Japanese Hobby

Ojousama お嬢様

<div>ojousama means <a></a><a></a>ojousama or ojou-sama often refers to a rich girl character. 
 
<a name="more"></a><h2 id="kanji-ojousama">
Kanji</h2>
The word ojousama <a></a>ojousama お嬢様. It's one of the family words in the <a></a><a></a><a></a> 
 
Other spellings include: 
<ul>
<li>ojousama 御嬢様 </li>
<li>ojousama お嬢さま</li>
<li>ojousama おじょうさま</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="ojou-sama-spelling">
Ojou-sama</h2>
Some people prefer to spell ojousama with a hyphen: ojou-sama. There is nothing wrong with this, it's just a <a></a> 
 
(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.) 
<h2 id="translation-ojousama">
Translation</h2>
<h3 id="master-ojousama">
A Girl Whom One Serves</h3>
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, <a></a><a></a>ojousama お嬢様, "daughter," would refer "the daughter" of one's masters. Lastly, <a></a> 
<h3 id="rich-girl-ojousama">
"Rich Girl"</h3>
 
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. 
 
<h3 id="naive-girl-ojousama">
"Naive Girl"</h3>
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. 
<h3 id="ojousan-spelling">
Ojousan お嬢さん</h3>
 
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. 
<h3 id="ojouchan-spelling">
Ojouchan お嬢ちゃん</h3>
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. 
<h3 id="daughter-ojousama">
"Daughter"</h3>
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. 
<h3 id="young-lady-ojousan">
"Miss," "Young Lady"</h3>
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. 
<h4 id="little-girl-ojouchan">
"Missy," "Little Girl"</h4>
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. 
<h4 id="lady-in=japanese-shukujo">
"Lady," Shukujo 淑女</h4>
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. 
<h3 id="pretend-ojousama">
Pretend Ojousama</h3>
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. 
 
<h4 id="okaerinasaimase-ojousama">
Okaerinasaimase Ojousama</h4>
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." 
 
<h4 id="maid-cafe-greeting">
Maid Café Greeting</h4>
This is obviously the same thing the happens in maid cafés, except in those the word <a></a>ojousama is used in maid cafés too to refer to young women, girls. 
 
<h3 id="ojou-meaning">
Ojou お嬢</h3>
 
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. 
 
<h3 id="jou-meaning">
Jou 嬢</h3>
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: 
<ul>
<li>uketsuke-jou 受付嬢 
Receptionist. ("reception," uketsuke, girl.)</li>
<li>koukan-jou 交換嬢 
Telephone operator. (in the past, calls went through manual switchboard operators, who were women.)</li>
<li>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.")</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="ojōsama-ojōsan-ojōchan-spelling">
Ojōsama, Ojōsan, Ojōchan</h3>
The words ojōsama, ojōsan, and ojōchan, with macrons, are the same thing as ojousama, ojousan, and ojouchan, they're just <a></a> 
 
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. 
<h3 id="おじょーさま-spelling">
おじょーさま</h3>
Sometimes these words are spelled using a <a></a>jou じょう. This denotes a change in the pronunciation of the word by a character. 
<ul>
<li>ojoosama おじょーさま</li>
<li>ojoosan おじょーさん</li>
<li>ojoochan おじょーちゃん</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="trope-ojousama">
Trope</h2>
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. 
<h3 id="moe-ojousama">
Moe Factor</h3>
For reasons, ojousama characters are considered to be <a></a>ojousama characters to their works because they're popular with fans, specially in harem anime, and of course the authors like them too. 
<h3 id="master-servant-ship">
Master-Servant Ship</h3>
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 <a></a> 
 
 
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. 
 
<h3 id="comedy-ojousama">
Comedy Factor</h3>
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. 
<h3 id="sub-tropes-ojousama">
Sub-Tropes</h3>
The following are recurring scenarios that follow ojousama (and bocchan) characters in anime: 
<ul>
<li>Arriving to school by limousine.</li>
<ul>
<li>Having a driver. (see: Kuragehime 海月姫)</li>
<li>Having a helicopter.</li>
<li>Having a private jet.</li>
</ul>
<li>Having a summer house, bessou 別荘.</li>
<ul>
<li>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.)</li>
<li>Sometimes, owning a whole fucking desert private island. (see: Saiki Kusuo no Psi-Nan 斉木楠雄のΨ難, season 2.)</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>Also absolutely necessary is an yacht. Can't do without an yacht. Nope.</li>
</ul>
<li>Lacking common sense due to upbringing.</li>
<ul>
<li>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)</li>
<li>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.)</li>
</ul>
<li>Unhinged abuse of money. (late stage capitalism, ho!)</li>
<ul>
<li>Purchasing absurdly expensive things.</li>
<ul>
<li>Attempting to buy Akihabara.</li>
<li>Yes, Akihabara. The, Akihabara. One whole Akihabara. (as seen in the anime Shangri-La)</li>
</ul>
<li>Solving everybody's money problems.</li>
<ul>
<li>Paying off debt.</li>
<ul>
<li>Purchasing debt. (see: Hayate no Gotoku! ハヤテのごとく！)</li>
</ul>
<li>Offering discounts in family-owned business. (see: K-On!)</li>
</ul>
<li>Keeping exotic pets.</li>
<ul>
<li>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?</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>Exceptionally plotty family.</li>
<ul>
<li>Dead. Character inherits everything.</li>
<li>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)</li>
<li>Strict, tons of rules, traditions, ceremonies.</li>
<ul>
<li>Can't leave house. Home tutoring, private teacher. Caged bird.</li>
<li>Obligatory money-blowing kimono.</li>
<li>A "mansion," yashiki 屋敷, "Japanese-style," wafuu 和風, with tatami 畳 flooring and full of sliding doors. (see: Hyouka 評価)</li>
<ul>
<li>Pond with koi 鯉 carp fish.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>What the hell is that thing called anyway?</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>Huge fortress-like walls with a huge gate or something. (see: Hunter x Hunter, specifically Zoldyck's residence.)</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>Forced marriage because of business, politics, etc.</li>
<li>Involved in some ancient cult which has been passed down the family line for generations!</li>
<ul>
<li>Satanic rituals. Pokémon summoning. (see: Fate/Stay Night.)</li>
<li>Demon pacts. (see: Hellsing)</li>
<li>Infusing spirits into children. (see: Naruto lol jk, don't see that. See: Kara no Kyoukai 空の境界.)</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>Beautiful, bishoujo 美少女 or bishounen 美少年.</li>
<ul>
<li>Guess people just prettier when they got cash.</li>
<ul>
<li>Money is attractive, they say, they probably didn't mean this, though.</li>
</ul>
<li>It's the hair.</li>
<ul>
<li>The dazzling, golden hair.</li>
<ul>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>I'm no high-end hair aestheticist Ph.D. in bio-metallic chemistry, though, so it might work. Don't think it would, though.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>And the affordability of expensive clothes.</li>
<ul>
<li>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.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
<h2 id="personality-ojousama">
Personality</h2>
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 <a></a>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. 
<h2 id="appearance-ojousama">
Appearance</h2>
Generally, ojousama characters are <a></a> 
<ol>
<li>Genetics. 
The girl, her older sister, her mother, and basically every woman that shares her blood is gorgeous.</li>
<li>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.</li>
</ol>
 
An ojousama character may an heightened sense of style, given their purchasing power. 
<h3 id="blonde-hair-ojousama">
Blonde Hair</h3>
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. 
 
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUyhyphenhyphennqMPWTHK-i4RMQMrG2M7DLlN8EIhOLU8icjgKQdpZr_5NwROsUJg2d3iwy9LMzisNPQuEXhKGagM8gJijZuby1SDVcJk99L_GoDthLq6HB292_zw9d3XA5rdVX1FN8mCre8PUNSg/s1600/rich-girl-blonde.png"><img alt="Six blonde ojousama characters. Nagi Sanzen'in a.k.a. "Mask the Money" from Hayate no Gotoku! ハヤテのごとく！ Tsumugi Kotobuki a.k.a. Mugi from K-On!! けいおん！！ Eri Sawachika a.k.a. Ojou / "Rich Girl" from School Rumble. Lalatina Dustiness Ford a.k.a. "Darkness" from Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! この素晴らしい世界に祝福を！ Sena Kashiwazaki a.k.a. Niku / "Meat" from Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai 僕は友達が少ない Sernia Iori Flameheart a.k.a. "Drill" from Ladies versus Butlers! / Redhi x Bato! れでぃ×ばと！" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUyhyphenhyphennqMPWTHK-i4RMQMrG2M7DLlN8EIhOLU8icjgKQdpZr_5NwROsUJg2d3iwy9LMzisNPQuEXhKGagM8gJijZuby1SDVcJk99L_GoDthLq6HB292_zw9d3XA5rdVX1FN8mCre8PUNSg/s1600/rich-girl-blonde.png" title="Six rich blonde anime girls in unusual outfits that are also known as something else."></a> 
 
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. 
<h2 id="drills-ojousama">
Drills</h2>
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. 
<h2 id="ohoho-laugh-ojousama">
Laugh: Ohoho!</h2>
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 little shits 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, <a></a> 
 


 
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. 
<h3 id="ohoho-in-japanese">
Ohoho in Japanese</h3>
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. 
<h2 id="speech-ojousama">
Speech</h2>
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. 
<h3 id="ara-meaning">
Ara あら</h3>
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. 
<h3 id="arara-meaning">
Arara あらら</h3>
Sometimes the ra is repeated: arara あらら. Not to be confused with ararararagi, which is something else. 
 
<h3 id="ara-ara-meaning">
Ara ara あらあら</h3>
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. 
<h3 id="maa-meaning">
Maa まぁ / まあ</h3>
The word maa in Japanese is both an adverb and an interjection. Spelled as まあ or まぁ with a small あぁ. 
 
Usually, it means something along the lines of "well, for now..." or "that's true, but..." Generally, it tries to slow down the conversation for the speaker to put forth their conclusion. "I see. I think that..." It can also be used to slow down the conversation inconclusively, "I see what you're saying. But calm down." 
 
In manga and anime, it gets particularly used when other characters get agitated talking about something and jumping at conclusions. making exaggerated statements, etc. then the ojousama comes by and maa~ makes them calm down and realize it's not that much. 
<h3 id="maa-maa-meaning">
Maa Maa まあまあ</h3>
The word maa maa まあまあ is maa twice. Who could have guessed. Because it's repeated, maa maa is translated as "now, now," which's a also repeated, often, even though maa has nothing to do with time, because it'd mean "now, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves," for example. 
 
<h3 id="desu-wa-meaning">
Desu wa ですわ</h3>
The expression desu wa ですわ combines the polite copula <a></a>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  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 <a></a> 
 
This wa わ particle expresses exclamation, decisiveness or emotion of the speaker. 
<ul>
<li>kou desu wa! こうですわ！ 
Like this! 
[It] is this way! (literally)</li>
</ul>
 
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. 
 
<h3 id="masu-wa-meaning">
Masu wa ますわ</h3>
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 <a></a>ojousama using it denotes how she was raised in different environment, more educated, polite. 
<h3 id="kashira-meaning">
Kashira かしら</h3>
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. 
<ul>
<li>sou kashira? そうかしら？ 
I wonder if that's so. 
Is that so, I wonder?</li>
<li>baka kashira 馬鹿かしら 
Is he an idiot, I wonder? 
Maybe he's an idiot?</li>
</ul>

The wordmeans <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/04/family-members.html#daughter-in-japanese">"daughter" in Japanese</a> , similar to <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/04/musume-meaning.html">musume 娘,</a> and it also means "young girl," and "rich girl." In anime and anime-related discussion,oroften refers to a rich girl character.The word <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/12/words-written-with-kanji.html">written with kanji</a> isお嬢様. It's one of the family words in the <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/03/o-san-pattern.html">o__san お〇〇さん pattern</a> , having both <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/03/honorific-prefix-o-go.html">the honorific prefix (o 御)</a> and <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2016/07/kun-san-chan-sama-meaning.html">an honorific suffix (sama 様, san さん, chan ちゃん)</a> Other spellings include:Some people prefer to spellwith a hyphen:. There is nothing wrong with this, it's just a <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/12/different-romaji-same-word.html">different romaji for the same word</a> (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 memakes more sense, but that looks stupid.)In manga and anime, the most common use of the wordis 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 saythe most in the 2D world.The wordis 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, <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/05/goshujinsama-meaning.html">goshujinsama ご主人様</a> means literally "master," and also "husband," as the "husband" historically ends up being the "master" in question. The term <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/05/okusama-meaning.html">okusama 奥様</a> , "wife," is used to refer to "the wife" of one's master. Thenお嬢様, "daughter," would refer "the daughter" of one's masters. Lastly, <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/05/bocchan-meaning.html">bocchan 坊っちゃん</a> may be used to refer to "the son."The wordmay also mean "rich girl," and it's often used to refer to one in a sarcastic way. Like: "she's an, 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 asConsquenetly, sometimes the wordimplies 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.The difference betweenandお嬢さん is that thehonorific is more reverent than thehonorific, 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, sois usually used, butcan have those meanings too.The difference betweenandお嬢ちゃん is thathas the diminutiveinstead of. This means that normally it's used toward young children, a cute way of saying. But it can also imply you think theis cute, and may sound overfamiliar used toward anyou aren't really familiar with.The original meaning of, or rather,お嬢さん, is to refer to somebody's "daughter."Given thatandhave honorifics, they never refers to your own daughter, only to other people's daughters. This is exactly like娘 may refer to your own daughter, but娘さん refers to someone else's daughter.Another use of, or rather,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 ifcould 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.Following the meaning above, when the diminutiveお嬢ちゃん is said instead, with the cozier, more affectionatesuffix, it generally refers to a girl who's also a small child. You could translate thisas "missy" or "little girl."In this case, usingtoward 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, sometimesimplies 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 propersuffix like they're old friends or something, and that may sound offensive in a different way.By the way, the word for "lady" in Japanese is淑女, written with theof淑やか, "graceful," "refined," and "woman,"女. A refined woman, a lady. A fine woman.This is just to make clear thatis only translated as "young lady" together, no part of the word means "young" or "lady." To say "young lady" literally,若い淑女.As one would expect, it's possible forto 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 anis essential for such play, or perhaps even sarcastically, if thein question is being too bossy, acting like an, acting like a "queen,"女王様.In butler cafés, clients, women, are referred to as, and they're greeted by the phraseお帰りなさお嬢様, an extra-polite way of saying "welcome back [home], young lady."This is obviously the same thing the happens in maid cafés, except in those the word <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/05/goshujinsama-meaning.html">goshujinsama ご主人様</a> is used instead. Sometimes,is used in maid cafés too to refer to young women, girls.The wordis simply, without the honorific suffix.Within the animanga fandom, it's particularly used to refer to certaincharacters nicknamed, likefrom School Rumble, who's often calledby character within the series, andfrom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.The word嬢 iswithout the honorific affixes. Thisis 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田中, then田中嬢 would be "miss Tanaka" or "lady Tanaka."Second, the suffixappears in some words referring to female-dominated professions. Some examples include:The words, and, with macrons, are the same thing as, and, they're just <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/12/different-romaji-same-word.html">different romaji for the same Japanese word</a> This happens because long vowels such as those found in the syllablesじょう andじょー may sometimes be romanized as a single letter with a macron instead of two letters.Sometimes these words are spelled using a <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/04/prolonged-sound-mark.html">prolonged sound mark ー</a> on the long vowel syllableじょう. This denotes a change in the pronunciation of the word by a character.In the anime and manga community, both western and Japanese, an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 thesecharacters bring with them a collection of clichés, sub-tropes and other repeating patterns that people care enough about to classify.Ultimately, however, anis just a rich girl. Some people are misled to think that ancharacter must be like this or like that. For example, that she must have a bitchy attitude toward the "commoners" around her, or that themust have servants, or something like that. This isn't necessarily true, it's just that a lot ofcharacters are like that.For reasons,characters are considered to be <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/11/moe-meaning.html">moe 萌え</a> by some, which evidently means authors must keep addingcharacters to their works because they're popular with fans, specially in harem anime, and of course the authors like them too.Inherent ofcharacters are master-servant relationships. It's not unusual for ancharacter 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, butlers are, andare, you get this wholepackage that attracts the attention of a wider-audience all at once. In thisscheme, the male counterpart ofis of course the <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/05/bocchan-meaning.html">bocchan 坊ちゃん</a> Furthermore, the totalthroughput 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. In some cases, the servant character has worked for a given family for years, and has come to think of theas 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.Besides being used for itseffect,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 ancharacter.The following are recurring scenarios that follow(and) characters in anime:Thecharacters 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 commontheme 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, somehave 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 <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2016/07/tsundere-kuudere-yandere-meaning.html">tsundere ツンデレ</a> attribute, not only toward the riff-raff from her school, but sometimes toward her butler, etc. She'llby 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'ing side.Somecharacters are particularly capricious and childish in their actions.On the other side, somehave no cute side, and are just some nasty, mean, rich bitches.On the other-other side, somehave 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まぁまぁ～ lullaby.Sometimes, ancharacter may be naive about things, or clumsy, having a total, absolute and utter lack of common sense, given her upbringing.Generally,characters are <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2016/07/bishounen-bishoujo-bijin-bijo-meaning.html">bishoujo 美少女</a> 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:Ancharacter may an heightened sense of style, given their purchasing power.A good number ofare "blonde,"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,ギャル.Consequently,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.It's common forcharacters 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,"ドリル. In particular, ringlets pigtails are called "twin drills,"ツインドリル, because in Japanese pigtails are called "twintails,"ツインテール.Within the manga and anime fandom, thelaugh refers to the iconic "ohohoho!" laugh often emitted bycharacters 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 little shits 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, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNCUFLgcOm3aYY-iMnRjDAA">ohohojousama</a> , 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 thatcharacters are more likely to do this, hence why the name attributed to it islaugh.In Japanese, "ojousama laugh" is called literally that,お嬢様笑い, using the verb "to laugh,"笑う.Since it's typically a manically "loud laugh," the term高笑い may also refer to it. However, this can also refer to other laughs besides theオーホッホッホッ, such asハーハッハッハッ, for example.Related: "sneer" would be嘲笑.Often,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. Note that they aren't exclusive ofcharacters, they're mostly polite or female speech, it's just that they're often used bycharacters.Thein Japanese is an interjection, female speech. This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 casesis used at the start of a snarky remark by an, like ", 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.Sometimes theis repeated:あらら. Not to be confused with, which is something else.The wordあらあら is, literally,twice. The meaning ofin Japanese is the same as, just stronger, meaning the speaker probably saw something more curious and more amusing to be surprised and amused at.The wordin Japanese is both an adverb and an interjection. Spelled as まあ or まぁ with a small あぁ.Usually, it means something along the lines of "well, for now..." or "that's true, but..." Generally, it tries to slow down the conversation for the speaker to put forth their conclusion. "I see. I think that..." It can also be used to slow down the conversation inconclusively, "I see what you're saying. But calm down."In manga and anime, it gets particularly used when other characters get agitated talking about something and jumping at conclusions. making exaggerated statements, etc. then thecomes by andmakes them calm down and realize it's not that much.The wordまあまあ istwice. Who could have guessed. Because it's repeated,is translated as "now, now," which's a also repeated, often, even thoughhas nothing to do with time, because it'd mean "now, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves," for example.The expressionですわ combines thecopula <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/08/desu-deshita-janai-meaning.html">desu です</a> with the sentence ending particleわ, used bycharacters with a rising pitch.Note thatでございます,であります, are other polite polite forms ofthat anmay use too. (see the article explainingfor details.)If you are learning Japanese, behold, it's one of the rare times you get the actual particleわ and not that fake-ass <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/08/particles-pronunciation-ha-wa-he-e-wo-o.html">particle wa は which is written with ha は instead because of reasons</a> Thisわ particle expresses exclamation, decisiveness or emotion of the speaker.In real Japanese, theparticle 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ぜ or something else instead, and theis always pronounced with a rising pitch, maybe because it fits the anime voices and character stereotypes better that way.Theますわ used bycharacters is basically the same thing as above. What changes is thatisn'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 <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/02/masu-mashita-meaning.html">masu, masen, mashita, or masen deshita</a> . Again, most anime characters don't use this kind of speech. So theusing it denotes how she was raised in different environment, more educated, polite.The expression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,means "I wonder," as in, you're thinking about something you're uncertain about.</div>

Ojousama お嬢様

ojousama means ojousama or ojou-sama often refers to a rich girl character. Kanji The word ojousama ojousama お嬢様. It's one of the family words in the Other spellings include: ojousama 御嬢様 ojousama…

20 May 2018

Bocchan 坊っちゃん

<div>bocchan in anime before, being used by maids and butlers to refer to a boy whom they serve, their "young master." But what's the real meaning of bocchan in Japanese? 
 
<a name="more"></a><h2 id="bocchan-kanji">
Written in Japanese</h2>
The word bocchan written in Japanese is bocchan 坊っちゃん. Sometimes it's spelled without the <a></a> , but still pronounced the same: bocchan 坊ちゃん. 
 
This chan is the <a></a> 
<h2 id="bocchan-translation">
Translation</h2>
<h3 id="young-master-bocchan">
"Young Master"</h3>
The most common, most simple translation for bocchan is "young master." This happens because, most of the time, the bocchan in question is the son in the family where the speaker serves, and the speaker is often a butler or maid character working for that rich family. 
 
 
This usage of bocchan is particularly common because maid and butler characters are popular. Since servant characters are popular, and servant characters must serve somebody, you end up needing a rich boy and girl character for them to serve, which would be the bocchan and its female counterpart, ojousama お嬢様. 
 
In maid cafés, where customers are referred to as <a></a>bocchan, "young master," instead. 
 
Of course, this usage isn't limited to maids and butlers. Other servants like drivers, private security guards of the mansion, cooks, etc. may also use the word like this. It's just that these types of characters are less common. 
 
<h3 id="rich-boy-bocchan">
"Rich Boy"</h3>
Sometimes bocchan isn't used to refer to someone's "young master" but to call someone a "rich boy" instead. A boy coming from a rich family. 
 
 
This extends the previous meaning: since those who're called bocchan, "young master," are from rich families that can afford servants, getting called bocchan implies you're from a family that can afford servants too. 
<h3 id="naive-boy-bocchan">
"Naive Boy"</h3>
Following that, sometimes the word bocchan is used mockingly, implying the bocchan in question is naive, unaware and ignorant of how the world works, for he has lived a sheltered life so far under the care and protection of his family. 
 
Remember: bocchan is a rather affectionate way of calling children. So using it mockingly is like saying in English: "what you gonna do? Cry to your MOMMY?" Because "mommy" is an affectionate word, and there it's used mockingly. The difference is that bocchan refers to the son himself instead. 
 
In this case, you could say, for example, "go home, it's dangerous for a bocchan like you here," to say a rich, naive kid has no business around these parts. 
<h3 id="boy-bocchan">
"Boy"</h3>
Sometimes bocchan simply refers to a "boy" without any weird qualifiers. That is, it refers to young child, who's a boy, and it's an affectionate way of saying that. 
 
Imagine a woman who's a shopkeeper looking at a boy who just arrived alone in her store saying "do you need help, bocchan?" that is, "do you need help, boy?" Something like that. 
 
In this usage, bocchan 坊っちゃん is synonymous with its sibling words bouya 坊や, bouzu 坊主 and bou 坊, all of which share a same <a></a> 
<h3 id="son-bocchan">
Someone Else's Son</h3>
Lastly, the word bocchan can also refer to someone else's son. Not yours, someone else's son. So it would be translate as "your son" or "their son" or something. This kind of follows the "boy" meaning above. It's like saying "your boy" or "their boy" then. 
 
It's someone else's son only because chan counts as an honorific and you don't use honorifics toward your own family. Similar to how <a></a><a></a>musuko-san 息子さん normally refers to other people's sons instead. 
 
This usage is rarely seen in anime because it would require at least two adults talking to each other. 
<h3 id="obocchan-meaning">
Obocchan お坊ちゃん</h3>
Since the chan of bocchan is technically the chan honorific suffix, the word may also follow the <a></a><a></a>obocchan お坊ちゃん (御坊ちゃん). 
<h3 id="bocchama-meaning">
Bocchama 坊ちゃま</h3>
The word bocchama 坊ちゃま is a variant of bocchan 坊ちゃん. It's supposed to be the sama さま variant of bocchan, but because of how the word sounds, it becomes chama instead. 
 
 
To elaborate: the chan suffix is in a sense a child-fied version of the san suffix which is a sense a casual version of the sama suffix. It's just dumbing down the pronunciation again and again. Since bocchan is a word used toward children, it's like it was baby-speak, except nothing so extreme, it ends up baby-fying the sama suffix too and making it get pronounced chama to match. 
 
If it was bossama 坊っさま instead it'd be like adding an adult-sounding suffix to child language, and that wouldn't sound right. 
 
Like obocchan, the variant obocchama お坊ちゃま (御坊ちゃま) also exists. 
<h3 id="坊さん-meaning">
坊さん</h3>
Ok, so we have a bocchan with a chan, and a bocchama with a sama (sorta), what about the san suffix? Is there something like bossan? 
 
Well, no. I mean, yeah. I mean... it's complicated. 
 
The word bousan 坊さん does exist, but it has a totally different meaning: bousan refers to a "Buddhist priest," not to an aristocratic boy. 
 
Wait, what? How is that possible?!?!?!? What sort of relationship do priests have with boys?! 
 
It has to do with the origin of the bocchan word. 
<h2 id="bocchan-origin">
Origin</h2>
Basically, long, long ago, like, in the Heian period of long ago, which was started in year 794 and ended in 1185, there was the word houshi 法師, which meant "Buddhist priest," and which people used as a nickname for their children. 
 
This happened because, Buddhism being kind of a big deal, such nicknames were sometimes based on Buddhism. For example: the childhood nickname of Oda Nobunaga 織田信長 was Kippoushi 吉法師. 
 
The word houshi 法師, being written as if it meant "teacher of principle," was kind of a word of reverence toward priests, but eventually people got tired and sick of hearing the word and started using it in more scornful ways. (similar to what happened to <a></a> 
 
Since houshi was a bad word now, but priests were still the good fellows of always, people needed a new good word of reverence for those honorable priests. And that word was bouzu 坊主. 
<h3 id="bouzu-meaning">
Bouzu 坊主</h3>
The word bouzu 坊主 began to mean "priest" because one bou 坊 referred to a certain area of a city of a certain size (16 chou 町, so... 16 hectares?), like where the monks lived, for example, meanwhile an aruji 主 is the "lord" of something. So, because monks lived in an entire bou together, they were the lords of a bou, bouzu. Or something like that. 
<h4 id="bouzu-hairstyle">
Hairstyle</h4>
Now, as in tradition, the Buddhist priests, the monks, they got some real neat-o haircuts: they cut basically all their hair off, leaving it close-cropped, looking like Aang, the av... (wait, is that anime?) 
 
So, anyway, the hairstyle is pretty iconic. Given this, the term bouzu-atama 坊主頭, literally "bouzu head," came to refer to that close-cropped haircut the monks had. And, also, the word bouzu itself started to refer to it. 
 
In anime, sometimes you can hear the word bouzu being said when there's some sort of punishment game going on. After some challenge or promise, people say, "if this happens, or if this doesn't happen, I'll cut my hair." That's bouzu. 
 
 
Maybe because of this, the word bouzu ended up being used to refer to boys. The specifics I'm not sure about, but it seems that for a while this bouzu haircut was kind of popular, a common parent's choice for their sons' hairstyle. So the word bouzu started being used to refer to boys with a bouzu haircut (you know, just like people call bald people "baldies"). And then eventually to boys in general. 
<h3 id="bou-坊-meaning">
Bou 坊</h3>
So, after this bouzu, lord-of-the-bou, stuff had been established, people went a step further and started using the word bou 坊 alone to refer to priests, and, by extension, to boys. 
 
As usual, if you refer to people you need honorific suffixes, so bousan 坊さん was used instead. But there's a difference between a bald adult priest and somebody's beloved child. So bouchan 坊ちゃん became the affectionate word used toward the children. And eventually the pronunciation changed a bit, through , and that's how you get bocchan. 
 
Note that for a while bousan was actually also used toward boys, but as people settled on using bocchan, they stopped using bousan that way. So today bousan is associated with priests while bocchan is associated with boys. 
 
Furthermore, words like bouya 坊や, "boy" and akanbou 赤ん坊, "baby," also derive from this mess. The term bou 坊 alone may even be used by a boy as a first-person pronoun, the same way boku 僕 is often used. (by the way, boku, like bou, is also a noun that may refer to a boy.) 
 
In some places of Japan bou 坊 referred not only to boys but to girls too. 
 
A bit unrelated but the word kozou 小僧, literally "small priest," originally referred to a young monk, but nowadays also refers to boys, sometimes translated as "brat." 
<h3>
References</h3>
 
<h2 id="bocchan-trope">
Trope</h2>
Within the manga and anime fandom, bocchan, the bocchan trope, always refers to the "rich boy" meaning. Often the naive or capricious "young master" with maids, butlers, servants, etc. 
 
In particular, this is true not only in the non-Japanese-speaking fandom, but even in the Japanese fandom bocchan refers to that kind of character. Despite the other meanings of the word. 
 
Note, however, that there's really no requirement, of personality or appearance, for a character to be classified as a bocchan. All they need to have is money. It's just that the trope, and the fans, tend to favor certain types of bocchan more than just characters who are heirs of fortunes. 
<h3 id="appeal-bocchan">
Appeal</h3>
The appeal of these "rich boy" bocchan characters is, as one would expect, identical to the appeal of its female counterpart, "rich girl," ojousama お嬢様 characters. 
 
In comedy, bocchan characters always have ridiculous amounts of money. They treat the commoner characters like peasants. Believe they're of the ruling class. Act smug all the time. Go places by limo. Own a yacht, summer house, etc. Spend fortunes over the pettiest things on the bat of an eye. Or some variation of that. 
 
The appeal of bocchan characters isn't exclusively found in comedy, however. A thought that may never have crossed your mind until you actually think of it, is that, to some people, bocchan characters are <a></a> 
<h3 id="moe-bocchan">
Moe Factor</h3>
Just like the male audience finds ojousama characters moe, the female audience finds bocchan characters moe. The reasons for this, too, are basically the same. 
 
For the reader who only watches harem anime and never saw a reverse-harem anime, let me make this clear: it's literally the same thing, just genders swapped. This means if there's a moe trope you can apply to a girl character, you can apply it to a guy character. Obviously. If you can have a <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2016/07/tsundere-kuudere-yandere-meaning.html">tsundere</a> ojousama, you can have a tsundere bocchan too, and so on. 
 
 
It's also common for bocchan characters to be considered <a></a><a></a>ojousama. 
<h3 id="master-servant-ship">
Master-Servant Ship</h3>
It's a known fact that men think maid characters are moe. And women think butler characters are moe. Which is why authors like to put them everywhere. 
 
But now we know that ojousama and bocchan are also moe. So, in order to increase that sweet, sweet moe-per-capita, some authors decide to go for the whole moe package with one moe master plus one moe servant. Getting twice the moe for your dollar yen. 
 
 
Added to that there's the fact that some people consider master-servant, lord-retainer relationships to be one sort of moe, too. 
 
A recurring scenario is a servant who has served a family for years and having watched their young master or lady grow up start thinking of them as family, as their son, daughter, or younger sibling. Other common tropes are becoming deeply indebted, as in, in debt, money, and then indebted to the family who offered a job to pay said debt, or some sort of strong admiration or acknowledgement often involving super-natural stuff. 
 
 
A ship of a bocchan with a maid who's older than him sometimes overlaps with the definition of <a></a><a></a> 
 
A ship of a bocchan with a butler, on the other hand, is literally gay, therefore falling within <a></a>
You might have heard the wordin anime before, being used by maids and butlers to refer to a boy whom they serve, their "young master." But what's the real meaning ofin Japanese?The wordwritten in Japanese is坊っちゃん. Sometimes it's spelled without the <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/05/small-tsu.html">small tsu っ</a> showing as, but still pronounced the same:坊ちゃん.Thisis the <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2016/07/kun-san-chan-sama-meaning.html">honorific suffix (san, chan, sama)</a> by the way. It's diminutive.The most common, most simple translation foris "young master." This happens because, most of the time, thein question is, and the speaker is often a butler or maid character working for that rich family.This usage ofis particularly common because maid and butler characters are popular. Since servant characters are popular, and servant characters must serve somebody, you end up needing a rich boy and girl character for them to serve, which would be theand its female counterpart,お嬢様.In maid cafés, where customers are referred to as <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/05/goshujinsama-meaning.html">goshujinsama ご主人様</a> , "master," by the maids, their sons may be referred to as, "young master," instead.Of course, this usage isn't limited to maids and butlers. Other servants like drivers, private security guards of the mansion, cooks, etc. may also use the word like this. It's just that these types of characters are less common.Sometimesisn't used to refer to someone's "young master" but to call someone a "rich boy" instead. A boy coming from a rich family.This extends the previous meaning: since those who're called, "young master," are from rich families that can afford servants, getting calledimplies you're from a family that can afford servants too.Following that, sometimes the wordis used mockingly, implying thein question is naive, unaware and ignorant of how the world works, for he has lived a sheltered life so far under the care and protection of his family.Remember:is a rather affectionate way of calling children. So using it mockingly is like saying in English: "what you gonna do? Cry to your MOMMY?" Because "mommy" is an affectionate word, and there it's used mockingly. The difference is thatrefers to the son himself instead.In this case, you could say, for example, "go home, it's dangerous for alike you here," to say a rich, naive kid has no business around these parts.Sometimessimply refers to a "boy" without any weird qualifiers. That is, it refers to young child, who's a boy, and it's an affectionate way of saying that.Imagine a woman who's a shopkeeper looking at a boy who just arrived alone in her store saying "do you need help,?" that is, "do you need help, boy?" Something like that.In this usage,坊っちゃん is synonymous with its sibling words坊や,坊主 and坊, all of which share a same <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/05/bocchan-meaning.html#bocchan-origin">origin</a> Lastly, the wordcan also refer to someone else's son. Not yours, someone else's son. So it would be translate as "your son" or "their son" or something. This kind of follows the "boy" meaning above. It's like saying "your boy" or "their boy" then.It's someone else's son only becausecounts as an honorific and you don't use honorifics toward your own family. Similar to how <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/04/musuko-meaning.html">musuko 息子</a> means <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/04/family-members.html#son-in-japanese">"son" in Japanese</a> , including yours, but息子さん normally refers to other people's sons instead.This usage is rarely seen in anime because it would require at least two adults talking to each other.Since theofis technically thehonorific suffix, the word may also follow the <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/03/o-san-pattern.html">o__san お〇〇さん</a> pattern by having the <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/03/honorific-prefix-o-go.html">o 御</a> prefix added to it:お坊ちゃん (御坊ちゃん).The word坊ちゃま is a variant of坊ちゃん. It's supposed to be theさま variant of, but because of how the word sounds, it becomesinstead.To elaborate: thesuffix is in a sense a child-fied version of thesuffix which is a sense a casual version of thesuffix. It's just dumbing down the pronunciation again and again. Sinceis a word used toward children, it's like it was baby-speak, except nothing so extreme, it ends up baby-fying thesuffix too and making it get pronouncedto match.If it was坊っさま instead it'd be like adding an adult-sounding suffix to child language, and that wouldn't sound right.Like, the variantお坊ちゃま (御坊ちゃま) also exists.Ok, so we have awith a, and awith a(sorta), what about thesuffix? Is there something likeWell, no. I mean, yeah. I mean... it's complicated.The word坊さん does exist, but it has a totally different meaning:refers to a "Buddhist priest," not to an aristocratic boy.Wait, what? How is that possible?!?!?!? What sort of relationship do priests have with boys?!It has to do with the origin of theword.Basically, long, long ago, like, in the Heian period of long ago, which was started in year 794 and ended in 1185, there was the word法師, which meant "Buddhist priest," and which people used as a nickname for their children.This happened because, Buddhism being kind of a big deal, such nicknames were sometimes based on Buddhism. For example: the childhood nickname of織田信長 was吉法師.The word法師, being written as if it meant "teacher of principle," was kind of a word of reverence toward priests, but eventually people got tired and sick of hearing the word and started using it in more scornful ways. (similar to what happened to <a href="http://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/08/anata-omae-kimi-kisama-meaning.html">omae and kisama</a> , I guess)Sincewas a bad word now, but priests were still the good fellows of always, people needed a new good word of reverence for those honorable priests. And that word was坊主.The word坊主 began to mean "priest" because one坊 referred to a certain area of a city of a certain size (16町, so... 16 hectares?), like where the monks lived, for example, meanwhile an主 is the "lord" of something. So, because monks lived in an entiretogether, they were the lords of a. Or something like that.Now, as in tradition, the Buddhist priests, the monks, they got some real neat-o haircuts: they cut basically all their hair off, leaving it close-cropped, looking like Aang, the av... (wait, is that anime?)So, anyway, the hairstyle is pretty iconic. Given this, the term坊主頭, literally "head," came to refer to that close-cropped haircut the monks had. And, also, the worditself started to refer to it.In anime, sometimes you can hear the wordbeing said when there's some sort of punishment game going on. After some challenge or promise, people say, "if this happens, or if this doesn't happen, I'll cut my hair." That'sMaybe because of this, the wordended up being used to refer to boys. The specifics I'm not sure about, but it seems that for a while thishaircut was kind of popular, a common parent's choice for their sons' hairstyle. So the wordstarted being used to refer to boys with ahaircut (you know, just like people call bald people "baldies"). And then eventually to boys in general.So, after this, lord-of-the-, stuff had been established, people went a step further and started using the word坊 alone to refer to priests, and, by extension, to boys.As usual, if you refer to people you need honorific suffixes, so坊さん was used instead. But there's a difference between a bald adult priest and somebody's beloved child. So坊ちゃん became the affectionate word used toward the children. And eventually the pronunciation changed a bit, through, and that's how you getNote that for a whilewas actually also used toward boys, but as people settled on using, they stopped usingthat way. So todayis associated with priests whileis associated with boys.Furthermore, words like坊や, "boy" and赤ん坊, "baby," also derive from this mess. The term坊 alone may even be used by a boy as a first-person pronoun, the same way僕 is often used. (by the way,, like, is also a noun that may refer to a boy.)In some places of Japan坊 referred not only to boys but to girls too.A bit unrelated but the word小僧, literally "small priest," originally referred to a young monk, but nowadays also refers to boys, sometimes translated as "brat."Within the manga and anime fandom,, thetrope, always refers to the "rich boy" meaning. Often the naive or capricious "young master" with maids, butlers, servants, etc.In particular, this is true not only in the non-Japanese-speaking fandom, but even in the Japanese fandomrefers to that kind of character. Despite the other meanings of the word.Note, however, that there's really no requirement, of personality or appearance, for a character to be classified as a. All they need to have is money. It's just that the trope, and the fans, tend to favor certain types ofmore than just characters who are heirs of fortunes.The appeal of these "rich boy"characters is, as one would expect, identical to the appeal of its female counterpart, "rich girl,"お嬢様 characters.In comedy,characters always have ridiculous amounts of money. They treat the commoner characters like peasants. Believe they're of the ruling class. Act smug all the time. Go places by limo. Own a yacht, summer house, etc. Spend fortunes over the pettiest things on the bat of an eye. Or some variation of that.The appeal ofcharacters isn't exclusively found in comedy, however. A thought that may never have crossed your mind until you actually think of it, is that, to some people,characters are <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/11/moe-meaning.html">moe 萌え</a> Just like the male audience findscharacters, the female audience findscharacters. The reasons for this, too, are basically the same.For the reader who only watches harem anime and never saw a reverse-harem anime, let me make this clear:. This means if there's atrope you can apply to a girl character, you can apply it to a guy character. Obviously. If you can have a, you can have atoo, and so on.It's also common forcharacters to be considered <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2016/07/bishounen-bishoujo-bijin-bijo-meaning.html">bishounen 美少年</a> , "pretty boys," mirroring the <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2016/07/bishounen-bishoujo-bijin-bijo-meaning.html">bishoujo 美少女</a> , "pretty girls,"It's a known fact that men think maid characters are. And women think butler characters are. Which is why authors like to put them everywhere.But now we know thatandare also. So, in order to increase that sweet, sweet-per-capita, some authors decide to go for the wholepackage with onemaster plus oneservant. Getting twice thefor youryen.Added to that there's the fact that some people consider master-servant, lord-retainer relationships to be one sort of, too.A recurring scenario is a servant who has served a family for years and having watched their young master or lady grow up start thinking of them as family, as their son, daughter, or younger sibling. Other common tropes are becoming deeply indebted, as in, in debt, money, and then indebted to the family who offered a job to pay said debt, or some sort of strong admiration or acknowledgement often involving super-natural stuff.A ship of awith a maid who's older than him sometimes overlaps with the definition of <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/01/oneshota-meaning.html">oneshota おねショタ</a> . (for example, in a post on Pixiv, <a href="https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=41349395">Bocchan to Maid was introduced as an oneshota series</a> .)A ship of awith a butler, on the other hand, is literally gay, therefore falling within <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2016/08/fujoshi-meaning.html">fujoshi 腐女子</a> territory.</div>

Bocchan 坊っちゃん

bocchan in anime before, being used by maids and butlers to refer to a boy whom they serve, their "young master." But what's the real meaning of bocchan in Japanese? Written in Japanese The word boc…

20 May 2018

Okusama 奥様

<div>okusama means "wife." It's kind of synonymous with tsuma 妻, but that word is often used more literally, like a "wife," while okusama may be used to refer to a "wife" person, like "my wife" or "your wife." 
 
<a name="more"></a><h2 id="okusama-kanji">
Kanji</h2>
okusama <a></a>okusama 奥様. It's written with the <a></a>oku 奥, which means the "inner part" of something, or a deeper part in caves, etc. 
 
The variant okusan 奥さん also exists. Obviously oku 奥 alone isn't used to refer to one's wife since it's already a word, "inner part." You need a honorific suffix, okusan, okusama, for it to mean "wife." 
 
In <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/12/hiragana-meaning.html">hiragana</a>: 
<ul>
<li>okusan おくさん</li>
<li>okusama おくさま</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="okusama-origin">
Origin</h2>
The reason for the oku in okusama seems to be because, in the past, wives of nobility usually stayed in rooms deeper inside nobles' homes. (reference: <a></a> 
 
A related word would oooku 大奥, (yes, that's three o's), which would refer to the palace's inner chambers, the ladies' chambers, during the Edo period. In other words: the palace's harem, where the Shogun's wife, combines, and other related women stayed. (rumor is it it used to house thousands of women. Thousands! The shogun is the original harem MC!)The word <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/12/words-written-with-kanji.html">written with kanji</a> is奥様. It's written with the <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2016/07/kun-san-chan-sama-meaning.html">sama 様 honorific suffix</a> , and奥, which means the "inner part" of something, or a deeper part in caves, etc.The variant奥さん also exists. Obviously奥 alone isn't used to refer to one's wife since it's already a word, "inner part." You need a honorific suffix,, for it to mean "wife."InThe reason for theinseems to be because, in the past, wives of nobility usually stayed in rooms deeper inside nobles' homes. (reference: <a href="http://gogen-allguide.com/o/okusama.html">奥様 - gogen-allguide.com</a> ). This probably meant the husband did business in rooms closer to the entrance, so if someone came by to discuss something, he wouldn't usually see the wife, who would be in a room more to the back.A related word would大奥, (yes, that's three's), which would refer to the palace's inner chambers, the ladies' chambers, during the Edo period. In other words: the palace's harem, where the's wife, combines, and other related women stayed. (rumor is it it used to house thousands of women. Thousands! Theis the original harem MC!)<h2 id="okusama-usage">
Usage</h2>
okusama refer to one's wife. Plain and simple. Nothing very interesting about it. Note, however, that there are other terms that also mean <a></a>kanai 家内, kamisan かみさん, etc. Even the word <a></a> 
 
In anime, it's common for servants, maids, butlers, etc. to use okusama to refer to the "wife" of the household. This usage is similar to the term <a></a>okusama is the goshujinsama's wife. 
 
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTNT-fTRwHuSuv0KlPt0hVJbA45Lb7Vlz4RFl_0EQ7T0HkmXGv86YWunYwlsxgJKK8euCiokVc2De_yxtL1_BZytz-6AXtyIzGWRLBodZP3PjFucZRW5D8aQoKWAsmgLzH9X59WxxYOiE/s1600/okusama-maid-butler.png"><img alt="A butler and maid saying okusama in the manga Hunter x Hunter and Bocchan to Maid 坊っちゃんとメイド" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTNT-fTRwHuSuv0KlPt0hVJbA45Lb7Vlz4RFl_0EQ7T0HkmXGv86YWunYwlsxgJKK8euCiokVc2De_yxtL1_BZytz-6AXtyIzGWRLBodZP3PjFucZRW5D8aQoKWAsmgLzH9X59WxxYOiE/s1600/okusama-maid-butler.png" title="Whose wife do you like most?"></a> 
 
In particular, in maid café, the staffers, maids, who usually address to clients as goshujinsama, may address to the woman in a couple of clients as the okusama.Basically,refer to one's wife. Plain and simple. Nothing very interesting about it. Note, however, that there are other terms that also mean <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/04/family-members.html#wife-in-japanese">"wife" in Japanese</a> . Like家内,かみさん, etc. Even the word <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/04/okaasan-meaning.html">okaasan お母さん</a> , which normally means "mother," may refer to one's wife at times.In anime, it's common for servants, maids, butlers, etc. to useto refer to the "wife" of the household. This usage is similar to the term <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/05/goshujinsama-meaning.html">goshujinsama ご主人様</a> , which may be used toward the "husband" of the household. That is: theis the's wife.In particular, in maid café, the staffers, maids, who usually address to clients as, may address to the woman in a couple of clients as the
In Japanese,means "wife." It's kind of synonymous with妻, but that word is often used more literally, like a "wife," whilemay be used to refer to a "wife" person, like "my wife" or "your wife."</div>

Okusama 奥様

okusama means "wife." It's kind of synonymous with tsuma 妻, but that word is often used more literally, like a "wife," while okusama may be used to refer to a "wife" person, like "my wife" or "your wi…

12 May 2018

Goshujinsama ご主人様

<div>goshujinsama ご主人様 means the "master" of a servant, in anime, mostly of a maid. The word may also refer to the "owner" of a house or shop, to one's "husband," or to a pet's "owner." 
 
<a name="more"></a><h2 id="goshujinsama-kanji">
Kanji</h2>
The word goshujinsama <a></a> are the one for "lord," aruji 主, plus "person," hito 人, and two honorifics: the <a></a><a></a> 
 
Since it kind of spells "lord person," you can guess from the kanji the word means someone important. A similar word, shujinkou 主人公, means "protagonist," for example. 
 
Spellings of goshujinsama include: 
<ul>
<li>goshujinsama ご主人様</li>
<li>goshujinsama ご主人さま</li>
<li>goshujinsama 御主人様 (extra-formal, rarer)</li>
<li>goshujinsama ごしゅじんさま (<a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/12/words-written-with-hiragana.html">hiragana only</a>, extremely unlikely)</li>
</ul>
 
The word has honorifics on both sides, so it's in the <a></a>sama, it's a word that implies utmost reverence. 
 
For the "master" meaning seen in anime, only sama is ever used. For the "husband" and "owner" meaning, goshujin ご主人. The variant goshujinsan ご主人さん isn't used as frequently. 
<h2 id="master-goshujinsama">
"Master"</h2>
Most of the time, in anime, the word goshujinsama is translated as "master," in the sense of "master whom one serves," which consequently is what this post is mostly about. 
 
This meaning, "master," is actually the original meaning of the word shujin, as its kanji imply. The "master" or "lord of a servants, retainer, etc. is their shujin, and an extra-reverent way to refer to such shujin is goshujinsama. 
 
Note that the "master" translation of goshujinsama is always the master of a servant. This is not to be confused with other masters, like: 
<ul>
<li>sensei 先生 
Master who teaches. A teacher. 
Master who arts. An arter artist. 
Master who medicines. A medicinist doctor.</li>
<li>tatsujin 達人 
Master who has "reaches," tassuru 達する, a highly advanced level in something. 
(see the main cast of Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Ken'ichi 史上最強の弟子ケンイチ)</li>
<li>meijin 名人 
Master who excels at something. 
(in the past, a "title," meishou 名称, bestowed to the best.)</li>
<li>masutaa マスター 
Master 
(<a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/12/katakanization-meaning.html">katakanization</a>, often refers to the "master" of a bar, or to master degrees.)</li>
<li>shishou 師匠 
Master of disciples. 
(in anime, often of martial arts.)</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="maid-master-goshujinsama">
Maid's "Master"</h2>
Specifically, the word goshujinsama is overwhelmingly used to refer to a maid's "master" in anime, the man whom the maid serves. It's used so much this way we can't really talk about the word goshujinsama without talking about maids. But I guess that's only really because anime has tons of maids. 
 
 
To be honest, it isn't really necessary for a maid to refer to their employer as goshujinsama. The reason it's done so often in anime, particularly in and harem anime, is probably because of the implied naughtiness of calling somebody "master." 
 
It'd be tough for authors to create a situation where a girl calls somebody "master" that doesn't seem very awkward and out of place. But maid characters can just say the word over and over and it kinda fits. Once authors realized that, the maid-goshujinsama combo got set in stone. 
 
But why would maids naturally use this "naughty" word in first place? It's complicated. It has to do with the multiple other meanings of goshujinsama that I'll explain through this post. 
<h2 id="owner-of-the-house">
"Owner" of the House</h2>
The word goshujinsama may also refer to the "head" of a household, the proprietor of a property, "the owner of the house," the "master" of a mansion, etc. 
 
But because goshujinsama is a honorific sandwich the simpler shujin 主人 may be used instead, although normally goshujin ご主人, with just one honorific, is used since it's related to other people and it's normal to add honorifics when talking about other people. 
 
 
Maid note: so when a maid said goshujinsama, she could be implying not her master directly, as a sign of fealty, but the master of the house where she serves indirectly, as per contract. 
<h2 id="shop-owner">
Shop "Owner"</h2>
Just like shujin, etc. can refer to the "owner" of a house, it may also refer to the "owner" of a establishment. A shop "owner." 
<h2 id="husband-goshujinsama">
"Husband"</h2>
Sometimes, goshujinsama may mean <a></a>goshujinsama ご主人様 and goshujin ご主人 have honorifics, they aren't used toward your own husband, only toward other people's husbands. The term shujin 主人, without honorifics, may be used to say "my husband." 
 
Given this, a more literal translation of goshujinsama would be "lord" instead. In English, the word lord refers to the lord whom one serves, who happens to be lord of a property, lord of a house, and is historically male, so the man of the house, consequently, lord in English may also refer to one's husband. And this is similar to how the word shujin works. 
 
The difference being I have literally never seen "lord" being used in English to refer to one's husband, but the dictionary says so, so I guess it's been used so, once, in the archaic historical past, meanwhile goshujinsama is still use to refer to somebody's "husband" in present-day modern Japanese. There are other words which can be used to say "husband," but goshujinsama, goshujin, shujin are still in use. 
 
Some people consider shujin to be a sexist term given that it refers to one's "husband" but it originates in "lord," implying wives are servants. Most people, however, do not care about this. 
<ul>
<li>goshujin imasuka? ご主人いますか？ 
goshujinsama irasshaimasuka? ご主人様いらっしゃいますか？ 
Is [your] husband [home]? 
Is [your] master [home]? 
Is the master [of this home in]?</li>
</ul>
 
Maid note: so when a maid said goshujinsama, she could be referring to the "husband" of the house where she serves. "I'll go get the goshujinsama," could imply "I'll go get the husband." It's also common for maids to refer to the master's wife as literally "wife," <a></a>goshujinsama and okusama" ends up meaning "I saw the husband and the wife of this mansion where I work." 
<h2 id="okaerinasaimase-goshujinsama">
 Okaerinasaimase Goshujinsama</h2>
In manga and anime which do not feature recurrent maid characters, sometimes the cast goes to a maid café and they're greeted with a okaerinasaimase goshujinsama お帰りなさいませ、御主人様, an extra-polite way of saying "welcome home, master." 
 
 
Now I'm sure you have many questions about this, but let's get this one cleared first: maid cafés exist in Real Life™. They aren't just a some random weird crap anime made up from nothing once, like a sport where you fight using only your boobs and butt. It actually exists. 
 
Most people can't really afford an cute maid 24/7 in their lives. They aren't made out of money. However, they can afford the experience of being made out of money and having a cute dream-like maid serve them for a while. And this is what the service is about. Capitalism, ho! 
 
In this service, the maid addresses you as goshujinsama, but note that the goshujinsama is the lord of the house where the maid serves, and the maid serves at the café, ergo, the goshujinsama is the lord of the café, and you're the goshujinsama, therefore you're the lord of the café, you're the lord of your property, your house, your home, consequently, this implies the café is your home. 
 
That is why they say "welcome home" or "welcome back" in maid cafés, because it implies you're returning to your home, where your maid is. 
 
By the way, sometimes obocchama お坊ちゃま, "young master," is used in such cafés toward younger clients, boys, children whom are brought to the café. 
<h2 id="female-goshujinsama">
Female Goshujinsama</h2>
Generally speaking, goshujinsama is used toward men only. Specially given it's historically a male word. It's technically gender neutral and may be used toward women, but normally that doesn't happen, so it's practically male only. 
 
In some maid cafés, for example, women may be greeted as goshujinsama just like male customers, or, if they're children, daughters, ojousama お嬢様, which's a term often associated with the "daughter" of a rich family, or maybe okusama 奥様, "wife." 
 
 
However, some women may find it weird to be called goshujinsama as it's mostly a male word. In butler cafés, which also exist, by the way, the clients, women, get mostly called ojousama お嬢様 instead, as it may refer to a young woman too. 
 
 
Note that onna-shujin 女主人, literally "female master," would be the literal female version of shujin. But since it doesn't sound as nice as ojousama no café would use that word. 
 
In BDSM, joousama 女王様, "queen," is the female counterpart of goshujinsama. 
<h2 id="bdsm-master-goshujinsama">
BDSM "Master"</h2>
In the Japanese BDSM subculture, the term goshujinsama may refer to one's "master" in a master-slave relationship. Meanwhile, joousama 女王様, "queen," is used for a female goshujinsama, a mistress. 
 
 
The counterpart, "slave," would be dorei 奴隷. So "master and slave" is goshujinsama to dorei ご主人様と奴隷, "mistress and slave," joousama to dorei 女王様と奴隷. 
 
Maid note: so with this all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. 
 
So goshujinsama was originally used by maids toward the "master" of the mansion, or in reference to the "husband" of the household. A very decent, very pure, very innocent word. But when it comes to ecchi anime and its S&M-savvy audience, the term goshujinsama starts implying something else, less decent, less pure, and less innocent. 
 
From this you could say some fans like the word goshujinsama because it implies they're rich and powerful, so much they can afford mansions and maids and stuff, and it's a word that infers status, like saying "king" or something, while some other fans like the word just because it implies S&M. 
<h2 id="figurative-master-goshujinsama">
Figurative "Master"</h2>
Reminder: just like in English, words can be used figuratively in Japanese. 
 
That is, sometimes goshujinsama refers to someone who is not literally their "master." Not literally someone whom they serve, nor literally someone they're in a BDSM relationship with. 
 
For example, in Tokyo Ghoul, there's a scene involving torture, and the torturer one time gets sarcastically referred to as goshujinsama. Does this means somebody's freakish ship suddenly got canon?! NO!!! It's a quip! It's figurative! It doesn't mean anything! 
 
<h2 id="pet-owner-goshujinsama">
Pet's "Owner"</h2>
Another use of goshujinsama found in manga and anime is when a pet says goshujinsama to refer to their "owner." This follows the same servant logic, but it ends up being a master-pet instead of master-servant. 
 
I say "found in manga and anime" because, as it turns out, animals don't actually speak Japanese, so they wouldn't really say goshujinsama in Real Life™. 
 
Of course, this usage also exists elsewhere, like in pictures of cats on the internet, or of dogs, where someone writes something they want to believe the animal would say, like: "master is coming home! Master is coming home! *bark bark*" (I realize now nobody would use this term with cats because cats are assholes who wouldn't lower themselves to calling their owners "master.") 
 
A more normal word in this case would be kainushi 飼い主, "owner of a pet," from the verb kau 飼う, "to keep a pet," and nushi 主, which, like aruji 主, and shujin 主人, may also mean "master." 
 
(reminder: in Japanese a woman's "husband" and a pet's "owner" are the same word, which some people consider sexist, but I swear a lot of people DO NOT CARE about this.) 
<h2 id="summon-master-goshujinsama">
Summon's "Master"</h2>
Sometimes, a summoned champion in League of Legends, hero, monster, creature, demon, familiar, etc. may refer to their summoner as goshujinsama, as they're the ones giving the orders and stuff. 
 
 
Note that, in the Fate series, the heroic spirits use the term masutaa マスター, a katakanization of "master," to refer to their summoners instead of goshujinsama. Despite having the same translation, it's a different word. 
 
(reminder: in Japanese a woman's "husband" and a filthy spawn summoned from the seventh circle of hell's "lord" are the same word, which some people consider to be sexist, but... you know what, I'm beginning to think this word may be a wee bit sexist.) 
<h2 id="call-me-master-goshujinsama">
Call Me "Master"</h2>
It's kind of a trope to have a character tell another character to "call me goshujinsama," or, goshujinsama to yobe ご主人様と呼べ, which's the exact equivalent of saying "call me master" in English. 
 
Psychologically speaking, the words remind the servant they're a servant, and the master they're a master. 
 
And of course not all of these "servants" want to be servants. So saying goshujinsama this way is often considered embarrassing, not say humiliating, specially considering the BDSM-related pandering, and normally you wouldn't want to say it, which is obvious from the fact someone is trying to make you say it. 
 
If you were fine with saying goshujinsama nobody would need to tell you to say goshujinsama, would they? I mean, there are characters which gladly say goshujinsama and are happy to serve their masters, but that's not always the case. 
 
Often, this "call me goshujinsama" stuff happens when a character ends up becoming a maid due to dramatic circumstances, like a sudden immense debt sometimes related to the accidental breaking of expensive vases, or their parents dying somehow. They don't want to be a servant, maid, they just need the money, and the roof, and the three meals a day. 
 
In some cases, "call me goshujinsama" may happen as result of a punishment game, as outcome for losing a bet or challenge. 
 
 
Of course, this form of obvious harassment is only seen as playful, silly antics because we're talking about ecchi harem romantic comedies whose main audience is boys, , here. If it was an edgier anime it'd definitely be part of some sort of awful, terrible bullying. 
 
Like, in Kakegurui 賭ケグルイ, there's an "wtf is this edgelord bullshit?" sort of systematic school bullying where losers in gambling may end up getting turned into animals, not literally, socially, and one such loser gets called pochi ポチ, "spot," a common and unimaginative name for dogs, during his sub-human days. 
 
So in the story above a master-pet status was implied by calling the bullied pochi. In some other story, it could be implied by having the bullied character call his bully goshujinsama.

In Japanese, the wordご主人様 means the "master" of a servant, in anime, mostly of a maid. The word may also refer to the "owner" of a house or shop, to one's "husband," or to a pet's "owner."The word <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/12/words-written-with-kanji.html">written with kanji</a> is ご主人様. Itsare the one for "lord,"主, plus "person,"人, and two honorifics: the <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/03/honorific-prefix-o-go.html">o 御 prefix</a> and the <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2016/07/kun-san-chan-sama-meaning.html">sama 様 suffix</a> Since it kind of spells "lord person," you can guess from thethe word means someone important. A similar word,主人公, means "protagonist," for example.Spellings ofinclude:The word has honorifics on both sides, so it's in the <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/03/o-san-pattern.html">o__san お〇〇さん pattern</a> . But since the latter honorific is, it's a word that implies utmost reverence.For the "master" meaning seen in anime, onlyis ever used. For the "husband" and "owner" meaning,ご主人. The variantご主人さん isn't used as frequently.Most of the time, in anime, the wordis translated as "master," in the sense of "master whom one serves," which consequently is what this post is mostly about.This meaning, "master," is actually the original meaning of the word, as itsimply. The "master" or "lord of a servants, retainer, etc. is their, and an extra-reverent way to refer to suchisNote that the "master" translation ofisthe master of a servant. This is not to be confused with other masters, like:Specifically, the wordis overwhelmingly used to refer to a maid's "master" in anime, the man whom the maid serves. It's used so much this way we can't really talk about the wordwithout talking about maids. But I guess that's only really because anime has tons of maids.To be honest, it isn't really necessary for a maid to refer to their employer as. The reason it's done so often in anime, particularly inand harem anime, is probably because of the implied naughtiness of calling somebody "master."It'd be tough for authors to create a situation where a girl calls somebody "master" that doesn't seem very awkward and out of place. But maid characters can just say the word over and over and it kinda fits. Once authors realized that, the maid-combo got set in stone.But why would maids naturally use this "naughty" word in first place? It's complicated. It has to do with the multiple other meanings ofthat I'll explain through this post.The wordmay also refer to the "head" of a household, the proprietor of a property, "the owner of the house," the "master" of a mansion, etc.But becauseis a honorific sandwich the simpler主人 may be used instead, although normallyご主人, with just one honorific, is used since it's related to other people and it's normal to add honorifics when talking about other people.: so when a maid said, she could be implying not her master directly, as a sign of fealty, but the master of the house where she serves indirectly, as per contract.Just like, etc. can refer to the "owner" of a house, it may also refer to the "owner" of a establishment. A shop "owner."Sometimes,may mean <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/04/family-members.html#husband-in-japanese">"husband" in Japanese</a> , but note that since the wordsご主人様 andご主人 have honorifics, they aren't used toward your own husband, only toward other people's husbands. The term主人, without honorifics, may be used to say "my husband."Given this, a more literal translation ofwould be "lord" instead. In English, the word lord refers to the lord whom one serves, who happens to be lord of a property, lord of a house, and is historically male, so the man of the house, consequently, lord in English may also refer to one's husband. And this is similar to how the wordworks.The difference being I have literally never seen "lord" being used in English to refer to one's husband, but the dictionary says so, so I guess it's been used so, once, in the archaic historical past, meanwhileis still use to refer to somebody's "husband" in present-day modern Japanese. There are other words which can be used to say "husband," butare still in use.Some people considerto be a sexist term given that it refers to one's "husband" but it originates in "lord," implying wives are servants. Most people, however, do not care about this.: so when a maid said, she could be referring to the "husband" of the house where she serves. "I'll go get the," could imply "I'll go get the husband." It's also common for maids to refer to the master's wife as literally "wife," <a href="https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2018/05/okusama-meaning.html">okusama 奥様</a> . So "I sawand" ends up meaning "I saw the husband and the wife of this mansion where I work."In manga and anime which do not feature recurrent maid characters, sometimes the cast goes to a maid café and they're greeted with aお帰りなさいませ、御主人様, an extra-polite way of saying "welcome home, master."Now I'm sure you have many questions about this, but let's get this one cleared first: maid cafés exist in Real Life™. They aren't just a some random weird crap anime made up from nothing once, like a sport where you fight using only your boobs and butt. It actually exists.Most people can't really afford an cute maid 24/7 in their lives. They aren't made out of money., they can afford theof being made out of money and having a cute dream-like maid serve them for a while. And this is what the service is about. Capitalism, ho!In this service, the maid addresses you as, but note that theis the lord of the house where the maid serves, and the maid serves at the café, ergo, theis the lord of the café, and you're the, therefore you're the lord of the café, you're the lord of your property, your house, your home, consequently, this implies the café is your home.That is why they say "welcome home" or "welcome back" in maid cafés, because it implies you're returning to your home, where your maid is.By the way, sometimesお坊ちゃま, "young master," is used in such cafés toward younger clients, boys, children whom are brought to the café.Generally speaking,is used toward men only. Specially given it's historically a male word. It's technically gender neutral and may be used toward women, but normally that doesn't happen, so it's practically male only.In some maid cafés, for example, women may be greeted asjust like male customers, or, if they're children, daughters,お嬢様, which's a term often associated with the "daughter" of a rich family, or maybe奥様, "wife."However, some women may find it weird to be calledas it's mostly a male word. In butler cafés, which also exist, by the way, the clients, women, get mostly calledお嬢様 instead, as it may refer to a young woman too.Note that女主人, literally "female master," would be the literal female version of. But since it doesn't sound as nice asno café would use that word.In BDSM,女王様, "queen," is the female counterpart ofIn the Japanese BDSM subculture, the termmay refer to one's "master" in a master-slave relationship. Meanwhile,女王様, "queen," is used for a female, a mistress.The counterpart, "slave," would be奴隷. So "master and slave" isご主人様と奴隷, "mistress and slave,"女王様と奴隷.: so with this all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.Sowas originally used by maids toward the "master" of the mansion, or in reference to the "husband" of the household. A very decent, very pure, very innocent word. But when it comes toanime and its S&M-savvy audience, the termstarts implying something else, less decent, less pure, and less innocent.From this you could say some fans like the wordbecause it implies they're rich and powerful, so much they can afford mansions and maids and stuff, and it's a word that infers status, like saying "king" or something, while some other fans like the word just because it implies S&M.Reminder: just like in English, words can be used figuratively in Japanese.That is, sometimesrefers to someone who is not literally their "master." Not literally someone whom they serve, nor literally someone they're in a BDSM relationship with.For example, in Tokyo Ghoul, there's a scene involving torture, and the torturer one time gets sarcastically referred to as. Does this means somebody's freakish ship suddenly got canon?!It's a quip! It's figurative! It doesn't mean anything!Another use offound in manga and anime is when a pet saysto refer to their "owner." This follows the same servant logic, but it ends up being a master-pet instead of master-servant.I say "found in manga and anime" because, as it turns out, animals don't actually speak Japanese, so they wouldn't really sayin Real Life™.Of course, this usage also exists elsewhere, like in pictures of cats on the internet, or of dogs, where someone writes something they want to believe the animal would say, like: "master is coming home! Master is coming home! *bark bark*" (I realize now nobody would use this term with cats because cats are assholes who wouldn't lower themselves to calling their owners "master.")A more normal word in this case would be飼い主, "owner of a pet," from the verb飼う, "to keep a pet," and主, which, like主, and主人, may also mean "master."(reminder: in Japanese a woman's "husband" and a pet's "owner" are the same word, which some people consider sexist, but I swear a lot of people DO NOT CARE about this.)Sometimes, a summoned champion, hero, monster, creature, demon, familiar, etc. may refer to their summoner as, as they're the ones giving the orders and stuff.Note that, in the Fate series, the heroic spirits use the termマスター, a katakanization of "master," to refer to their summoners instead of. Despite having the same translation, it's a different word.(reminder: in Japanese a woman's "husband" and a filthy spawn summoned from the seventh circle of hell's "lord" are the same word, which some people consider to be sexist, but... you know what, I'm beginning to think this word may be a wee bit sexist.)It's kind of a trope to have a character tell another character to "call me," or,ご主人様と呼べ, which's the exact equivalent of saying "call me master" in English.Psychologically speaking, the words remind the servant they're a servant, and the master they're a master.And of course not all of these "servants" want to be servants. So sayingthis way is often considered embarrassing, not say humiliating, specially considering the BDSM-related pandering, and normally you wouldn't want to say it, which is obvious from the fact someone is trying to make you say it.If you were fine with sayingnobody would need to tell you to say, would they? I mean, there are characters which gladly sayand are happy to serve their masters, but that's not always the case.Often, this "call me" stuff happens when a character ends up becoming a maid due to dramatic circumstances, like a sudden immense debt sometimes related to the accidental breaking of expensive vases, or their parents dying somehow. They don't want to be a servant, maid, they just need the money, and the roof, and the three meals a day.In some cases, "call me" may happen as result of a punishment game, as outcome for losing a bet or challenge.Of course, this form of obvious harassment is only seen as playful, silly antics because we're talking aboutharem romantic comedies whose main audience is boys,, here. If it was an edgier anime it'd definitely be part of some sort of awful, terrible bullying.Like, in賭ケグルイ, there's an "wtf is this edgelord bullshit?" sort of systematic school bullying where losers in gambling may end up getting turned into animals, not literally, socially, and one such loser gets calledポチ, "spot," a common and unimaginative name for dogs, during his sub-human days.So in the story above a master-pet status was implied by calling the bullied. In some other story, it could be implied by having the bullied character call his bully</div>

Goshujinsama ご主人様

goshujinsama ご主人様 means the "master" of a servant, in anime, mostly of a maid. The word may also refer to the "owner" of a house or shop, to one's "husband," or to a pet's "owner." Kanji The word go…

11 May 2018

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