ojousama お嬢様

In Japanese, ojousama お嬢様 means "daughter", just like the word musume 娘, but it can also mean a "young girl," or a "rich girl." In the anime fandom, ojousama, or ojou-sama, refers to a rich anime girl.

• Kanji
• Ojou-sama
• Translation
  • Girl Whom One Serves
  • "Rich Girl"
  • "Naive Girl"
  • Ojousan
  • Ojouchan
  • "Daughter"
  • "Miss," "Young Lady"
    • "Missy," "Little Girl"
    • "Lady," shukujo 淑女
  • Pretend Ojousama
    • Okaerinasaimase Ojousama
    • Maid Café Greeting
  • Ojou
  • Jou
  • Ojōsama, Ojōsan, Ojōchan
  • おじょーさま
• Trope
  • Moe Factor
  • Master-Servant Ship
  • Comedy Factor
  • Sub-Tropes
• Personality
• Appearance
  • Blonde Hair
• Drills
• Laugh: Ohoho!
  • Ohoho in Japanese
• Speech
  • Ara あら
  • Arara あらら
  • Ara Ara あらあら
  • Maa まぁ / まあ
  • Maa Maa まあまあ
  • Desu wa ですわ
  • Masu wa ますわ
  • Kashira かしら

Kanji

The word ojousama written with kanji is ojousama お嬢様. It's one of the family words in the o__san お〇〇さん pattern, having both the honorific prefix (o 御) and an honorific suffix (sama 様, san さん, chan ちゃん).

Other spellings include:

• ojousama 御嬢様
• ojousama お嬢さま
• ojousama おじょうさま

Ojou-sama

Some people prefer to spell ojousama with a hyphen: ojou-sama. There is nothing wrong with this, it's just a different romaji for the same word.

(personally I wouldn't spell it that way because if the suffix gets an hyphen why wouldn't the prefix get an hyphen too? So for me o-jou-sama makes more sense, but that looks stupid.)

Translation

A Girl Whom One Serves

In manga and anime, the most common use of the word ojousama is to refer to a girl whom one serves. Specifically, it's a way to refer to the "daughter" of the family, household, which one serves.

This usage is more common in fiction purely because maid and butler characters are common. They're the ones which say ojousama the most in the 2D world.

The word ojousama is used like this following a pattern of maids, butlers, servants, and even people interested in doing business with a family referring to members of a certain household by familial nouns as if they were titles.

For example, goshujinsama ご主人様 means literally "master," and also "husband," as the "husband" historically ends up being the "master" in question. The term okusama 奥様, "wife," is used to refer to "the wife" of one's master. Then ojousama お嬢様, "daughter," would refer "the daughter" of one's masters. Lastly, bocchan 坊っちゃん may be used to refer to "the son."

"Rich Girl"

The word ojousama may also mean "rich girl," and it's often used to refer to one in a sarcastic way. Like: "she's an ojousama, I hear she lives in a huge mansion, she comes to school by limo!" This probably comes from the way servants, etc. seriously refer to them as ojousama.

"Naive Girl"

Consquenetly, sometimes the word ojousama implies not that a girl is rich and powerful, but that she's naive, for she has lived a sheltered life so far, and has no idea of how the world works.

Ojousan お嬢さん

The difference between ojousama and ojousan お嬢さん is that the sama honorific is more reverent than the san honorific, it's generally used when you're speaking to someone of higher status. (toward customers, clients, etc. their daughters count too, sure.)

Both "rich girl" and "girl whom one serves" meanings above imply someone of higher status, so ojousama is usually used, but ojousan can have those meanings too.

Ojouchan お嬢ちゃん

The difference between ojousan, ojousama and ojouchan お嬢ちゃん is that ojouchan has the diminutive chan instead of san. This means that normally it's used toward young children, a cute way of saying. But it can also imply you think the ojouchan is cute, and may sound overfamiliar used toward an ojousan you aren't really familiar with.

"Daughter"

The original meaning of ojousama, or rather, ojousan お嬢さん, is to refer to somebody's "daughter."

Given that ojousama and ojousan have honorifics, they never refers to your own daughter, only to other people's daughters. This is exactly like musume 娘 may refer to your own daughter, but musume-san 娘さん refers to someone else's daughter.

"Miss," "Young Lady"

Another use of ojousama, or rather, ojousan is to refer to a random young woman instead, specially one whose name you don't know, since in this case you'd call her by her name in Japanese. This usage if ojousan could be translated as "miss" or "young lady."

Some dictionaries say this usage refers only to young, unmarried women. Which matches the definition of "miss" in English. Of course, unless you're gifted with the power of telepathy it'd be hard to tell whether a woman is married or not just by looking at her when you don't even know her name.

"Missy," "Little Girl"

Following the meaning above, when the diminutive ojouchan お嬢ちゃん is said instead, with the cozier, more affectionate chan suffix, it generally refers to a girl who's also a small child. You could translate this ojouchan as "missy" or "little girl."

In this case, using ojouchan toward a teenager or young adult woman may make her mad because it sounds like you're making fun of her, treating her like a kid. Of course, if the speaker is an elder it won't sound as offensive, but people may get mad about this.

Also, sometimes ojouchan implies not that the girl is thought of as a child, but that speaker thinks he can just talk in such familiar way to her without even using a proper san suffix like they're old friends or something, and that may sound offensive in a different way.

"Lady," Shukujo 淑女

By the way, the word for "lady" in Japanese is shukujo 淑女, written with the kanji of shitoyaka 淑やか, "graceful," "refined," and "woman," onna 女. A refined woman, a lady. A fine woman.

This is just to make clear that ojousama is only translated as "young lady" together, no part of the word means "young" or "lady." To say "young lady" literally, wakai shukujo 若い淑女.

Manga: Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai ~Tensai-Tachi no Ren'ai Zunousen~ かぐや様は告らせたい～天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦～ (Chapter 11)

• shukujo taru mono
  jibun kara
  dansei no renraku-saki wo
  kiku nante
  hashitanai mane
  suru wake niwa ikanai!
  淑女たるもの自分から男性の連絡先を訊くなんてはしたない真似する訳にはいかない！
  For someone who's supposed to be a lady to do something vulgar like asking a man's contact address themselves isn't allowed.
  • As a lady, there's no way I can do something obscene like asking him for his phone number.

Pretend Ojousama

As one would expect, it's possible for ojousama to be used toward a girl whom one doesn't actually serve per contract, but pretends they're serving for reasons, like they're pretending to be maid or something and an ojousama is essential for such play, or perhaps even sarcastically, if the ojousama in question is being too bossy, acting like an ojousama, acting like a "queen," joousama 女王様.

Okaerinasaimase Ojousama

In butler cafés, clients, women, are referred to as ojousama, and they're greeted by the phrase okaerinasaimase ojousama お帰りなさお嬢様, an extra-polite way of saying "welcome back [home], young lady."

Maid Café Greeting

This is obviously the same thing the happens in maid cafés, except in those the word goshujinsama ご主人様 is used instead. Sometimes, ojousama is used in maid cafés too to refer to young women, girls.

Ojou お嬢

The word ojou is simply ojousama, ojousan, ojouchan, without the honorific suffix.

Within the animanga fandom, it's particularly used to refer to certain ojousama characters nicknamed ojou, like Eri from School Rumble, who's often called Ojou by character within the series, and Ojou from Oshiete! Gyaruko-chan おしえて! ギャル子ちゃん, a series where characters don't have real names, they're just referred to by their archetypes.

Jou 嬢

The word jou 嬢 is ojousama without the honorific affixes. This jou is a suffix, which can be used in two ways.

First, it can come after a woman's name, as a title, like "lady" or "miss." For example, say there's a woman called Tanaka 田中, then Tanaka-jou 田中嬢 would be "miss Tanaka" or "lady Tanaka."

Second, the suffix jou appears in some words referring to female-dominated professions. Some examples include:

• uketsuke-jou 受付嬢
  Receptionist. ("reception," uketsuke, girl.)
• koukan-jou 交換嬢
  Telephone operator. (in the past, calls went through manual switchboard operators, who were women.)
• kyaba-jou キャバ嬢
  kyabakura-jou キャバクラ嬢
  Employee of a hostess bar. (literally "caba-clu girl," from "cabaret club girl.")

Ojōsama, Ojōsan, Ojōchan

The words ojōsama, ojōsan, and ojōchan, with macrons, are the same thing as ojousama, ojousan, and ojouchan, they're just different romaji for the same Japanese word.

This happens because long vowels such as those found in the syllables jou じょう and joo じょー may sometimes be romanized as a single letter with a macron instead of two letters.

おじょーさま

Sometimes these words are spelled using a prolonged sound mark ー on the long vowel syllable jou じょう. This denotes a change in the pronunciation of the word by a character.

• ojoosama おじょーさま
• ojoosan おじょーさん
• ojoochan おじょーちゃん

Trope

In the anime and manga community, both western and Japanese, an ojousama お嬢様 character is a character who's a "rich girl," who was born a "rich girl," was raised like a "rich girl," looks like a "rich girl," acts like a "rich girl," and... well, it's a rich girl!

Now, if that sounds like an extremely vague, utterly meaningless description to you, because, I mean, rich girls, what do we know about them? They're rich, got money. Their gender: female. That's about it. Could this even be considered a trope? It's because these ojousama characters bring with them a collection of clichés, sub-tropes and other repeating patterns that people care enough about to classify.

Ultimately, however, an ojousama is just a rich girl. Some people are misled to think that an ojousama character must be like this or like that. For example, that she must have a bitchy attitude toward the "commoners" around her, or that the ojousama must have servants, or something like that. This isn't necessarily true, it's just that a lot of ojousama characters are like that.

Moe Factor

For reasons, ojousama characters are considered to be moe 萌え by some, which evidently means authors must keep adding ojousama characters to their works because they're popular with fans, specially in harem anime, and of course the authors like them too.

Master-Servant Ship

Inherent of ojousama characters are master-servant relationships. It's not unusual for an ojousama character to have a monstrously efficient butler who'll gladly serve her every whim, or, likewise, a maid. They don't even need to be impeccable, clumsy is fine too.

Since maids are moe, butlers are moe, and ojousama are moe, you get this whole moe package that attracts the attention of a wider-audience all at once. In this moe scheme, the male counterpart of ojousama is of course the bocchan 坊ちゃん.

Furthermore, the total moe throughput of a couple of master-servant characters is greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Some people consider the master-servant or lord-retainer relationship itself to be a kind of moe. In some cases, the servant character has worked for a given family for years, and has come to think of the ojousama as their daughter or younger sister. In some cases, the servant-ship is out of admiration. There are also scenarios involved contracts and the tension of coercion and stipulations.

Comedy Factor

Besides being used for its moe effect, ojousama characters are also often included for their comedic effect. This bring with it a number of tropes that are seen extensively in basically every shitty harem anime with an ojousama character.

Sub-Tropes

The following are recurring scenarios that follow ojousama (and bocchan) characters in anime:

• Arriving to school by limousine.
  • Having a driver. (see: Kuragehime 海月姫)
  • Having a helicopter.
  • Having a private jet.
• Having a summer house, bessou 別荘.
  • Absolutely necessary for that obligatory fanservice beach episode where each character must feature a different designs of swimsuits and you can only wonder the grueling work the author must have trying to decide which is the best swimsuit for a character. (for a documentary on this endeavor, watch Outbreak Company.)
  • Sometimes, owning a whole fucking desert private island. (see: Saiki Kusuo no Psi-Nan 斉木楠雄のΨ難, season 2.)
  • By the way the beach episode usually happens in another trope, the training camp trope, which is usually right in the middle of the anime because of how school years and summer vacations work.
  • Also absolutely necessary is an yacht. Can't do without an yacht. Nope.
• Lacking common sense due to upbringing.
  • Not knowing you're supposed to wash your own damn self in the bath and nobody is going to do that for you. (As seen in Seitokai Yakuindomo 生徒会役員共)
  • Not knowing what a fruit looks like unpeeled. (as seen in Musekinin Kanchou Tylor 無責任艦長タイラー, although it technically was an empress, not ojousama.)
• Unhinged abuse of money. (late stage capitalism, ho!)
  • Purchasing absurdly expensive things.
    • Attempting to buy Akihabara.
    • Yes, Akihabara. The, Akihabara. One whole Akihabara. (as seen in the anime Shangri-La)
  • Solving everybody's money problems.
    • Paying off debt.
      • Purchasing debt. (see: Hayate no Gotoku! ハヤテのごとく！)
    • Offering discounts in family-owned business. (see: K-On!)
  • Keeping exotic pets.
    • I mean, do you have any idea how much a Critically Extinct Persianasian Saber-Toothed Ring-Tailed Albino Byakko White Tiger from Madagascar costs? Like, what does that thing even eats?
• Exceptionally plotty family.
  • Dead. Character inherits everything.
  • Even if not dead, being an heir of a fortune means she gets targeted by assassins and stuff. (see: Kamen no Maid Guy 仮面のメイドガイ)
  • Strict, tons of rules, traditions, ceremonies.
    • Can't leave house. Home tutoring, private teacher. Caged bird.
    • Obligatory money-blowing kimono.
    • A "mansion," yashiki 屋敷, "Japanese-style," wafuu 和風, with tatami 畳 flooring and full of sliding doors. (see: Hyouka 評価)
      • Pond with koi 鯉 carp fish.
      • That bamboo thing that goes *doink* every time it hits a rock or something because it's filled with water and when it fills it falls and put that water in the pond.
      • What the hell is that thing called anyway?
      • Oh, it's a shishi-odoshi 鹿威し, "deer-scarer," it makes the noise to scare animals away so they don't eat plants. Wow, I always thought the point was putting the water in for circulation or something, never could I have imagined it was made to make noise! Incredible.
      • Huge fortress-like walls with a huge gate or something. (see: Hunter x Hunter, specifically Zoldyck's residence.)
  • Forced marriage because of business, politics, etc.
  • Involved in some ancient cult which has been passed down the family line for generations!
    • Satanic rituals. Pokémon summoning. (see: Fate/Stay Night.)
    • Demon pacts. (see: Hellsing)
    • Infusing spirits into children. (see: Naruto lol jk, don't see that. See: Kara no Kyoukai 空の境界.)
• Beautiful, bishoujo 美少女 or bishounen 美少年.
  • Guess people just prettier when they got cash.
    • Money is attractive, they say, they probably didn't mean this, though.
  • It's the hair.
    • The dazzling, golden hair.
      • You know, there's a chance it's bathed in actual gold. It probably wouldn't work in real life, but in anime anything goes.
      • Yeah, pretty sure bathing wouldn't work. Probably. Gold is metal so it'd get all rigid in strand form, no flow. Besides the hot liquid gold would set your hair on fire while you're bathing it. Not good.
      • I'm no high-end hair aestheticist Ph.D. in bio-metallic chemistry, though, so it might work. Don't think it would, though.
  • And the affordability of expensive clothes.
    • Which is totally wasted by the fact the character is probably just going to spend like four fifths of the season wearing just their high school uniform or something.

Personality

The ojousama characters usually have uncommon, or rather, uncommoner personalities. The mix of sheltered life, semi-infinite purchasing power, and a family environment commoners can't imagine is probably the cause of this.

A common ojousama theme is a character beyond one's reach (and socioeconomic class). The fact they're much richer, better educated, and probably have nothing in common with the main character is the source of much romantic doubt.

Added to that, some ojousama have a holier-than-thou attitude, in which they'll call other characters commoners and believe she is indeed above them, born meant to reign over these filthy peasants (including even the PC gamers).

The above is sometimes the cause of a tsundere ツンデレ attribute, not only toward the riff-raff from her school, but sometimes toward her butler, etc. She'll tsun by saying stuff like "y-you're just a commoner/butler, who do you think you're to talk to me this way?!" eventually regret saying it and then come back showing that cute dere'ing side.

Some ojousama characters are particularly capricious and childish in their actions.

On the other side, some ojousama have no cute side, and are just some nasty, mean, rich bitches.

On the other-other side, some ojousama have no sides besides their cute side. Being a paragon of elegance, emitter of the soothing aura, they have a permanent chill status wherein nothing ever fazes them, allowing themselves to arbiter arguments and calm the masses with their maa maa まぁまぁ～ lullaby.

Sometimes, an ojousama character may be naive about things, or clumsy, having a total, absolute and utter lack of common sense, given her upbringing.

Appearance

Generally, ojousama characters are bishoujo 美少女 characters. It's just common sense that in anime rich girls are "beautiful girls." This doesn't stem from plastic surgery, of course not, but, instead, probably from these two main factors:

1. Genetics.
   The girl, her older sister, her mother, and basically every woman that shares her blood is gorgeous.
2. Shampoo.
   Evidence suggests that ojousama are the only characters that can afford proper hair care in anime, often donning the smoothest of the hairs, long twintails, springing drills drilled so hard you get tired just thinking how much effort the animators put into drawing them, while low-life commoner characters end up with bed hair and ahoge アホ毛.

An ojousama character may an heightened sense of style, given their purchasing power.

Blonde Hair

A good number of ojousama are "blonde," kinpatsu 金髪, and not just any blonde, but naturally blonde, given that Japanese hair is normally naturally black, and that a character with dyed blonde hair is usually a delinquent or some gaudy teenager girl, gyaru ギャル.



Consequently, ojousama characters often have a backstory that they are not Japanese, from a family rich enough to afford moving into Japan, probably for business reasons. This probably also helps connect the tuxedo-butler and french-maid uniforms given these are rather western things.

Drills

It's common for ojousama characters to feature "drills," or "drill hair," that is, "ringlets," which often look like golden drills because they're spiral narrowing downwards.

In Japanese, they're also called "drills," doriru ドリル. In particular, ringlets pigtails are called "twin drills," tsuin doriru ツインドリル, because in Japanese pigtails are called "twintails," tsuinteeru ツインテール.

Laugh: Ohoho!

Within the manga and anime fandom, the ojousama laugh refers to the iconic "ohohoho!" laugh often emitted by ojousama characters while making an equally iconic gesture of covering their mouths with their hands at an angle.

This kind of a laugh is, without doubt, literally the most annoying, obnoxious, infuriating, rage-inducing, teeth-gritting audio pattern ever concocted by the obscure, sadistic confines of the Japanese human mind. Second only to Excalibur, of course. These smug aristocrats are the fuel of nightmares of many traumatized fans who wake up in the middle of the night, sweating with PTSD, hearing the the phantasmagorical "oh ho ho ho!" echoing inside their heads as they morph into fetal position crying, sucking on their thumbs trying to calm themselves down, holding onto towels not to panic, and then go back to sleep.

On the other side, some fans actually like this laugh. (they're fucking nuts. Maniacs, I say. Evidently psychopaths.) So much there's even a Youtube channel, ohohojousama, that only uploads short compilations of "ohoho!" laughs and has dozens of videos.

Of course, given this is just a laugh there's no rule that says you must be a rich young lady in order to be allowed the privilege of ridiculing your lessers this way. Any character can laugh this way, it's physically possible regardless of status or digits in their bank accounts, it's just that ojousama characters are more likely to do this, hence why the name attributed to it is ojousama laugh.

Ohoho in Japanese

In Japanese, "ojousama laugh" is called literally that, ojousama warai お嬢様笑い, using the verb "to laugh," warau 笑う.

Since it's typically a manically "loud laugh," the term takawarai 高笑い may also refer to it. However, this can also refer to other laughs besides the ooho'ho'ho' オーホッホッホッ, such as haaha'ha'ha' ハーハッハッハッ, for example.

Related: "sneer" would be choushou 嘲笑.

Speech

Often, ojousama characters feature a rich-girl speech pattern in which they'll use certain Japanese words and expressions that reflect their education and upbringing, but that are ultimately lost in translation and out of grasp for westerns unless a translator who's also an English major is involved.

I'll explain here some of the expressions used by the ojousama. Note that they aren't exclusive of ojousama characters, they're mostly polite or female speech, it's just that they're often used by ojousama characters.

Ara あら

The ara in Japanese is an interjection, female speech. This ara あら is used to express slight surprise and curious amusement toward some new statement or happening. Translated as "oh!" or "ah!" simply. In a conversation, it may be translated as "I see! Then" or something of sort.

In some cases ara is used at the start of a snarky remark by an ojousama, like "ara, I thought you said you'd never fall in love a peasant? What happened? Did you fall and hit your head against the floor? Did your brains fell off your ear? I'm sorry for your father! You're the shame of your family. An absolute dishonor! I don't know what the teachers are thinking letting someone like you take classes in our prestigious school, it smears mud on our name. You should just get married with him already and go live in the suburbs where you belong! Ohohohohohohohoh~~!!" or something like that.

Arara あらら

Sometimes the ra is repeated: arara あらら. Not to be confused with ararararagi, which is something else.

Ara ara あらあら

The word ara ara あらあら is, literally, ara twice. The meaning of ara ara in Japanese is the same as ara, just stronger, meaning the speaker probably saw something more curious and more amusing to be surprised and amused at.

Maa まぁ / まあ

The word maa まあ in Japanese is both an adverb and an interjection. It's also spelled maa まぁ, with a small a ぁ.

Generally, maa まぁ is used when the speaker is hesitant to say something, in a sense of "I guess?" But it can also be used when the speaker just saw or heard something unexpected, specially if it's something amusing, or entertaining.

Another case is that maa まぁ can be used to recommend someone to do something, like to take a drink, or to calm themselves down. If the other characters are being agitated and saying exaggerated stuff, the ojousama will show up and say maa~~ to try to slow things back in order.

Maa Maa まあまあ

The word maa maa まあまあ is maa twice. Who could have guessed? Because it's repeated, maa maa is twice as strong as just one maa.

It's used when the ojousama needs to stop a fight, for example: maa maa, calm yourselves! It can also be used when she's taking a good look at something very amusing.

Desu wa ですわ

The expression desu wa ですわ combines the polite copula desu です with the sentence ending particle wa わ, used by female characters with a rising pitch.

Note that de gozaimasu でございます, de arimasu であります, are other polite polite forms of desu that an ojousama may use too. (see the article explaining desu for details.)

If you are learning Japanese, behold, it's one of the rare times you get the actual particle wa わ and not that fake-ass particle wa は which is written with ha は instead because of reasons.

This wa わ particle expresses exclamation, decisiveness or emotion of the speaker.

• kou desu wa! こうですわ！
  Like this!
  [It] is this way! (literally)

In real Japanese, the wa particle is used by both men and women alike. It's pronounced with a weak, lowering pitch, with some women raising the pitch instead.

In fiction, it's pretty much always used by female characters, male characters using ze ぜ or something else instead, and the wa is always pronounced with a rising pitch, maybe because it fits the anime voices and character stereotypes better that way.

Masu wa ますわ

The masu wa ますわ used by ojousama characters is basically the same thing as above. What changes is that masu isn't the copula, but an auxiliary affixed to verbs to create the polite forms of verbs.

Basically, if there's a verb, any verb, there's a "polite" version of it, which ends in masu, masen, mashita, or masen deshita. Again, most anime characters don't use this kind of speech. So the ojousama using it denotes how she was raised in different environment, more educated, polite.

Kashira かしら

The expression kashira かしら is (kind of) a sentence-ending particle too. It's usually female language, not used by men, but in anime it's pretty much always used by female characters. As for the meaning, kashira means "I wonder," as in, you're thinking about something you're uncertain about.

• sou kashira? そうかしら？
  I wonder if that's so.
  Is that so, I wonder?
• baka kashira 馬鹿かしら
  Is he an idiot, I wonder?
  Maybe he's an idiot?