In Japanese, oneshota おねショタ means a pairing of an oneesan お姉さん with a shota ショタ, that is, when a character that's a little boy (shota) is paired with a young girl (oneesan) who's older than him, that's called oneshota.
Warning: this term is associated with drawn pornography (hentai 変態) featuring underage characters.
Right: Magatsuchi Shouta 真ヶ土翔太
Anime: Kobayashi-san Chi no Maidragon, 小林さんちのメイドラゴン (Episode 7, Stitch, Cropped)
Definition
The term oneshota comes from oneesan and shota.
A shota is typically a character that looks like a prepubescent boy, regardless of whether he's 10 years old, 18 years old, or 500 years old. In some cases, the term refers to any underage male character.
The term oneesan has two meanings: "older sister" and "young girl." In this case, it's the "young girl" meaning, so it doesn't matter if the shota's oneesan is his actual older sister, or a random young girl, e.g. it could be his "teacher," sensei 先生, or his "senior," senpai 先輩.
Many terms for family members double as ways to refer to strangers of various age ranges. A random little girl can be called ojousan お嬢さん, which normally would mean "daughter," and, like in English, older women can be called obachan おばちゃん, "auntie," or obaachan おばあちゃん, "granny."
While both the oneesan and the shota are young characters, the oneesan must be older, or at least appear older, than the shota.
If there's a 16 year old girl, for example, an adult man may refer to her as ojousan, as if she were his "daughter," but a boy younger than her would refer to her as oneesan, as if she were his "older.sister."
It doesn't matter if she's a teenager or an adult, so long as it's a character the shota would call oneesan.
- Context: a shota calls the protagonist oneesan.
- atama ii!!
頭いい！！
[Wow, you're so] smart!! - oneechan tensai!?
お姉ちゃん天才！？
[Are you] a genius, sis!? - fufu......
ふふ･･････
*chuckle* - maa ne
まぁね
[Sort of.]
[I guess.]
Conversely, if a character doesn't look like a shota, or doesn't look like an oneesan, then it isn't an oneshota pairing.
Right: Shinku 真紅
Anime: Rozen Maiden, ローゼンメイデン (Episode 1, Stitch)
- Context: Shinku is much older than Jun, but she is also an immortal doll who looks much younger than him, so this doesn't count as oneshota.
Typically, oneshota pairings occur because the older girl treats the boy as if he were her "little brother," otouto 弟, or because she feels a "maternal" instinct, bosei 母性, that motivates her to try to protect or help the younger boy.
Center-left: Juli Bahana, ユイリィ・バハナ
Center-right: Pat Campbell, パット・キャンベル
Rightmost: Lucson Houjou, ルクスン・北条
Anime: Mugen no Ryvius, 無限のリヴァイアス (Episode 11)
- Context: Pat lost his parents, so Juli and Ran, taking pity on him, became close to him.
- That was a lie. Ran is a shotacon ショタコン, i.e. she likes shotas. It literally says so in her official character profile.[ラン・ラックモル - sunrise-inc.co.jp, accessed 2021-05-07, note: the text is white on white background, because it was supposed to embed on another page, you have to try selecting the text to make it readable.]
- shotakon no ki ga ari, {Patto ga karamu} koto niwa koudou-teki ni naru. sore yue, {Patto ga Yuirii ni natsuku} no wo kokoroyoku omotte-inai. {Yuirii ni taishite {shinratsu na} hatsugen ga ooi} no wa sono tame de aru.
ショタコンの気があり、パットが絡むことには行動的になる。それ故、パットがユイリィになつくのを快く思っていない。ユイリィに対して辛辣な発言が多いのはそのためである。
[She] [is] a shotacon. [When Pat is involved in something, she becomes interested in it]. Because of that, [she doesn't like] the fact [that] {Pat becomes attached to Juli}. That's the reason why {[she] often [makes] {bitter} remarks toward Juli}.- In this episode, for example, she didn't feel like going to the party until she saw Pat was going to be there, and then she immediately put on the blue dress.
- i.e. Ran feels jealous because Pat prefers another oneesan instead of her, as evidenced by the fact she's glaring at Juli in this picture.
- See also: netorare 寝取られ.
The caring oneesan trope only really happens when it's a random girl. If it's an older sister related by blood, then the two characters are actually siblings, which means they hate each other to death, as actual siblings typically do.
Receiver: Misumi Ryouta 美墨亮太
Anime: Futari wa Precure, ふたりはプリキュア (Collage, Episodes: Left: 2, 8, 10, Stitch: 11, Bottom: 17, 32)
- Context: a little brother keeps making a girl's life hell, and she keeps returning the favor.
- kobura tsuisuto
コブラツイスト
Cobra Twist. (the name of this wrestling technique.)
Genre
Since any series can end up with a scenario featuring a shota and an oneesan, in the literal sense of the term, oneshota isn't strictly NSFW, however, in practice, most of the time the term is used, it's used in a NSFW sense.
There's NSFW fan art, doujinshi 同人誌, etc., featuring oneshota pairings, leading to the term's association with pornography featuring underage characters.
- Context: Kuroki Tomoko 黒木智子 ponders on pairings.
- yahari chibi to shota wa {kumi-awase ga warui}
やはりチビとショタは組み合わせが悪い
On a second thought, between a chibi and a shota {the combination is bad}.
On a second thought, a short person and a little boy don't pair well.
- yahari - used when reevaluating something.
- chibi - a shorty, someone small.
- kumi-awase - to put two things together, to combine, to pair.
- yahari {shota wa eroi oneesan to kumi-awaseru} beki na no ka?
やはりショタはエロいお姉さんと組み合わせるべきなのか？
Thinking again, it's best for {a shota to be paired with a sexy oneesan}?
Thinking again, a shota should be paired with a sexy oneesan?
There are also SFW series that categorize themselves as oneshota.
For example, the web-manga Bocchan to Meido 坊っちゃんとメイド, before being published on Comico (you can read the first chapters for free), was posted on Pixiv with the following description:
erokunai oneshota.
エロくないおねショタ。
[An] oneshota [that's] not erotic.
Ara Ara
In English, the phrase ara ara あらあら is associated with the oneshota trope. This is an interjection meaning something like "well, well," "look at that," used in reaction to something. This phrase is mainly used by women.
In Japanese, a character that says ara ara a lot is called ara ara-kei あらあら系, "ara ara type."
This phrase is often accompanied by maa maa まあまあ, which is typically used to calm a situation.
- ara ara maa maa
あらあらまあまあ
(I'm not even going to try to translate this.)
Sexism
The oneshota trope is kind of sexist.
To elaborate: typically, you'll have a high school oneesan with large breasts, and a shota who is a background or side character, and she'll just grab him and make lots of unwarranted body contact, and he'll get flustered when she does that. Like this:
Right: Kuseta クセ太
Anime: Oshiete! Gyaruko-chan おしえて! ギャル子ちゃん (Episode 7, Cropped)
- Context: a gyaru ギャル disrespects a shota's personal space.
If you inverted the genders, and you had a guy in high school, an oniisan お兄さん, grabbing a random little girl around, a loli, everybody would say he's a pedophile.
Furthermore, the assumption is that the shota is flustered because he actually likes being harassed by the big tiddy oneesan, but nobody would make this same assumption about the loli being harassed by an oniisan.
In other words, the male character is always the pervert, never the female one. The oniisan is a child predator, the oneesan is not. The shota has perverted thoughts about older girls, the loli does not.
- Context: a bunch of high school oneesans making unwarranted body contact with a shota.
- If you don't think this is creepy, imagine this picture with the genders inverted.
- kyaa'♥
キャーッ♥
*fangirling noises* - kawaii~~n
かわいい～～ん
Cu~~ute. - juu-sai no sensei datte~~
１０歳の先生だって～
[He] is a ten year old teacher, [I heard]~~ - uso~~♥
ウソーー♥
[No way]~~. - kono ko ga uwasa no kodomo no sensei ka~~!!
この子が噂の子供先生か～！！
This [boy] is the rumored child teacher~~?!!
Presumably, the reason for this skew is that the trope is targeted at a male audience that likes oneesan characters, that is, they like young girls who appear more mature than them, like an older sister to them.
If it was targeted at a female audience that likes oniisan characters, then the opposite scenario would happen. I think.
I mean, I don't think I've seen many anime targeted at a female audience, but in Card Captor Sakura Sakura is in (unrequited) love with an oniisan, so it's not much of a stretch to say such niche audience exists, at least.
Female Dominance
It seems that oneshota is sometimes targeted at a male audience that wants to be dominated by women, and making the male character a child provides a means for non-consensual fantasies under the assumption that the guy couldn't be physically overpowered by the girl were he an adult.
- In Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! この素晴らしい世界に祝福を, episode 9, Kazuma カズマ enters a establishment run by succubi, demon girls that can show their clients erotic dreams of their choice. According to a succubus, some men ask for dreams in which they're turned into children and attacked by female warriors, which prompts Kazuma to say:
- daijoubu na no darou ka? kono machi no otoko-tachi wa...
大丈夫なのだろうか？この街の男達は･･･
Are [they] alright? The men of this town...
Similar, but unrelated, some stories feature a timid and mentally weak male character overpowered by an assertive girl, which, in the good sense, means she's a "carnivore girl," nikushokukei-joshi 肉食系女子, and, in the bad sense, means it's just literally bullying pretending to be a romance story.
In this case, the guy is likely to get called a virgin eventually.
Shotaone
The term shotaone ショタおね refers to an oneshota pairing in which the shota is the dominant character instead of the oneesan.
Traditionally, terms for pairings have a seme-uke 攻め受け order, that is, the seme who "attacks," who is assertive, comes first, and the uke who is passive comes last.
Although these terms are typically associated with the top and bottom of a gay ship, they're also used in straight ships like this.
Since typically it's an oneesan making unwarranted moves on a shota, the scenario is typically an oneshota. If it was a shota making moves on an oneesan, like in Magi マギ, for example, in which a perverted kid keeps groping girls around, that would be a shotaone.
See kabedon 壁ドン for the easiest way to figure out who is a seme in a ship.
Other Pairings
There are a number of abbreviations that follow the same pattern as oneshota. For reference, I'll list them here, but most of them aren't actually used with any frequency, since these scenarios are far less likely than oneshota.
- onishota, shotaoni
おにショタ, ショタおに
Of a shota and an oniisan (older male character).- This is a BL ship.
- onerori, rorione
おねロリ, ロリおね
Of a loli and an oneesan.- This is a yuri 百合 ship.
- onirori, rorioni
おにロリ, ロリおに
Of a loli and an oniisan.
Other morphemes include:
- mama
ママ
Mother. (e.g. mamashota.) - papa
パパ
Father. (e.g. papashota.) - futa
ふた
Hermaphrodite. (e.g. futashota.)
- From futanari 二形.
- oba
おば
Aunt. Or a random old woman. (e.g. obashota.)- From obasan おばさん.
- oji
おじ
Uncle. Or a random old man. (e.g. ojishota.)- From ojisan おじさん.
Some words with loli or shota in them don't mean a pairing. For example, shota-jiji ショタジジイ and loli-babaa ロリババア refer to characters that are old men and women in spite of looking like children, due to them being immortal or something like that.
Middle: Kiyoko キヨコ
Right: Takashi タカシ
Anime: AKIRA アキラ (Movie)
- Context: these characters aged without growing up.
The following term has multiple meanings:
- rorishota
ロリショタ
A pairing of a loli and a shota.
Also refers to loli and shota characters in general.
May mean a loli-like shota instead, e.g. Honey-senpai ハニー先輩 from Ouran High School Host Club, was called this in the series when comparing him to another shota character, due to him liking sweets and having a pink bunny.
Onee Shota
The phrase onee shota is sometimes used in English, it means the same thing as oneshota in Japanese. Note that onee オネエ can refer to a gay man, so oneeshota オネエショタ can mean a sort of gay pairing instead, if such pairing ever existed.
See also: onee-kotoba オネエ言葉
By the way, the long vowel of onee is shortened to one just like the long vowel of shouta was shortened to shota, so if someone were to undo that the correct pronunciation would be oneeshouta instead.
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