, abbreviated from , is, in Japanese contexts, the attraction to young (or young-looking) boy characters, or media centered around this attraction. The term refers to a genre of

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is use ...

and

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

wherein

prepubescent Preadolescence is a stage of human development following middle childhood and preceding adolescence.New Oxford American Dictionary. 2nd Edition. 2005. Oxford University Press. It commonly ends with the beginning of puberty. Preadolescence is ...

or pubescent male characters are depicted in a suggestive or erotic manner, whether in the obvious role of object of attraction, or the less apparent role of "subject" (the character the reader is designed to associate with). In some stories, the young male character is paired with a male, usually in a homoerotic manner, which is most common in yaoi/Boys' Love (BL) works meant for female readers, but some of these works are male-oriented, such as ''

Boku no Pico is a Japanese original video animation (OVA) hentai series produced by Natural High. Described as "the world's first shotacon anime" by its producer, it was primarily marketed to a male audience. The series consists of three episodes and a ...

''. In others, he is paired with a female, which the general community would call "straight shota." In some works, the ''shota'' character is paired with an older girl or woman, which is known as ''oneshota'' (おねショタ), a blend of ''onē-san'' (お姉さん, older sister) and ''shota''. A cutoff of "about 15" has been suggested as the dividing line between shotacon and BL. It can also apply to post-pubescent (adolescent or adult) characters with

neotenic Neoteny (), also called juvenilization,Montagu, A. (1989). Growing Young. Bergin & Garvey: CT. is the delaying or slowing of the physiological, or somatic, development of an organism, typically an animal. Neoteny is found in modern humans compare ...

features that would make them appear to be younger than they are. The phrase is a reference to the young male character from ''

Tetsujin 28-go , known as simply ''Tetsujin 28'' in international releases, is a 1956 manga written and illustrated by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, who also created ''Giant Robo''. The series centers on the adventures of a young boy named Shotaro Kaneda, who ...

'' (reworked in English as '' Gigantor''). The equivalent term for attraction to (or art pertaining to erotic portrayal of) young girls is

lolicon In Japanese popular culture, is a genre of fictional media in which young (or young-looking) girl characters appear in romantic or sexual contexts. The term, a portmanteau of the English phrase "Lolita complex", also refers to desire and ...

. The usage of the term in both Western and Japanese fan cultures includes works ranging from explicitly pornographic to mildly suggestive, romantic, or in rare cases, entirely nonsexual, in which case it is not usually classified as "true" shotacon. As with lolicon, shotacon is related to the concepts of ''

kawaii ''Kawaii'' is the culture of cuteness in Japan. It can refer to items, humans and non-humans that are charming, vulnerable, shy and childlike.Kerr, Hui-Ying (23 November 2016)"What is kawaii – and why did the world fall for the ‘cult of c ...

'' (cuteness) and '' moe'' (in which characters are presented as young, cute or helpless in order to increase reader identification and inspire protective feelings). As such, shotacon themes and characters are used in a variety of children's media. Elements of shotacon, like

yaoi ''Yaoi'' (; ja, やおい ), also known by the '' wasei-eigo'' construction and its abbreviation , is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features homoerotic relationships between male characters. It is typically created ...

, are comparatively common in

shōjo manga is an editorial category of Japanese comics targeting an audience of adolescent females and young adult women. It is, along with manga (targeting adolescent boys), manga (targeting young adult and adult men), and manga (targeting adult ...

, such as the popular translated manga '' Loveless'', which features an eroticized but unconsummated relationship between the 12-year-old male protagonist and a twenty-year-old male, or the young-appearing character

Honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

in ''

Ouran High School Host Club is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Bisco Hatori, and serialized in Hakusensha's ''LaLa'' magazine between the September 2002 and November 2010 issues. The series follows Haruhi Fujioka, a scholarship student at Ouran Acad ...

''. Seinen manga, primarily aimed at

otaku is a Japanese word that describes people with consuming interests, particularly in anime, manga, video games, or computers. Its contemporary use originated with a 1983 essay by Akio Nakamori in '' Manga Burikko''. may be used as a pejora ...

, which also occasionally presents eroticized adolescent males in a non-pornographic context, such as Yoshinori "Yuki" Ikeda, the cross-dressing 14-year-old boy in ''

Yubisaki Milk Tea is a Japanese manga by Tomochika Miyano centering on a boy whose hobby is cross-dressing and the lives of those around him whom he affects whether he is dressed up or not. It was serialized in Hakusensha's manga magazine '' Young Animal'' betw ...

''. Some critics claim that the shotacon genre contributes to actual

sexual abuse of children Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child (wheth ...

, while others claim that there is no evidence for this, or that there is evidence to the contrary.

Origins

The term "shotacon" is a Japanese contraction of , a reference to the young male character Shōtarō () from ''

''.Saitō Tamaki (2007) "Otaku Sexuality" in Christopher Bolton, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., and Takayuki Tatsumi ed., page 236
Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams
'' University of Minnesota Press "Shota is an abbreviation for “Shotaro complex,” from Kaneda Shotaro, the boy who pilots the robot in the manga and anime Tetsujin 28 go (what became Gigantor in English). Originally an offshoot of yaoi, the origins of this genre are said to begin in the early 1980s." In the

and

series, Shōtarō is a bold, self-assertive detective who frequently outwits his adversaries and helps to solve cases. Throughout the series, Shōtarō develops close friends within the world. His

bishōnen (; also transliterated ) is a Japanese term literally meaning "beautiful youth (boy)" and describes an aesthetic that can be found in disparate areas in East Asia: a young man of androgynous beauty. This word originated from the Tang dynasty ...

cuteness embodied and formed the term "shotacon", putting a name to an old sexual subculture. The word ''shotacon'' itself was coined in the magazine ''Fan Road'' in 1981. Where the shotacon concept developed is hard to pinpoint, but some of its earliest roots are in reader responses to detective series written by

Edogawa Rampo , better known by the pen name was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery and thriller fiction. Many of his novels involve the detective hero Kogoro Akechi, who in later books was the le ...

. In his works, a character named Yoshio Kobayashi of "Shōnentanteidan" (Junior Detective Group, similar to the Baker Street Irregulars of Sherlock Holmes) forms a deep dependency with adult protagonist

Kogoro Akechi is a fictional private detective created by Japanese mystery writer Edogawa Ranpo. Overview Akechi first appeared in the story in January 1925 and continued to appear in stories for a quarter of a century. Edogawa Ranpo (a pseudonym for Tar� ...

. Kobayashi, a beautiful teenager, constantly concerns himself with Kogoro's cases and well-being, and for a time moves in with the unmarried man. This nonsexual but intimate adult-boy relationship in part inspired the evolution of the shotacon community.

Tamaki Saitō is a Japanese psychologist and critic. He specializes in the psychiatry of puberty and adolescence. Saitō is Director of Medical Service at Sofukai Sasaki Hospital in Funabashi, Chiba. Saitō is notable for his study of ''hikikomori'', a term ...

writes that although the modern shotacon audience has a roughly even split between males and females, the genre is rumored to have roots in early 1980s dōjinshi as an offshoot of

. Saitō suggests that shotacon was adopted by male readers who were influenced by

; thus, he claims "''shota'' texts by female ''yaoi'' authors are structurally identical to ''yaoi'' texts, while ''shota'' by male ''otaku'' clearly position these little boys as young girls with penises". Kaoru Nagayama writes that the 1995 manga anthology ''U.C. BOYS: Under Cover Boys'' started a boom in commercial shotacon in the second half of the 1990s. During this time, male-oriented shotacon emerged and mixed with female-oriented shotacon: "the situation was such that shota works targeting women, men and a combination of both were all in close proximity." The boom collapsed at the end of the 1990s, but male-targeted shotacon saw a small resurgence starting in 2002.

Shotacon publications

Shotacon stories are commonly released in semi-monthly anthologies. Sometimes, however, manga artist will publish individual manga volumes. Many shotacon stories are published as

dōjinshi , also romanized as ', is the Japanese term for self-published print works, such as magazines, manga, and novels. Part of a wider category of ''doujin'' (self-published) works, ''doujinshi'' are often derivative of existing works and created by ...

; , an annual convention to sell shotacon doujin material, was founded in 1995, by a group of male creators. The 2008 Shotaket had over 1000 attendees and offered work from nearly 200 circles. Shotacon for women is almost exclusively

, and may be published in general yaoi anthology magazines or in one of the few exclusively shotacon yaoi anthologies, such as ''Shōnen Romance''. Because of the possible legal issues, US publishers of yaoi have avoided material depicting notably underage characters. Pagliassotti, Dru (November 2008
"Reading Boys' Love in the West"
''Particip@tions'' Volume 5, Issue 2 Special Edition In 2006, Juné released an English translation of Mako Takahashi's under the title "Almost Crying", a non-erotic shotacon manga; the book contains several stories featuring pubescent male characters, but their relationships are nonsexual. Shotacon for male readers may feature either homosexual or heterosexual relationships. Both gay and straight shotacon typically involve escapades between smaller, often pubescent males and young adults (older brother/sister figures), sexually frustrated authority figures (teacher/boss), significantly older "uncle/aunt" figures (neighborhood acquaintances, actual family members), or outright father or mother figures (adopted, step, or full blood relation). Outside of these tropes, stories that involve only young boys (with no older characters) are not rare, with the most common recurring theme being a classmate relation. Shota stories may be published in (a subset of) general seijin (men's pornographic) manga anthologies or in the few seijin shota manga anthologies, such as '' Shōnen Ai no Bigaku'', which specializes in male-male stories. Some gay men's magazines which offer a particularly broad mix of pornographic material occasionally run stories or manga featuring peri-pubescent characters. In 2006, the seijin shotacon

OVA , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA ...

, which the producer has described as the first shotacon anime, was released. It was later followed by two sequels and an edited version of the first OVA, with content more suitable for viewers under 18, as well as a video game starring Pico and Chico, the main characters of the anime. However, three years previously an OVA based on the eroge ''

Enzai is a yaoi game made by the Japanese software house Langmaor, which was later translated to English under the title ''Enzai – Falsely Accused''. It was the first yaoi game released commercially in the United States. The game is also the ...

'' was created, featuring explicit sexual acts involving young boys.

Explanatory notes

References

External links

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Origins

Shotacon publications

See also

Legal aspects

Explanatory notes

References

External links