I'd also like to add that I don't think the "canonical age" of the characters really matters compared to their physical appearance especially proportions. For example I don't think people who find Asuka from Evangelion hot are necessarily pedos just because she's "canonically 14". She's not really drawn like a lolicon, and if she was "canonically 18" her physical proportions wouldn't be unfitting. Whilst obviously the reason why pedophilia is wrong is the age, that's not generally what the "fetish" is, so people who make a big deal out of the age of characters in a vacuum are missing the nuance and "spirit" of the issue.
See I get where people are coming from with this explanation, I just can't fully agree in good faith as an IRL small woman who
still gets mistaken as a kid at face-value even when I'm out-and-about with my husband. I like knowing the given ages of characters as the context helps make jokes land better for me when it's a comedy or a "cute girls doing cute things" slice-of-life. Typically reading the scene is all that's needed, but then there's the occasional series like
Is the Order a Rabbit? that completely muddies it and makes my brain go "
Noooooooo".
Everyone here except the silver-haired girl are high schoolers, but they're drawn and act and sound like literal elementary schoolers. This makes my brain fry to comprehend that when I usually can handwave anime characters otherwise.
The theory I've seen tossed around about why it is female characters look so youthful and loli especially nowadays is that real Japanese women are small (hence the average height in Japanese women is shorter compared to American and European women). But even before the modern era the desire for youth has been there for generations because of the entertainment industry, particularly the pop idols, and from the popularity of children's novels like
Alice in Wonderland. It's a form of purity culture that also was incorporated into
kawaisa, so it's practically expected now.
FFS my mother's criticism for why she doesn't like
Sailor Moon is due to how the girls look like they're drawn to be eight even though the girls canonically start at about 14—meanwhile
Cardcaptors and Pokémon were fine because the characters
looked their age. When she watched
CLANNAD, she had to be constantly reminded the characters were seniors in high school simply because of their big eyes and youthful appearances. She understands the Japanese obsession with big eyes because it's reminiscent of Caucasians (Americans), she just cannot accept the juxtaposition when it's animated simply because she's still of the mindset that cartoons are for kids, and so therefore the characters need to match the
look of any given age, which American animation up to that point in the '90s still (roughly) did.
So as a long-time anime fan, I can tell when a loli character is there to appease the lolicons or is just a character who just
happens to be designed to be small, and sometimes there
is that overlap depending on the
context. I have no idea how lolicons first get their start in having weird thoughts the first time they watched an anime, but they clearly never checked themselves ever again when they realized they were getting boners over it and made an effort to indulge in it. As far as I know, it's rare for lolicons to have their first anime
be a lolicon anime. Not sure if any have ever given their firsts, if asked.