Lolicon (ロリコン), also romanized as rorikon or lolicom, is, in Japanese contexts, an attraction to young (or young-looking) girl characters, or media centered around this attraction. A Japanese portmanteau of the English phrase "Lolita complex" (rorīta konpurekkusu), the term describes this attraction to fictional girls (see ), an individual with this attraction, or the lolicon genre of media such as manga and anime, in which "lolis" (childlike girl characters) are depicted in the aesthetic of "cute eroticism" (kawaii ero). While associated with pedophilia in the Japanese public imagination, scholars and critics assert that lolicon, in the context of otaku (manga and anime fan) culture, is nearly always the attraction to fictional girl characters, as distinct from the attraction to realistic