Genjitsu ga Mietekita node Shoujo o Aisuru no o Yamemashita. (現実が見えてきたので少女を愛するのを辞めました。) Review

Years ago, back when I was still hanging around online, I met this so-called “big shot” who completely overturned a lot of my views on the world. It was the first time I’d ever met someone that impressive on the internet. At least, he claimed he was impressive.

The “big shot” said he was living in Canada, young and successful, just taking classes now and then, occasionally doing some work for Microsoft, with access to the latest Windows Vista beta builds. He also had the money to mess around with all kinds of new “UMPCs.” At the time I thought this guy was absolutely amazing—being in the same group chat as him felt like a real honor.

But then I started to find it a bit odd. If he was really such a “big name,” why did his Discord name still have all that “Martian language” and scene-kid vocabulary? And if he was such a huge deal, why was he online basically 24/7?

So one night, while we were private messaging, the “big shot” said he wanted to show me something “nice.” He sent a video. I clicked on it and saw a huge white guy violating two very small people. Looking closer, those “small people” seemed to be kids—a little girl and a little boy.

That video made me extremely uncomfortable, but the “big shot” was still asking me if I “Want Some More.”

After that I rarely talked to that “big shot” again. Eventually I stopped using Discord altogether and never saw him again. Not long ago I logged into Discord and saw he seemed to have gone back to China to sell clothes. It felt sort of “deserved,” somehow.

Later on I understood that was probably what real “child pornography” actually means.

After that I became a “2D dead-fat otaku” and saw a lot of anime, manga, and game works. The young, cute heroines always made you feel moe. I also saw lots of young people proudly calling themselves “lolicons” at adorable little girls. At first I didn’t really get what a “lolicon” was—I just thought “loli” referred to those “small, cute girls.” But soon, as I learned more, I gradually understood: a real “lolicon” is probably someone like that “big shot” from the very beginning.

The West has always been cracking down on “child pornography,” and some politicians have even pointed the finger directly at Japanese anime, manga, and game works, saying they could lead to more serious child porn crimes. But I understood one thing: sometimes “lolicon” and “lolicon” are not the same.

Many kids who’ve just gotten into ACG culture proudly call themselves “lolicons,” but the “lolicon” in their eyes is at most a fondness for “cute girls who look short.” If they actually met a real “little girl,” I don’t think they’d feel any sexual urge.

A real “lolicon,” on the other hand, is a much more dangerous existence.

So we end up with this weird split: on one hand we see “lolicons” online saying things like “I love white thigh-highs, I love loli, I love little girls,” and on the other hand we see them posting furious comments under news about actual “lolicon crimes.”

It’s a bit like “Lord Ye’s love of dragons”—but it’s also understandable. After all, not everyone can stomach seeing real “lolicon” behavior.

Take me, for example. I used to think I was at least a “2D lolicon,” but recently I played a genuine “lolicon nukige” and still felt this indescribable disgust inside. That game is what I’m talking about today: I Saw Reality, So I Quit Loving Little Girls (現実が見えてきたので少女を愛するのを辞めました。).

Although the title literally means Because I Saw Reality, I Gave Up Loving Little Girls, the game actually has another title inside: “Because I Saw Reality, I Quit Being a Lolicon.” And the English subtitle says it all:

How I Learned to Cure Paraphilia and Love my Family.

The plot is extremely simple: the protagonist is a veteran lolicon who goes by the online handle “Meshi-sama” and creates all sorts of lolicon doujinshi. But as he gets older and keeps getting scorned by little girls, he hides his unique hobby and starts going to matchmaking meetings. He smoothly finds a divorced busty woman, “Aimi Asamiya,” and enters the bonds of marriage.

After marrying, the protagonist discovers his wife already has two little daughters, so as the stepfather of two girls (including a young sister-in-law), his deep-seated “lolicon” desires become impossible to contain. He starts walking the edge between crime and conscience, and ultimately can’t hold back.

The story itself is about a closeted lolicon who marries a normal woman and then starts lusting after his daughter. The first playthrough is a mandatory Bad End; you can only pursue the little girl on the second playthrough, and even then the route splits two ways: one where the protagonist returns to his wife as his true love (the “normal” path), and one where he gives in to being an uncontrollable lolicon.

The game is highly rated among Japanese otaku—most say “the story is easy to read” and “the protagonist feels real.” But for me it brought mostly discomfort.

Because the protagonist is unbelievably “sleazy.” How should I put this kind of “sleaziness”? It’s like sneaking into his daughter’s room when she’s out, sniffing her panties with his face, and eventually jerking off to them. He does plenty of other things too: staring at his daughter’s absolute territory with lecherous eyes, fantasizing all sorts of weird scenarios about her in his head. Sure, I know this is a porn game…

But a porn game protagonist should boldly admit he’s a pervert, not be this sleazy, right?

I originally thought this game would be about a protagonist struggling to contain his lolicon fetish, testing the edges of sin, and ultimately achieving some kind of spiritual transcendence by uniting with his daughter—that “immorality” angle. But this game is purely the story of a sleazy guy on the level of stealing panties. It’s awkward, sure, but more than that it made me repulsed.

The H-scenes with the women also left me stunned. The protagonist keeps fantasizing about his daughter, and then gets caught by her. Coincidentally, the daughter is also a pervert who loves reading lolicon doujinshi, and a loyal fan of the protagonist’s old alias “Meshi-sama.” The two immediately become “a bitch and her dog, together forever.” You’d think the mother would be devastated to learn her stepdaughter and husband are involved, right? But then the game reveals the mother is also a fan of “Meshi-sama”…

I’ve seen convenient plotting before, but never this convenient.

In the end, the mother even says she respects the protagonist’s lolicon hobby, that their marriage can be maintained on the surface, and she won’t interfere with whatever he does with her daughter—if anything, she seems to enjoy watching…

And so the game reaches its ending in this strange atmosphere.

By the end I still didn’t understand what this game was trying to say… Maybe I misunderstood from the start. I thought it might have some inner thoughts and social reflection about a “closeted lolicon,” but it doesn’t. All it has is the dirty fantasies inside a sleazy man’s head and a brain-dead plot I couldn’t connect with at all.

Anyway, I just can’t get this game. Maybe I’m really not a lolicon after all.