EROMANGA
HALL OF FAME

The onee-shota story has always been written as one in which the older party teaches. Osu ni Natta Boku to Mesu ni Natta Oneechan stands in the hall for taking the knowledge away from the teacher.

Over a long school holiday, an older girl from the family has come to look after a boy at his house. In the bath she notices a change in his body. Neither of them knows what it is.

Between the first time and the second, the book sets down a stretch in which she is alone. She looks it up, learns what she has done, finds that this settles nothing, and walks to a convenience store to buy contraceptives. Readers point to those few pages as the hinge of the whole construction. With protection there can be no child, which means the act is now for pleasure and nothing else: the book lets her reach that reasoning herself, and starts the second time from there. Honjou Tatami, the artist behind the circle, draws in washes as pale as watercolour and lets the page run free of panel borders. Readers write in specifics about the upright way she stands, and how much of her upbringing it conveys.

The circle WASABI has released only four titles on DLsite. This is the second, and the first in comic form. Forty-eight full-colour pages, with a monochrome edition included. The older girl carries the responsibility of her age throughout, and the boy is never allowed to swagger at her: that, in the artist's own words, is the atmosphere the book was built to hold.

DLsite's official editions run in English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, French and Thai, and a full-colour edition sits in general Japanese ebook stores credited to Honjou Tatami of WASABI. It stands fourth in the onee-shota division, third in the shota division, and forty-third among doujin works in the hall.