Lolicore: A Brief History
I started writing this in the Summer of 2015 when I felt that lolicore/ releases that were “lolicore” had declined to next to none. I stopped editing this piece because I had more pressing issues to attend to (namely University work). Two years later, I can safely say lolicore is over and has been, unfortunately, replaced by hyper “irony” and poor attempts at chopped n screwed (Vaporwave) on the internet scene in full. There are a number of factors that resulted in this – mainly the inability to market lolicore except to a niche group – plus bigger names in the “scene” avoiding lolicore or moving away from the speedcore/ breakcore side of it (such as lolishit). I still listen to many of the “classics” and I’m glad that it happened but, in my opinion, it’s better for it to have had a peaceful death rather than be turned into some epic meme on facebook, like Vaporwave. So then, why write something like this now? Well, lolicore was an important step in what would become the internet scene and was the first “internet genre” and it doesn’t get recognition as such and rather than wait for some Know Your Meme page dedicated to it or some Encyclopaedia Dramatica joke page on it (that people will, as usual, take as fact) I decided to publish as accurate an article as possible, I will note parts that I’m not certain on.
The following article is not intended as an opinion piece however with few factual sources left (or there to begin with) this is as accurate as I think it can be, if you notice any discrepancies or have an issue(s) you can email me or leave a comment and I will make an edit and note the edit and give credit if wanted. I will also self edit this/ expand and note any edits and the date. I do not expect many people to even read this as, frankly, there are very few people who still have an interest in this niche variant of a variant of a stylistic of a subgenre of electronic music.
What is lolicore?
Lolicore is a variant of speedcore (in turn a variant of breakcore which is stylistic of techno). The term originated around 2006 (no archived page or images exist of the thread) when LOLI RIPE described his music as lolicore on the random board on 4chan. He started it with the release of Jody. However, as no archived version of the thread exist and anyone who was In it would have forgotten it, there isn’t much evidence to prove the origin by LOLI RIPE apart from hearsay, we do have a date on discogs. Although LOLI RIPE was the first to use the term he wasn’t the “inventor” of what would be lolicore, that title goes to onamatopeee with his album あにこあ, released earlier in 2006, that contains several elements that would be hallmarks of lolicore. J-core artists should also get credit for lolicore’s formation, such as USAO and DJ Sharpnel who were producing before the advent of lolicore and sampled anime/ otaku related media in electronic music from the early noughties. Some producers are also associated with lolicore even though they never produced it due to the amount of releases they’re featured on that have lolicore artists, like Passenger of Shit (Australia). The difference between the J-core progenitors and lolicore is that lolicore is mainly a Western affair, paroding japanophiles or weeaboos. There are Japanese producers though like CDR, Shako Pani, sHimaU and Mo.
The origin of lolicore’s creation lies in the satirical nature of it. When lolicore was “created”, there was massive inertia for the term japanophile which led to the association of the pejorative weeaboo, from the Perry Bible Fellowship comic, a term which became quite popular. The term was then used to describe anyone who liked anime or otaku media and this is where lolicore’s relation to it comes in. LOLI RIPE came up with the concept to parody weeaboos who were part of online communities such as 4chan, gaia, myspace, livejournal, deviantart, SomethingAwful and Newgrounds etc who were viewed as socially inept. The use of high-pitched (“loli”) soundbytes and fast gabber kicks mimics certain aspects of music which the average weeaboo is perceived to like (J-core, doujin arrangements, anime OPs, apop/denpa) which often use female vocals and fast paced kicks with distorted melodies in their melody. Another description of it can also be found on RateYourMusic (also contains a list of ratings for an incomplete list of lolicore releases) and last.fm. Other influences for lolicore include Touhou; which is sampled / referenced in many prominent works, such as goreshit’s Tomboyish Love For Daughter where the cover is of Cirno from TH6 and the title is a play on Cirno’s BGM theme. This is also seen in lolishiit’s Deaf To All But the Misao where Misao’s voice from Lucky Star is glitched in with a corruption of Mystia’s theme from TH6.
There are also some artists who contributed to lolicore but are debatable in regards to whether they are lolicore, examples include Shako-Pani who moreso makes IDM with anime samples and drill and bass but has gotten associated with the genre. Though there were claims he isn’t lolicore, he has never made a statement (at least not in English) on the subject of his. However, his music has been featured on some lolicore compilations with his permission suggesting he more than likely doesn’t reject the idea. At a time it was popular in the underground of the internet and places like last.fm and is still popular in Eastern Europe with producers like Reizoko Cj, Akamushi and Loffciamcore being at the forefront of the Eastern European scene. Releases that have gained the most attention include goreshit’s My Love Feels All Wrong, lolishit’s Chest Flattener and LOLI RIPE’s Jody .Among other releases which are noted are Okashi’s Kiss, Sigh, Cherry Blossom-Colour, Mo’s Moe Kyun. EP (two different versions exist) and JAPSHITFUN’s Lolicore Ruined My Life. There is also an essentials list created by 4chan’s music board showcasing what are considered to be the “best of” lolicore (this was released in 2010 so is slightly outdated), which includes more well known albums.
Lolicore and Satire
The imagery of “cute” anime characters was also incorporated in lolicore, as many “weeaboos” self identify as lolicons. This was done are few “weeaboos” are perceived to understand that terms like otaku and lolicon are supposed to be negative and not positively associated in Japan, despite what they’re perceived to think. Loli is a shortened version of Lolita, a term which originates from Nabakov’s novel Lolita, leading phrase Lolita complex (lolicon). There is division over the use of the “loli” imagery and profanity in lolicore as many artists wish not to be associated with the artstyle and just want to focus on the music, like maedasalt who recently expressed this view on his facebook page and Reizoko Cj who has deleted his bandcamp and continued producing as xo:re. Despite this, there are others like lolishit, who is not shy to use inappropriate album covers, and JAPSHITFUN who aimed to offend and shock with the profanity of his song titles and images.
Brief exposition of lolicore
Early lolicore is quite distinguishable from the later periods as it is mainly noise based speedcore that contains multiple samples, although LOLI RIPE is the main performer in this category. Others such as Blind Panda Bear, Nasty Maid Grinder, JAPSHITFUN, maedasalt, Ninja McTits, loliqueen, Bubblegum Noise, Napkin Teorrizer, bukiko, moetann, NeroshaZ and Reizoko Cj have followed and continued the style. It consists mainly of roughly spliced soundbytes which are awkwardly mashed together and inserted into audacity or similar and a simple gabber kick or amen break taken from a sample pack is added. The “song” then gets a liberal amount of distortion added to it with certain sections being completely noise and then put through a filter to increase distortion until the sample is unrecognisable.
Other songs are “made” in the way some plunderphonics/ chopped n’ screwed (and more accurately/ commonly how nightcore artists “make” “their” songs) by taking the a song speeding it to 1.5x (and/or filtering chipmunk vox) then applying an 808 or amen or gabber kicks continuously throughout at varying speeds making it stylistically similar to speedcore/ extratone in its BPM, some songs becoming noise due to the rhythm section forming a continuous melody of its own due to no space between the kicks. The go to samples came from famous anime at the time, the prominent ones included Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-Chan, Di Gi Charat, Moetan and Kodomo no Jikan as many of these series had “loli” characters in them, aiding the aesthetic. Go-to samples from these included the OPs/EDs of these anime or risqué dialogue. Other samples include famous Idol groups/ Female fronted Japanese bands, like with Bloody Vomit Bukkake making a Scandal (Japanese female rock band) remix album, and dialogue including references of lolicon or soundbytes that sound profane. These albums were shared through various mid school sharing methods including soulseek, mediafire and megaupload.
Influences
Despite the formation of many “internet genres”, lolicore has a claim to be the considered the first one, perhaps bar nightcore, to gain traction and to start furbish the eventual inclusion of “aesthetic”, Memes or Irony/post-Irony/New Sincerity in internet music. The original artists up to 2008/9 were in the “genre” to make intentionally choppy electronic music and, as discussed, to parody groups on forums which they disliked whilst using inside jokes that people in-the-know understood. The lack of understanding of the “joke” lead to much anger generated from people listening for the first time who expected something “listenable” or not profane. Lolicore unintentionally inspired mimic internet “genres” such as Vaporwave, Seapunk, Witch House, Chillwave, Sportswave and Oceangrunge. The difference being the aforementioned “genres” sole intent was benefitting from inept online users who are into music by taking older stylistics such as Plunderphonics, Ambient, chopped n’ screwed, lowercase, Footwork, Ghetto House, Synth-Pop, Dream Pop, City Pop, Big Beat etc and profit from cheap digitally created cassettes that are sold for upwards of $500. As a side note, in contrast to lolicore these people used viral marketing to make a career out of what lolicore carved. They are part of the reason lolicore declined, in part due to many potential producers opting to make another generic bandcamp Vaporwave album than making for quick money and attention, some lolicore producers have even taken gone down this route or explored it like lolicore label Tsundere Violence or have had some releases that could be considered "Vaporwave".
“The Scene”
The lolicore scene was a prominent internet music scene with the base of it centralised on last.fm I discovered lolicore, and now I can’t sleep and lolicore, other sites included lolicore.forumnation.com. Releases were only found by going to the communities and talking to people or searching the logs to find the release, as there was no commercial aspect behind them they had to support each other and the scene leading to several netlabels (Mob Squad Black Label, Bubblegum Noise, DANCECOPRS, Tsundere Violence, Chipdipdrop Records, Channel Q, Underground Core Collective and others which will be discussed) and forum/ groups being made with the use lolicore.ch, archive.org and discogs to preserve as much information on the releases as possible and to allow downloading of them. Uploading of songs onto YouTube was also a great way in which lolicore gained prominence, mainly the users godgodgod123, hentaiporfavour, ItsLike3AM and LolicoreLover. The Rhythm Game Ozu has also given attention to lolicore artists, mainly goreshit, through user fanpacks that utilise high BPM songs. There were no shows as such in lolicore, though there were several online performances through net radio stations most notably KawaiiLoli Attack. Although there were no shows offline consisting of multiple lolicore artists there have been one of events with producers and most prominently goreshit plays regular shows, though these don’t feature lolicore as a staple, and others like Round Wave Crusher/Nasty Maid Grinder and Himeko Katagiri performing in Japan.
As mentioned earlier last.fm served as a means of getting recognition in the scene and it also led to lolicore producers getting noticed by people outside of the scene, the person who benefited most from this is goreshit, who has a whopping 1.7 Million Scrobbles and 28000 listeners. From this, the scene became quite close at a time, supporting each other and commenting on other music they enjoyed even collaborating with each other – and starting quarrels like JAPSHITFUN with goreshit. There is very little commercial aspect to lolicore, with the “creator” LOLI RIPE never making anything on his recordings, There are only a few artists who have made money from it, restricted mainly to producers on the same Netlabel or related one supporting each other like Underground Core Collective and Tsundere Violence though these physical release profits are not anything major and usually cover the costs of production. The major commercial grosser of lolicore would be – in an oxymoron as like he says he never charges for his music, people can pay as much as they like – goreshit. He has released several of his releases on CDs from 2014 to present from his lolicore roots to his contemporary breakcore, with his recognised work “My Love Feels All Wrong” having three presses due to popularity. In 2015 lolicore as a commercial venture took its most daring leap with Ayane Fukume or Underground Core Collective and goreshit – the first lolicore 12”. Crowdfunding through kickstarter started in 2015 and it got a massive $2750 from 71 people, due to a number of set-backs from customs it wasn’t until 2017 that the vinyl finally was released but it eventually was thanks to the perseverance of the producers involved.
There have also been parody releases, in the case of Ninja McTits’ Discogs Facists it’s to satirize the fact discogs doesn’t reocgnise lolicore are a legitimate stylistic nor does it fully recognise Tsundere Violence releases and to annoy the fanatic release editors who led to Himeko Katagiri being banned on discogs. Although never directly mentioned in or recognised by the mainstream, indirectly lolicore has been featured in popular online ragmag Vice through Reizoko Cj, avoiding the use of the term lolicore and instead calling it a new genre of dubstep made with chainsaws and Ritalin.
Lolicore has producers Wordwide, focused mainly in England (in the case of JAPSHITFUN, Okashi and goreshit, DJ Ninja Love Mistake). Other countries with producers include Switzerland (Yuri Yum Yum), Argentina (Round Wave Crusher/ Nasty Maid Grinder/ Rodriguez Rodrigo Nicolas), Sweden (XACKSECKS, Riajuu), Australia (Laser Imouto), Japan (no.305, Shako Pani, onomatopeee, sHimaU, Mo, DJKurara, Sub-69, Napkin Terrorizer), Netherlands (rorikiller), Russia (Akamushi), Ukraine (Reizoko Cj), Italy (Bloody Vomit Bukkake, RaevLoli), Finland (“iluvOP), Canada (lolishit) and USA (LOLI RIPE, Ayane Fukume, Ninja McTits, Himeko Katagiri, Vaenus, NO Loli-Gagging). However, as a result of the want of anonymity many of these producers’ identities and origins remain largely unknown and are just speculation such as LOLI RIPE where it’s assumed he’s American due to where he used to post online, other reasons for unknown countries of origin is jokes placed on official pages of the producers such as on Reizoko Cj’s now defunct bandcamp listing him as being in Ecuador.
As has already been touched on, most, if not all, of the producers were heavily involved in internet culture at a point or throughout their time as a producer. The forerunners of it like lolishiit, goreshit and LOLI RIPE express this quite apparently trough their use of old Memes in their track titles or sampling of soundbytes from famous anime/ media/ catchphrases in their songs that were inside jokes like Hurrrrrrrrr…. by LOLI RIPE. For goreshit this is most apparent in his song egg hax0rz which is a reference to leet speak. An example of a very active imageboard user who produced lolicore would be "iluvOP who posted as "iluvOP !ge9bznqAsg using a tripcode on 4chan’s /jp/ board, a board that was infamous for people who are in know. Their first post was in July 2010 as was their first release: My Beats For Your Heart.
Compilations were a big part of the scene also to provide “samplers” of many producers at one, mainly to promote less known artists alongside the bigger names. Some were also as a joke, such as the DQN Electronic releases that featured lolicore. These releases include ADHD Lolicore Gangbang released in 2010 by Loffciamcore’s SmokeSkull Records, Bubblegum Luv’s untitled compilation and final release [Luv015], L.A.A. Compilation 2 and Super Secret Lolicore Compilation and Sociopath Love Compilation released all by Chipdipdrop Records in 2012, Oh Fuck! (Another Shitty Internet Compilation) from 2009 by Abstract Disco, multiple Tsundere Violence Compilations ( found here), Mainstream Must Die released in 2010 by Splitterkor Records Dziwko, LOLICORE DESTRUCTION released by Virtual Disc Systems in 2014 and Laptop Lobotomy by DANCECORPS in 2017. Other non-lolicore specific compilations that have/had forms of/ lolicore was/ were the various DQN Electronics compilations which are compiled tracks made by the users of the /dqn/ board on 4-ch.net as well as inviting well known lolicore artists to release tracks for it such as onomatopeee, goreshit, LOLI RIPE and XACKSECKS, these albums can be found here, the ones that are most noteworthy of this are DQN ELECTRONICS VOL 3, DQN ELECTRONICS VOL 9 (featuring several bigger names like LOLI RIPE, ISOpussy and rorikiller), DQN ELECTRONICS VOL 10, DQN ELECTRONICS VOL 11 and DQN ELECTRONICS VOL 2010 are the releases In this series that have significant lolicore portions. Title is another release that has lolicore elements but consists only of /dqn/ members.
Split albums were a big part of the scene as well. Goreshit is featured in the most amount of these splits with 11 splits with other artists in the genre, some of which only had one or two releases like Fainairu 3, Girls W/Bombs and complex.0 (JAPSHITFUN monikor); a list of the splits can be found here. Another famous split is the Fainaru 3/ Goreshit/ JAPSHITFUN/ Lolishit split which features great transition material between the initial (“first wave) lolicore sound and what would become the more formulated “second wave”, mixing produced melodies with noisily sampled anime. It also features some of the most obscene titles in lolicore thanks to JAPSHITFUN, which has in part led to minor infamy. The JAPSHITFUN/ Lolishit split is one which is sought after as a result of the Netlabel it was released under, Abstract Disco, closing soon after its creation and therefore not many getting a link to the album, as is the same for another JAPSHITFUN release. Other producers who have been heavily featured in albums with fellow producers are Loffciamcore, Reizoko Cj, Yuri Yum Yum and “iluvOP.
As was also mentioned the scene was supported by multiple Netlabels (many of which quickly ceased to release shortly after formation). The main Netlabels that exist in lolicore were Chipdipdrop records (releasing over a hundred albums – since 2017 the website has been defunct), DANCECORPS (UK) (who have released stuff for the more prominent members of the scene and have had live shows, in 2017 releasing their first physical release), the defunct UK based Bubblegum Luv (who released arguably the most famous lolicore album made which is lolishit’s Chest Flattener) and Tsundere Violence (USA) who are the newest and most active Netlabel to release lolicore. Other netlabels include/d Underground Core Collective (USA) ran by Ayane Fukumi, 1000+ (UK) (defunct netlabel ran by DJ Ninja Love Mistake), Virtual Disk Systems, Abstract Disco, KyokudoCore Records (Czech Republic based) “co-owned” by DJKurara, SmokeSkull Records/ Splittorkor Records Dziwko!!! (Poland) ran by Loffciamcore and Channel Q (ran by KyonPalm). Some other Netlabels that may not be considered fully dedicated to lolicore but feature releases of/ semblance of lolicore include Mob Squad Black Label (ran by Round Wave Crusher), RDC Records, UGU (Japan – defunct since 2012)[/url] (released an early example of lolicore with the no. 305/ rorikiller split in 2006) and MechaYuri (Canada), which released a cassette of Riajuu in 2014.
Lolicore had many producers but rarely did they make more than one or two releases, then, never produce again. This is the case with the most well known artists in the genre such as Bloody Vomit Bukkake who released a string of releases in 2009 and 2010 but has never produced anything under the monikor again and finallyannounced in 2013 that the project was over stating that there would be no point continuing it, opting to focus on his Dark Ambient project Cherry Blossom Chains instead. Other famous examples of this would be LOLI RIPE who produced the initial works in the genre, under various monikors from 2006 to 2008 but has never been heard from since and is assumed to have distanced themselves as far away as possible from it. Lolishit was also presumed to be finished with lolicore as they hadn’t produced an album for over half a decade and hadn’t been seen on their last.fm profile for nearly three years or their discogs account until two albums were released simultaneously in 2015 (Real Loli Shit and the Trap Split with Akamushi) on his bandcamp, however albums produced were not the speedcore influenced lolicore are before, with the main resemblance being the use of soundbytes from anime. He again went missing for missing years until he released My So Called Lolicore in 2017. Other examples include JAPSHITFUN who has been inactive since 2010 and assumed finished it due to the release of JAPSHITFUN is Dead, Laser Imouto whose last lolicore release was 2009, Yuri Yum Yum (inactive since 2010) and DJ Ninja Love Mistake (inactive from 2009 – passed away in 2016). Though, some have made a return after long periods of inactivity such as lolishit, TommY RuleZ and XÄCKSECKS who have all had half a decade break from the scene but returning to make non-lolicore music.
Everything above this paragraph I consider to be quite accurate, below is where the piece has more of an opinion base to it due to nature of what it discuses such as tonal qualities, I have tried to keep it as unbiased as before. There will be some repetition from before.
Phases of lolicore
First Wave
There are three main “waves” to lolicore’s history. The first wave existed from 2006-2008 and consisted of three central producers: rorikiller, LOLI RIPE and goreshit with Round Wave Crusher (Nasty Maid Grinder) playing a role near the end. These early releases consisted mainly of noise, mashup and some speedcore, which was mainly influenced by “internet culture” and the want to make a niche inside joke intended to off-put audiences. It wasn’t supposed to be enjoyed due to how unlistenable it was made sound, which is what drew more people to the scene lolicore in a contradictory way. The first wave of lolicore included people who were lampooning weeaboos/ self-identified otakus but also included “otaku” as well, such as no.305, sHiamaU, Shako-Pani, Onomatopeee. Though, they were not making the music for parody more-so as something that they enjoyed, especially in the case of あにこあ as this album pre-dated the existence of lolicore’s formation as a concept. Overarching ideas in these early releases included references to popular internet phenomena/ Memes, harsh speedcore with breaks, often obscene artwork and reference to anime. This is seen in Jody by LOLI RIPE with the track Hurrrrrrrrr…. and the referencing of Komugi from Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte, it could be argued that Even the Child Gets in Trouble is a reference to the JoJo’s Bizzare Adventure inside joke Even Speedwagon Is Afraid. Onomatopeee’s album あにこあ features an assortment of anime characters on the cover that were famous at the time, prominently Dokuro-chan from Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro Chan, Chiyo from Azumanga Daioh and Haruhi from The Meloncholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Rorikiller’s album Torn Apart From The Tentacle features guro/ grotesque artwork and references the popular idea of Hentai associated with Tentacles. This release, like many others listed online, is supposed to be Japanese according to its discogspage however due to the fact of little supporting evidence for this and his last.fmpage stating it was a Dutch project that has been inactive since 2009 and hasn’t released since 2007. Though it’s interesting that he did a split with no.305, who is Japanese.
Rorikiller would also be the first to do “lolicybergrind” a subset of cybergrind and lolicore which featured electronically likened grindcore mixed with anime samples, all of rorikiller’s releases would feature this. There are some direct references to popular internet phenomena, anime and otaku niches such as “Maid Omelet” on his split with NHK, 2chan Attack (a reference to the progenitor of Western imageboards) on his no.305 split and Moetan a popular otaku centred anime from the early 00s on his OtakuGrind EP. Round Wave Crusher followed rorikiller’s artwork nuance with his release Tales of Rapes, Maids and Hardcore featuring a “moé meido” however his style was closer to what would be the “second wave” of lolicore, making a speedcore/ gabber orientated album. This album featured direct references to certain anime tropes with the phrase “oniichan daisuke” and the food dango. Goreshit, although never too provocative in artwork, did reference popular Memes/ inside jokes during the time of the release of his earlier albums, especially from the anime board on 4chan, as well as various anime/ otaku media throughout this period such as Serial Experiments Lain and Kagami from Lucky Star (on the DJ Ninja Love Mistake Split) which also featured the song A Flat Chest is Fine, Too both referencing lolicon and an inside joke from a Tsukihime unofficial manga. Although the first release わたしわばかやろです, the only one with goreshit being a band, didn’t feature this any overt references, as a single person project this was compensated for. Seen in Where is Soda Pop and Apple Sweets with the tracks chiyopop (referencing chiyo from Azumanga Daioh – done several times in several albums/ releases by goreshit), nekonekoneko (featuring soundbytes of a character from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya pets a cat) and seerafuku dakara desu (referencing people who think they can speak Japanese because they watch anime). Tomboyish Love for Daughter continues this featuring Cirno from Touhou on the cover and the title referencing Cirno’s theme song and the use of l33tspeek on the album with lolil0_0pz and scrambled eggz0rh@x plus referencing to lolicon on crabs. Old Shit Wot Never Got Released But Now Kind of Has in This Nifty Little Zip File again references those who think they speak Japanese as they watch anime weeaboos with the opening track usagi…aishite imasu!!, this could also be referencing the Sailor Moon character.
LOLI RIPE initiated this wave, and scene as a whole, with his release Ecce Pede which, though didn’t have the characteristic lolicore sound, was the first to use the term lolicore with the song Lolicore Superstar, the album itself is just a drowning of noise with no other real ties to his later work apart from the use of some anime characters on the front of the album and the use of the ;_; emote, which was popular on the internet at the time. Jody was the first lolicore album and has been discussed already. His next full album OTAKUSPEEDCOCK would again reference internet quirks with the use of 9000 in the opening track and the ( ಠ∀ಠ) emote in two others, though the most noteworthy thing about the album is the questionable cover and the reference to 4-ch with “VIP guest stars” which include ISOpussy and DJ CLONEPA who would produce lolicore material after this. The next (and final) full length album by him features even more references to the internet with OH ▄█▀ █▬█ █ ▀█▀! and ∑(￣∀￣ ), popularly used on imageboards at the time, and Some Kind of LOLI BEAKFAST MACHINE being a reference to a .swf file found on the internet at the time of a character from Onegai My Melody. The rest of his discography would have fewer references to the internet with Little Sweet Dolores having none and でもおいしい having one minor reference in Melon Sauce for Raspberry Nipples as did Get Intimate With… in its closing song Lolicatgirls (a reference to a popular switch-and-bait .swf file). Objet Du Desir referenced many internet mannerisms/ popular topics such as the grammatical editing RAEP, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya with listing his name as The MELANCOLHY OF LOLI RIPE and the Touhou Project in the song Touwhore. This would close the first wave of lolicore and nearly all except goreshit would produce or produce regularly again after this period.
Second Wave
The “second wave” of lolicore took place from 2009-ealry 2012 and it marked the peak of popularity of for it ~2010. The main producers from these period would be Nasty Maid Grinder/ Round Wave Crusher, Bloody Vomit Bukkake, lolishiit, goreshit and Shako-Pani, though there are many more overtly popular ones apart from the ones listed thus far such as Yuri Yum Yum, JAPSHITFUN, "iluvOP and Akamushi. This period marked the “production” period of lolicore and the rise of Net labels such as Bubblegum Luv. It also marked the establishment of a fledged community in the scene on sites like last.fm with the lolicore groups: http://www.last.fm/group/Lolicore (made in 2008 so technically before this wave) and http://www.last.fm/group/I+discovered+lolicore,+and+now+I+can't+sleep (made 2009) (unfortunately both these groups are in limbo due to last.fm’s excellent management, therefore how long they will continue to be kept up is unknown), the lolicore.forumotion.com established in early 2012 by BillmaZter making it slightly after when the second wave was at a peak but still an integral part of the scene (which is still used for new lolicore artists to display their work), and other music reviewing forums such as RateYourMusic and Discogs both of which have a decent categorization and description of the more popular albums in lolicore. Majority of releases in the genre took place at this time as it was during this time that the internet got more accustomed to the knowledge of lolicore’s existence. One of the earliest archived posts mentioning lolicore outside of the usual hangouts (i.e. last.fm) is from January 2009 on then Japan/General board from 4chan, another coincidental mention of it is by a famous spambot called Cornelia-tan on the same board asking for music like LOLI RIPE where producer "iluvOP replied, this is significant as in that case the spambot regurgitated coherent sentences previously made by users in order for it to ask for “loli” music, which meant that the incidence of lolicore being mentioned must have been high enough to get it repeated.
This time also noted backlash against the genre for it being what was seen as nightcore and many
insults thrown at it. However, despite the mocking, the scene thrived. At this time, the second most known producers of lolicore started their production career: lolishit/ lolishiit. Not much is known about lolishit, the only thing which is more than likely certain is his last.fm and discog accounts are loligirl and that he’s more than likely based in Canada, according to his discogs release info and bancamp. His career started in 2009 and seemingly ended in 2010 (until two releases in 2015 proved he was still around and another in 2017). Despite this initially short lived stint in the scene, the releases he had in this time are amongst the most popular in lolicore being the secondmost listened to producer of lolicore. Many of lolishiit’s releases have direct references to otaku media, internet inside jokes and lolicon. This is seen in Maid Torture Convention whereby the album references the inside joke of activities involving anime Maid, Drugs and Cake (featuring a Nijiura Meido on the cover) and having references to old Memes (DESUDESUDESU) alongside references to illicit drugs (which again references Nijiura Meido who are drawn as being drug addicts), the album Alice In Wonderland (which is a significantly toned down album compared to his others) also references drug intake, Loli Juice references Nanami Madobe a Windows anthropomorphic figure (a concept from 2chan) and Misao from Lucky Star, Little Girls on Drugs continues this as well with obvious drug sentiments and more references to Lucky Star with two tracks dedicated to Konata Izumi from the show (presumably lolishiit’s favourite character from it as a result of his last.fm avatar and the fact his artist page on last.fm features Konata as the main picture) as well as Pokémon with Who’s That Pokémon.
His final album before his “manga opus” was English DUB which parodies several topics; online disdain for Dubbed anime, Nijiura Meido (the cover), Digimon (Hey TK Over Here – TK being a character of the show), Inuyasha (Soundbyte from the series on Shampoo It’s a Good Thing), Believe It (Naruto – infamous phrase used to express the apparent stupidity of a person or action), Note Book of Death (Death Note), The Girl Who Dashes off (reference to the title of Ep. 1 of Lucky Star), I Am Chiyo’s Father (reference to Azumanga Daioh character Chiyo, also features the English Dub of a sample used by goreshit in 5th Grade), Mouth to Mouth (referencing FLCL) and It’s Name is Pikachu (Pokémon), as is expected all the soundbytes are from English Dubs of anime. It was with Chest Flattener that lolishiit secured his position as one of the most known lolicore producer. This album consists of 16 minutes of noisy speedcore/ extratone and gabber set to the sampling of many infamous perceived lolicon anime like Lucky Star, Kodomo no Jikan Di Gi Charat and Moetan and features artwork of the two main Moetan characters. It also features a MAD style mashup of Mystia’s Theme from Touhou 6 with soundbytes of Misao from Lucky Star, this particular song gained a lot of attention on the internet in ~2007 for when a McDonald’s ad was remixed on Japanese video sharing site Nico Nico Douga featuring it and the infamously catchy Ran Ran Ru. Unlike his other albums this one doesn’t specifically illicit drugs (though Lolicon Swimsuit Dream technically does - LSD). Perhaps, it’s as a result that this album is significantly less controversial in thematic than his other albums, which is why it’s his most recognised, it is also one of the first examples of “produced” lolicore opting to not being a wall of noise with anime samples. His final two albums are easily forgotten as the similar style to his older works are reused with varying amounts of references to the internet such as in Delicious Lolicore referencing the anime Panty and Stocking, the character Iku Musume and 2chan emoticons on it. Illigal Lolistep was a minor attempt at post-dubstep which didn’t work out well and was his last album from this period.
Although goreshit was still putting out lolicore albums of the first wave, he opted to produce original music at this point utilising samples moreso than just splicing melodies from other works and adding the samples. This is seen with the album of this style My Love Feels All Wrong which (although sampling melodies in NHK?!) has thought out production behind it to make it a cohesive album, it features his fourth most popular song (as of 2017) Nhk!?, a remix of the OP song from Welcome to the NHK, with other songs from this album included high on his most popular track list. This continued with the other albums we released at this time like Mainstream Muthafucka, Dancefloor Degrader, Overspecialized, Steppa, Blue Girl on Sunday and Bleak where he opted for original melodies. On these albums he didn’t just focus on producing lolicore rather opting to make complete albums in the electronic genre. In them, he produced many different stylistics such as hardcore techno, breakbeat, breakcore, gabber, speedcore, IDM and ambient music and for the most part refrained from the overuse of anime sampling throughout and Memes/inside jokes. The progression of style of goreshit coincides with the decline of lolicore and its moving away from its roots; as during the beginning of this timeframe goreshit was still heavily into producing anime infused electronic music but near the end this want diminished, perhaps in part due to the fact that goreshit, a talented producer, wanting to distance himself from the scene to avoid the stigmatization of being considered just a lolicore producer, as he had a major influence on it. Unlike most other lolicore producers goreshit doesn’t hide his real identity and unlike nearly all others he regularly plays gigs, most prominently he has performed as a warm-up act for Bong-Ra (a well-known breakcore producer). Despite his movement away from lolicore for the most part during this period he still produced/ was featured on a number of lolicore releases at this time like With All My Heart, the Akamushi/ Reizoko Cj/ Goreshit split and most prominently Otakutone Mega High Speed Remix Party Album.
Even though there was more melody centric aspect of lolicore at this time there were many parties who retained the old noisy and offensive style, two who were quite popular at the time were Bloody Vomit Bukkake and JAPSHITFUN. Bloody Vomit Bukkake was a lolicore project started in 2009 and ending in 2011 by an Italian producer who followed on with the non-lolicore project Cherry Blossom Chains. The project focused on the visceral side of the genre incorporating offensive artwork as well as deprived song titles like all the titles of Enjoy Your Loli. This led BVB to become one of the more well noted lolicore artists and gaining the most traction on sites such as last.fm. Nearer to the ending of the project the obscenities were reduced with parody being the main focus as is seen on The Hikokomori Geisha Circus with song titles that reference Insane Clown Posse, seemingly making fun of them. His most listened to album Electronic Loli Music incorporated stylistics of lolicore as well as having a more structured approach to electronic music as a whole and is a pre-empt of his CBC project. This is also seen on Shameless Innocence Negation which was released the same year. The most ostentatious album of the Bloody Vomit Bukkake project was a remix album of J-Pop band SCANDAL entitled BUKKAKE★SCANDAL RMX which, for the most part, was just a vocal edit of Best Scandal with added kicks and some distortion making it one of the lazier releases of the time. BVB is also notable for having many splits with other famous lolicore artists of the time including Yuri Yum Yum and Loffciamcore as well as being featured on the ADHD Lolicore Gangbang compilation.
JAPSHITFUN was another short lived project at this time which focused on profanity and lack of production skills. Nothing is publically known about the person behind JAPSHITFUN but it is assumed he was an English producer as JAPSHITFUN and his name is Marcus. It’s clear however that the sole purpose of the project was to cause controversy in one way or another. It has been suggested that JAPSHITFUN waslolicore’s answer to Anal Cunt, which isn’t too far from the truth when we look at song titles such intended to offend and to directly insult like “goreshit sucks dick” and “Goreshit Is A Fucking Poser Who Claims To Be Depressed”, for whatever reason JAPSHITFUN tried to make it seem like he didn’t like goreshit, something that isn’t quite understood why. JAPSHITFUN was on several Netlabels despite only existing for two years, the labels include the now defunct Bubblegum Luv, Abstract Disco (both went defunct in the period JAPSHITFUN existed) and UGU (Japanese label). All of the releases he was featured on/ released had titles that went out of their way to be as offensive though JAPSHITFUN Is Dead was perhaps the worst in this sense. The album lasts less than four minutes but contained one hundred songs only one of which (the opening) is longer than nine seconds, entitled “This Is The Only Song That Scrobbles So You Can Stop Listening After This”, which references the popularity of last.fm at this time. The rest of the titles of the album aimed to offend nearly group on the planet with its profanities. As the album title suggests this was the last album released by JAPSHITFUN on his fourth Netlabel, Glitch Label, and his only release with them. Other well known releases by him include Lolicore Ruined My Life and Anime Is A Way To Make Yourself Pedo, I Love Anime which are consists of songs generally thirty seconds (‘for maximum scrobblage’) to two minutes in length of distorted samples and noise which attempts to parody lolicore itself in ridiculousness. It never appeared that JAPSHITFUN cared about making anything along the lines of being considered entertaining or good and strived to make his music as unlistenable as possible but perhaps it is this that led him to become one of the more listened to lolicore artists as listed on last.fm with close to 2500 unique listeners.
At this time there were also some new Japanese lolicore acts to start out in the genre namely DJKurara, Shako Pani and Napkin Terroizer. Round Wave Crusher also returned at this time to produce Born In the Wrong Place and Doujin or Death which was rooted in his original style but dropped the obscenities and focused on a more produced sound. In this time the expansion of the “lolicybergrind” aspect of lolicore continued with people like ShitDevilMansion, NeroshaTE and Napkin Terrorizer, this particularly noisy side of lolicore would be the hallmark of the “third wave”/ last iteration of lolicore.
The “third wave” of lolicore is the period that started in late 2012 and continued to about 2015 when lolicore stopped being a thing. At this time many of the original members of the scene stopped producing music with the ones who were still moving away from lolicore to produce more popular internet “genres”. This period would see the decline of most of the Netlabels but with the rise of Tsundere Violence and Underground Core Collective, though these would be mainly lolicore by name only they also feature Noise and Vaporwave releases. Goreshit and Round Wave crusher would be the only two original scene members to remain producing after nearly a decade of activity. This period would mark goreshit focusing on a more serious and cleanly produced sound, though he released My Love Still Feels All Wrong with a rework of NHK?!, being the only real lolicore album released during this period though there were some that have semblance of what lolicore was and some compilations, such as Billmazter Friends: Mazters of our Time and Tanoshi Torture with Loffciamcore, Round Wave Crusher, DJKurara and Kurwastyle Project. Lolishit would also return at this time to release two new albums, one being a split with Akamushi, though these were more Trap styled albums that his lolicore style. The “scene” had essentially died, becoming very insular centralising around Tsundere Violence associates only and run-off sites like reddit to be kept alive. There was, however, a new addition during this time to provide a Japanese connection; lolicore.jp, with its first release in 2015 and has connections to Tsundere Violence and a number of other Netlabels some of which release lolicore.
As mentioned at the begin, it was better that lolicore died a quiet death rather than be turned into something it wasn’t, it should hold a place in thoughts relating to the origin of internet “genres” and for what it was: a fun attempt of parody at a time when internet “culture” was in its hayday.
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Dedications
Firstly, this article has to be dedicated to WilliamChamberlin aka BillmaZter who passed away age 28 in 2013. BillmaZter founded lolicore.forumotion.com, BillmaZter Recordz and the LolicoreLover channel and helped promote lolicore and create a space for its expansion. Some other sites of his:
https://soundcloud.com/william-chamberlin
https://soundcloud.com/billmazzter
https://twitter.com/BillmaZter
https://www.youtube.com/user/Billmaster20
Secondly, this is dedicated to Ian Garside aka DJ Ninja Love Mistake who passed away in 2016. Again, he helped expand lolicore and contributed to it, being the owner of the 1000+ Netlabel and a good friend of goreshit.
Useful Links / Downloads
https://archive.org/search.php?query=lolicore
https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/Lolicore/
https://archive.org/details/@chipdipdrops
https://www.lolicore.ch/archive
http://tsundere-violence.webs.com/releases.htm
http://tsundere-violence.webs.com/friends.htm
https://www.last.fm/tag/lolicore
https://goreshitarchive.bandcamp.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Lolicore/
Edit 16/5/17: Minor Spelling Mistakes, added a link to ItsLike3AM and redacted a section/ references
Edit 27/5/2017: corrected information about Tsundere Violence "vaporwave releases", complex.0, no.305, the Discogs Facists release and Channel Q - thanks to Tsundere Violence for reading and giving feedback on the piece/ suggesting these edits, there will be an expanded section on them in the future edits
