Tricky

Overview

With varying ages of consent across Japan, with the national minimum being 13, what passes as an acceptable age for sexual objectification of characters may be considerably younger than what many foreigners are accustomed to. Tricky refers to these instances of sexualized depictions of minors.

Tricky vs Jailbait

Jailbait generally refers to characters or persons who have not reached the age of consent but have a physical appearance that makes them indistinguishable from an adult. Tricky differs from jailbait in that the characters do not have the physical appearance of an adult and their age relative to the age of consent in undeniably lower, generally from elementary school age to freshmen in high school.

Origin

The term was coined by Anime Vice staffer Tom Pinchuk during his review of Dance in the Vampire Bund, a series where the lead character is depicted as a pubescent female and often placed in erotic and/or sexual situations. Rather than use a term like icky, which could be considered offensive to the creators and fans of the series, Tom coined the phrase tricky to describe these situations.

Notable Examples in Anime and Manga

• Beelzebub - Furuichi and Lamia's relationship is also tricky because Honoka and the Red Tails girls find Furuichi in compromising situations with Lamia (see Caught in a Lewd Position). As a result, Furuichi earns the title of being a pedophile.
• Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? (Is this a Zombie?) - Ayumu Aikawa fantasizes about Eucliwood who is a gothic, loli girl. In his fantasies, he imagines her speaking to him a cute voice and doing things that the normal Eucliwood would not do. Keiko is another loli girl who has a large bust; Chris is a Masou Shoujo girl who is cursed to be a middle age man. Chris gets drunk in order to loosen the curse and temporarily returns to her original form.