As a general rule I tend to avoid placing too much importance on the messaging of a particular piece of media when I analyze it and there are two reasons for this: 1. I have the media literacy of a rock and thus messaging and themes tend to fly right over my head at supersonic speeds while my senses fail to even register the sonic boom they leave in their wake and 2. Its not central to my enjoyment of somethingits why something like Strike Witches can be one of my favorites despite saying literally nothing at all. Despite this I feel like an analysis of Yuzumorisan would be irresponsible if it focused on anything other than the messaging because Yuzumorisan is decidedly a story attempting to humanize pedophiles. I tend to be pretty openminded about things like this in that I think it is important to view things through every lens imaginable and I am more than happy to accept grayspace and nuance in things. Thus Im not against Yuzumorisan solely for its admittedly gross concept. Yuzumorisans approach to pedophilia is entirely based around the morality of its main character: Mimika. Mimika is presented as a normal person not the embodiment of grease and creep that pedophiles are typically presented as. Mimika falling for Yuzumorisan is treated essentially as an anomaly as in it just kinda happened with no prior interest in children. Furthermore Mimika has no interest in any child or person for that matter other than Yuzumorisan. Mimika also wants to do what is best for Yuzumorisan and struggles to restrain herself throughout the entire story until ultimately promising that nothing about their relationship will change until Yuzumori becomes an adult. In this way pedophiles are shown to be complex people who struggle in their own ways which I think is mostly good because pedophiles despite being disgusting in every sense of the word are human beings with their own outlooks on life and understanding pedophiles is important to preventing or at the very least lessening the issue of pedophilia. Yuzumorisans approach to this matter reminds me of the MAP Minor Attracted People movement from several years ago and it functions in much the same way just with a little less ambition. The MAP movement for the uninformed was a group of pedophiles who tried to finagle their way into public acceptance by fitting themselves into the LGBTQ+. The argument went that being attracted to children was essentially the same as being gay thus should be acceptable. The movement got a lot of backlash and the LGBTQ+ vehemently refused them allegiance. When I say Yuzumorisan functions the same way as the MAP movement I mean that it attempts to gain acceptance by overlooking the inherent deviancy of being attracted to children. Mimikas attraction and Minor Attraction both act to make pedophilia appear more innocent by relabeling pedophilia from sexual fetish to an attraction with the idea being that an attraction prescribes motive other than sexual satisfaction. However pedophilia is a sexual fetish. There is no motive behind pedophilia other than sexual satisfaction. The term Minor Attraction ironically outlines this perfectly because it describes the object of attraction as being a minor. Pedophiles are not attracted to the personality of a person as a gay person might be they are attracted to the immaturity of children. Yuzumorisan tries to address the sexual aspect of pedophilia by showing pedophilic urges as resistable with sufficient moral integrity and societal consequences. Mimika resists her urges mostly because she feels her feelings are wrong and doesnt want to face the consequences of laying her hands on a child. However reality sits in stark contrast to this because if pedophilic sexual desires were resistable wed have a lot less child sex crime. No society views pedophilia as acceptableI am aware conseqences arent very harsh in Japan but Im of the impression that its actually pretty frowned upon by most Japanese people and is not just a part of their culture as many like to stateand many moral institutions and leaders have been outed countless times for child sex crimesliving in the United States I feel obligated to nominate the Christian church for the position of the top moral institution with a long history of overlooking and defending child sex crimes. So I think it is more than clear that morals and consequences dont do anything to prevent pedophilia. If a pedophile is going to touch a child they are going to touch a child the only way to stop this is to identify pedophiles and instate preventative measures to protect children. To finish this up I do want to say that I dont actually think the author meant to have these implications the story is way too cutesy for that and in the end of volume sections where the author is directly addressing the reader as the author it seems she just liked the idea of an agegap yuri and this is the result. However I think pedophilia is such a matter that any story involving it is saying something about it and in the case of Yuzumorisan whether the author intended it or not the story is actively humanizing pedophiles. As stated earlier I dont hate Yuzumorisan for this in fact despite my pretty harsh critiques so far I actually dont hate Yuzumorisan at all. For me it is sufficiently enjoyable as a cutesy love story with just enough space from trying to appeal to pedophiles that its not outright disgusting. However I think it is important to engage with the message of an artwork and I think the message of this artwork is at best misguided and at worst disinformation. Still I would argue that Yuzumorisan is worth reading solely because of its relatively unique take on pedophiles and seeing different opinions on things is always a good way to develop your own opinion on a matter.