Pharrell Williams's lolicon video

What are we to make of Pharrell Williams's latest video for "It Girl," which features the hip-hop star singing, "Hold my hand, and moan again, I'ma hold that ass" to images of what appears to be a prepubescent cartoon girl? Although seemingly well received (it has been viewed more than two and a half million times on YouTube since its release on September 30th), the video has left some American critics struggling to describe the experience of watching it. [...]

The confusion shouldn't be surprising. While Pharrell's breezy tune is steeped in the idioms of American hip-hop and dance culture, the video for "It Girl" comes from the world of Japanese otaku-obsessive fans of anime, manga, and video games. The co-directors and creative architects of the video are a pseudonymous pair of Japanese artists: the textile designer Fantasista Utamaro and the secretive painter known only as Mr. The latter is a protégé of the pop artist Takashi Murakami and a core collaborator in Murakami's Kaikai Kiki art collective, under whose banner the video was produced. Born in 1969, Mr. rose to prominence as a contributor to Murakami's 2001 travelling exhibition "Superflat" and its successful 2005 follow up, "Little Boy." He also happens to be, by his own admission, a lolicon.

source: Video clip review 'Pharrell Williams's Lolicon Video' by Matt Alt; www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/pharrell-williamss-lolicon-girl; The New Yorker; 15 October 2014