Love seeing the double standards in these comment sections. Murder, gore, torture, psychological manipulation, genocide, and violence are both commonplace and normalized in manga alongside most other fictional mediums (not that I mind) yet nobody seems to bat an eye even though they're morally apprehensible crimes as well. There's not even an argument to be made about pedophilia being an easier crime when homicides are far more frequent. The self-righteous commenters who are persecuting others for thought crimes are far worse than enjoyers of this manga will ever be. There will always be a clear distinction between harming real people and fictional characters. I'm sixteen, a target age for pedophiles. Furthermore, a shota and milf dynamic isn't typically my cup of tea when I read manga. But I'm not going to insult real people who want to enjoy a fictional work in peace.
It's a victimless hobby and any arguments towards the contrary will go down the same rabbit hole as 'video games cause violence'. There's no moral high ground for people who want to insult others for their interests. Even going down the argument that 'reading loli/shota manga will encourage the behavior,' confronting the readers with 'feel bad about yourself. Feel bad about yourself. You're disgusting,' will only cause them to delve further out of spite. Why in the world would they choose to listen to people who have clearly vocalized their disdain for them? I've had parents who have forced me to study well with negative reinforcement. Now I'm a procrastinating mess with depression. It wasn't conducive for any form of positive change.
Mockery doesn't help with anything. It's no different than hurting another person for a temporary ego boost. Western society depicts manga that don't align with their moral standards as disgusting aberrations. They assign meaningless labels to the consumers (pedophiles in this case), and perpetuate the ‘issue’ by mocking them. I wonder who the monsters truly are. If people hate it so much, will condescendingly judging them fix anything? Or is it only an elaborate ruse they do to make themselves feel better. Selfishly convince themselves that they’re ‘better’ people at the expense of somebody else?
I’ve read manga ever since I was five and I truly hope that mangakas will never conform their pieces of art—an expression of their soul—to the standards of contemporary society, or to the meaningless rabble from nobodies, like me, or any other reader. The messages that say “the author is a horrible person because of x, or y, or z in their manga” are growing concerningly frequent, as if these comments don’t already make the commenter an already more pitiful human for passing contempt onto others so carelessly.
The consumption of such media does not reflect a person's morals and values in everyday life. This is already a universally accepted idea. It has been for years. I am absolutely uncertain as to what changed since then. One does not promote or encourage genocide when they’re a fan of Vegeta. One is not glorifying the idea of child soldiers and children dying when they say that they love the world of Naruto. One is not a manipulative psychopath for liking Johann Liebert. One is not x for liking y regardless of how closely those two variables relate to one another. Because fiction is fiction.