Oshi-katsu (推し活) is the practice of actively supporting your oshi, the person or character you back above all others. It covers watching their streams and shows, buying their merchandise, going to their events, celebrating their birthday and introducing them to friends. The word frames all of that as one deliberate activity, not a pile of separate purchases. It is also written oshikatsu, without the hyphen.
The word started as fandom slang. In 2021 it was nominated for Japan’s buzzword of the year: 推し活 was one of the 30 nominees for the 2021 U-Can New Words and Buzzwords Awards (opens in new tab) (report in Japanese), the annual awards for the words that defined the year in Japan. Four years later it was a mainstream adult hobby. A Mynavi survey of 20,165 full-time employees in their twenties to fifties, reported by Nippon.com (opens in new tab) in November 2025, found that 49.2% of workers in their twenties do it. Practitioners in that survey spent an average of ¥13,305 a month on it.
Oshi-katsu is also where fans easily lose track, and the problem is rarely the love. It is that the attention and the money arrive through different doors: a stream at eleven at night, a membership that renewed quietly last Tuesday, a merch drop announced mid-stream. Nothing joins them. The VTuber Stream & Oshi Tracker keeps both records side by side and shows which oshi gets which. But the concept is worth understanding first, so start there.
What does oshi-katsu mean?
Oshi-katsu is a compound of two shortened Japanese words. Each half carries part of the meaning.
| Part | Japanese | Literal sense | In fandom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oshi | 推し | from osu, to push or recommend | the person or character you back above all others |
| Katsu | 活 | short for katsudō, activity | the things you do for them, as an ongoing practice |
The same -katsu pattern shows up across everyday Japanese. Shūkatsu is job hunting, for example. In each case the suffix turns a goal into a project you work on over time.
“Oshi” itself comes from idol fandom, where fans named their favorite member of a group their oshimen, the member they push. The shortened oshi then spread to every corner of fan culture. The VTuber glossary has the related terms that fandom uses.
Who can be an oshi?
An oshi can be anyone or anything a fan chooses to champion. It is not limited to pop stars. The Nippon.com report on the Mynavi survey (opens in new tab) lists entertainers, athletes and other celebrities, anime and game characters, and even inanimate targets of affection, such as a particular railway line.
In practice, the most common oshi fall into a few groups:
- Idols: J-pop and K-pop group members, the original home of the word.
- VTubers: streamers who perform through an animated avatar. Membership tiers and superchats make VTuber oshi-katsu unusually money-visible.
- Fictional characters: from anime, manga, games and stage adaptations. For keeping a record of the series themselves, see how to track anime and manga.
- Actors, voice actors and musicians.
- Athletes and teams.
- Things: a railway line, a mascot, a brand, a building.
What makes someone your oshi is not how famous they are. It is that you have chosen to put effort behind them.
What oshi-katsu involves: the core activities
Oshi-katsu is a set of recognizable activities, and fans tend to talk about them by name. Some cost nothing. Others are where the monthly spend goes.
| Activity | Japanese term | What it looks like | Costs money? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Watching | No common term | live streams, broadcasts, archives, every episode | Usually free |
| Memberships and fan clubs | ファンクラブ | a monthly tier for members-only streams, early ticket access, badges | Yes, recurring |
| Merchandise | グッズ (guzzu) | acrylic stands, can badges, photocards, often sold as blind random packs | Yes |
| Events and concerts | 現場 (genba) | live shows, fan meetings, pop-up shops, collaboration cafés | Yes, plus travel |
| Birthday celebrations | 生誕祭 (seitansai) | celebrating the oshi’s birthday, often with themed goods | Varies |
| Pilgrimage | 聖地巡礼 (seichi junrei) | visiting real places tied to the oshi or their work | Travel |
| The itabag | 痛バッグ | a bag covered in one oshi’s badges and goods | Yes |
| Spreading the word | 布教 (fukyō) | introducing friends to your oshi, clipping streams, making fan art | Free, costs time |
Two things stand out in that table. First, the free activities are mostly about time and the paid ones mostly about objects. Second, the costs are spread across a monthly charge, irregular purchases and occasional travel. That is why a fan can know exactly who they love and have no idea what it costs them.
Oshi-katsu slang you will run into
Once you can say who your oshi is, a whole vocabulary follows. These are the terms that come up most often:
- Kami-oshi (神推し): your top oshi, the one above all the others.
- Hako-oshi (箱推し): “box support”, backing a whole group or agency rather than one member.
- Oshi-iro (推し色): your oshi’s signature color. It is why concert crowds hold penlights in one color, and why fans dress in it.
- Oshi-hen (推し変): changing your oshi.
- Dōtan kyohi (同担拒否): preferring not to befriend fans who share your oshi. It is a recognized stance, not just rudeness.
- Genba (現場): “the scene”, any in-person event where you can see your oshi.
None of these are required to do oshi-katsu. They do show how developed the practice is: it has enough recurring situations to need names for them.
Why oshi-katsu went mainstream
Oshi-katsu went mainstream when it stopped reading as a niche fan identity and started reading as an ordinary adult hobby. The 2021 buzzword nomination marked the word’s arrival in general use, and the 2025 survey numbers show how widely it is practiced now.
In late 2025, the Mynavi survey reported by Nippon.com (opens in new tab) found that among full-time employees:
- 49.2% of workers in their twenties and 33.7% of workers in their thirties engage in oshi-katsu.
- The average monthly spend among practitioners is ¥13,305. People in their thirties spend the most, at ¥14,692, and people in their twenties ¥14,026.
- 79.4% of practitioners say it enriches their personal life, and 74.1% call it an important activity in their life.
The last pair of numbers matters most. Oshi-katsu is not described as a guilty pleasure. Practitioners describe it as part of what makes life good, and that is the shift the 2021 nomination captured.
Oshi-katsu vs stanning: is it the same thing?
Oshi-katsu and English “stanning” overlap, but they are not the same. “Stan” describes the fan and their intensity. Oshi-katsu describes the activity: what you do and how you organize it.
K-pop fandom sits between the two. It has its own word, bias, for a favorite member, and its own rituals: lightsticks, photocard trading, streaming parties. The underlying practice is recognizably the same. A K-pop fan who sorts duplicates, trades for a missing member and tracks every comeback is doing oshi-katsu in everything but name. The guide to K-pop photocards covers that side.
The useful difference is the framing. Oshi-katsu treats support as a practice, something you can plan, budget for and enjoy on purpose, instead of something that just happens to your bank account.
How to keep track of your oshi-katsu
The healthiest oshi-katsu is the kind you can see clearly. You don’t need to spend less. You need to know where your hours go and where your money goes, and whether the two agree.
The simplest test is to put your watching and your spending on the same row for each oshi. Here is how the math plays out with illustrative numbers for one invented month:
| Oshi | Hours watched | Money spent | Share of hours | Share of spend | Support per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 30 | $20 | 60% | 20% | $0.67 |
| B | 15 | $15 | 30% | 15% | $1.00 |
| C | 5 | $65 | 10% | 65% | $13.00 |
| Total | 50 | $100 | 100% | 100% | $2.00 |
Oshi C takes a tenth of this fan’s attention and nearly two thirds of the money. That is not automatically wrong. C’s birthday merch might have dropped this month, and next month the column will settle. But it is the kind of gap a fan only sees with both logs joined. And a common version of it is quieter: a membership still billing for an oshi you have stopped watching.
To keep that picture current:
- List every oshi in one place with the agency or group, when you started following, and their debut date, so anniversaries don’t sneak up on you.
- Log hours roughly, not perfectly. “About two hours, live” is enough.
- Put recurring charges on a monthly scale next to one-off purchases, so a ¥490 membership and a ¥6,000 acrylic stand are comparable.
- Look at the split once a month and decide on purpose.
If your oshi are VTubers, the free My Oshi List handles step 1: one tab of everyone you follow, with days following and debut-anniversary countdowns calculated for you. For the whole join, hours against money and support per hour, the VTuber Stream & Oshi Tracker does steps 1 through 4 in one owned workbook for Excel and Google Sheets. It flags a membership still billing with no recent hours logged against it, and it converts Japan-time announcements to your own clock. If your oshi-katsu is mostly photocards, the K-Pop Photocard Collection & Trading Tracker is the better fit. For the wider question across every hobby you pay for, see how to track hobby spending.
Common questions about oshi-katsu
What does oshi-katsu mean in English?
Oshi-katsu means “oshi activities”: everything a fan does to actively support the person or character they back above all others. The closest English is “stanning” or “fan support”, but neither carries the sense that the support is a deliberate, ongoing practice with its own rituals.
Is oshi-katsu the same as being a stan?
Close, but not the same. “Stan” describes the fan; oshi-katsu describes what the fan does. And oshi-katsu is not limited to people: a fan can do oshi-katsu for an anime character, a sports team or a railway line.
Can you have more than one oshi?
Yes, and plenty of fans do. The usual vocabulary for it is a kami-oshi at the top, other oshi below, and hako-oshi for supporting a whole group. Having one single oshi is common enough to be a recognizable identity, but it is not the rule.
The point of oshi-katsu
Oshi-katsu turns fandom into a practice: something you choose, shape and keep doing because it makes life better. The 2021 buzzword nomination and the survey numbers say the same thing. That works best when you can see it: who you back, how much of your time they get, and how much of your money. Start with a list of your oshi. Join it to what you spend once you want the full picture.
