Shotaro

Shotaro was a character from the early days of modern manga. He was a "cute little boy"-type character who constantly outsmarted the adults of the story. He spawned much obsession with such a character archetype and thus is considered to be the first target of shota-con, the romantic involvement of an underage boy and another (usually an older male, but there have been shounen-ai/yaoi stories written in which both characters are the same age. Sometimes, the other person in the relationship will be an older female, but this rarely occurs in reality.) The expression shota-con actually came from his name, being an abbreviation of "Shotaro complex".

On an unrelated note, Shotaro is also the given name of Shotaro Kaneda from the anime Akira. However, being around sixteen years old, he does not qualify to be a Shotaro-type character.

Shotaro can also refer as a given name to the mangaka Shotaro Ishinomori.