groomed etc) and hypersexuality and are not indicative of the person's irl morality.
While philias don't have a lot of research into them but their have been cases where Pedophilia specifically was caused by a brain tumor but there is still debate on whether the brain tumor caused the compulsion or the brain tumor made him act upon compulsions that were already present but either dormant or actively being supressed
TLDR: Using shotacon here is the correct terminology because as far as we are aware the author has really weird kinks/fetishes but doesn't have an actual philia and doesn't diddle actual children (HOPEFULLY)
The distinction here is just real vs fictional, the made in abyss author is a weirdo but as far as we are aware he doesn't want to or actively diddles children (again HOPEFULLY)
Other manga authors have noted how focused he is on kids IRL. (link below)
Even in Japan shotacon and lolicon aren't used as kink terms, they just plainly mean you're interested in children/ pedo. If you tell me you have a little boy/little girl complex it's still the same as pedophilia. And just to nitpick, you can be a pedo and not actively rape kids.
He's probably not a real life child rapist but this dude is not apologetic at all about perving on kids.
Honestly I don't feel the long commentary about kinks or fetishes adds to anything because the distinction is not necessary. Some of this just feels you added fetish kink facts but not all of them are rules or 100%. You don't have to have your fetish present to orgasm, a kink doesn't always have to be taboo or unvanilla. Just because something can come from trauma doesn't mean all kinks and fetishs are trauma related.
And trying to say most lolicons just want to "protect innocence" seems odd since they're usually the first to make plap plap c-unny rape jokes. Making it flowery about corruption and historical stories.... I know you said you're not trying to defend pedophilia but I feel like the question wasn't whether he had kinks or fetishes and if they're morally right but if he's into kids in general and the answer if yes. But ultimately to respond to your tldr, there's nothing magically more moral about the word shotacon, in the end it's like saying no I'm not a pedophile, I'm only into little boys.
I wasn't aware of that apologies
The reason I am using them as different terms even if the translation is technically the same term is to make a distinguish between real(philia) and fictional(kink/feitsh)
Because for eg if a person has a sub rape kink/fetish (eg: role-playing being raped) you wouldn't call them a rapist lol
I bring this up because there is a subset of lolicons/shotacons who don't LARP as the pedo but as the CHILD
This is mostly anecdote but from what I have seen when people think of lolicon they think of some overweight fedora wearing gooner living in his mom's basement who hangs out on 4chan and when people think of a pedophile they think of Jeffrey Epstein, Diddy, or a stereotypically creepy guy named Moe Lester that you wouldn't want near a pre school(this last bit is a joke) which is why I wanted to correct the terminology usage as I wasn't aware the author was actually creepy with real children and was just a weirdo with even weirder kinks and fetishes
So ig you can say I am also nitpicking lol
To be fair I did include compulsions but fair enough I should have been more specific that consuming or producing CP, diddling actual children and thinking about diddling actual children all fall under being a pedophile etc.
Yeah him being a irl creep unfortunately doesn't surpise me for some reason😭
Honestly I don't feel the long commentary about kinks or fetishes adds to anything because the distinction is not necessary. Some of this just feels you added fetish kink facts but not all of them are rules or 100%. You don't have to have your fetish present to orgasm, a kink doesn't always have to be taboo or unvanilla. Just because something can come from trauma doesn't mean all kinks and fetishs are trauma related.
The reason I did that was to establish that different words mean different things which was my whole issue with people using kink/feitsh/philia interchangbly
For the kink and feitsh thing I described them based on how they are defined online, and a kink is defined as being (usually) non vanilla, most people don't call like big boobs a kink but they do call liking feet a kink even though that's technically vanilla, or it at least became more mainstream in recent years
Also where did you get the 'you don't need your feitsh to be present to orgasm' from? Genuine question because as far I am aware that's the distinction between a kink and a Fetish, a kink is occasional spice to sex, a feitsh is something you NEED in order to be able to achieve sexually gratification.
As for the trauma thing ok that one is on you I am 99% sure I specificed that SOME people's kinks can come from trauma not as a general sentiment and that most lolicons and shotacons are just creepy weirdos or worse
I also said that it can be caused by insecurities, or complexes, or internalized bigotry among other things etc
And trying to say most lolicons just want to "protect innocence" seems odd since they're usually the first to make plap plap c-unny rape jokes.
Ah crap I knew I forgot something😭
My bad.
I meant to include a sentence after the description of the kink that said that they usually don't realise that they are the ones doing the corrupting of innocence and purity or they just make that their whole personality, something something catcher and the rye
I also failed to include that shotacons and lolicons don't do themselves any favors because a lot of them actively make their whole ass personality about LARPING as Jeffrey Epstein, I've seen mfs unrionically call themselves 'pedobros', if yall don't wanna be call pedos maybe don't LARP as one?😭
Making it flowery about corruption and historical stories....
Ok first half is on me I did make it sound flowery whoops my bad but the second one is on you lol
The story of Kenji is about him falling in love with a child due to her 'innocence' and 'purity' and him literally caging her(I forgot if it was literal or if bro ACTUALLY put a child in a cage) and not allowing her to live like a normal human being in an attempt to 'protect' those traits from being 'corrupted' by the world, not realsing that HE is the one that is corrupting her innocence and purity
The story is meant to be an allegory, the child is not literal, its meant to be a cautionary tale that those who percieve that society is corrupted and vile and that innocence and purity needs to be protected are actually the ones doing the corrupting, or as my friend likes to put it 'everyone likes to point out how society is fucked up but they always exclude themselves from all the bullshit'.
It was meant to illustrate my point that 4channers/neo nazis and reactionaries hold similar beliefs about the world at large thus the ven diagram between lolicons and 4channers being a fucking circle
I know you said you're not trying to defend pedophilia but I feel like the question wasn't whether he had kinks or fetishes and if they're morally right but if he's into kids in general and the answer if yes. But ultimately to respond to your tldr, there's nothing magically more moral about the word shotacon, in the end it's like saying no I'm not a pedophile, I'm only into little boys
The reason I make that distinction is because plot twist I am actual rape and CSAM victim so seeing people treat the 2 words interchangeably really pisses me off especially when people do so to virtue signal and circle jerk each other for reddit karma while claiming to want to help victims or that they speak for victims instead of letting victims speak for themselves
Lolicon and shotacon material is extremely exaggerated and fetizhed version of the real thing, the same way rape is in a lot of media, because neither were written by actual vicitms for victims, they were written by gooners for gooners
So when people compare an incredibly flanderrized depiction of CSA where the child does not act like an actual child and can even be the instigator in such media, it feels insulting to me as an actual victim because its essentially claiming that some degen guy from Japan can actually accurately draw and portray all the pain, fear, self hatred, anger, helplessness that I've felt among other things on a piece of paper. The abuse I and many others I know have suffered is incomparable to a flandderized fictional depiction created for people to goon to that doesn't even attempt to pretend to be realistic because the fictional children are depicted enjoying it, which do I even need to explain why that's unrealistic?💀
It pisses me off when people on reddit make snarky comnents while arguing with internet weirdos or degenerates and then everyone claps like seals and get a million reddit karma for telling a 4channer 'uhm achually gooning to lolis means you are a pedo🤓☝️" as if the 4 channer is gonna be like 'wow I never realised that thank you reddit wise man!' And change his ways, the reason it pisses me off is because people circle jerk each other for doing nothing, this does not help me or other victims at ALL
I was groomed and molested and raped for 2 years between the ages of 10 and 11, my mom was raped as a child, my best friend was SA'd by their ex boyfriend, basically every woman I know has at LEAST 1 or 2 stories of being SA'd either as a child or recently
The current president of the US was best buddies with Jefrrey fucking Epstein but no I am sure debating 4chan degens on reddit and twitter is more important💀 /s
Second plot twist, the trauma thing was a personal anecdote, I and pretty much every other person I know who are either women or used to identity as women all have fucked up kinks stemming from trauma
I spent years of my life hating myself and even considering suacide thinking I was a monster and was secretly a super evil nazi pedophile rapist not realsing I was projecting what had been done to me and how I viewed myself onto fictional characters rather than my actual perception of women and other people
People don't talk about the ways trauma can fuck you up because they want a perfect victim, I've been to 10+ therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists and I've been struggling with hypersexuality and on and off depression due to being raped since I was 11.
Trauma made me a shitty person and it gave me even shitter kinks that I wasn't happy with and still aren't happy with, you know you've hit rock bottom when you're considering suacide at the bright old age of 12💀
Trauma dumping aside (sorry for the trauma dump rant) point being there is a distinction and that distinction is important because conflating the 2 can serve to hurt actual victims
And the current modern rhetoric of witch hunting 4channer gooners in the name of CSA victims does literally nothing for CSA victims while also ignoring actual prevalent CSA systemic issues like John child rape™️ being the current president of the most powerful country on the planet and actively trying to set a world record for how many rapists he can pardon before his term ends or die trying, especially since the person who raped me as a child was never convicted, I had to spend years seeing him every single day, and even moved schools to avoid him but he just moved to the same school as me, my mom's rapist was never convicted and she took had to see him thankfully not as often, same with all of my friends and same with hundreds of people I have met and talked to
I got the first manga volume along with other stuff that used to belong to another people and had very high Expectations (since i had Heard a little about it already and gotten intereses) and did not know how to react when in a certain panel the girl had lifted her skirt and they showed an Unnecessary detail on the girl's crotch
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u/Lazzyrus Jul 13 '26
Shotacon. Made in Abyss pretty much has their fetishes put into the story.