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I have noticed this other very similar question:

Naming suffix -氏 (-し) used by an otaku character in anime

Now the point is: in another anime, namely O Maidens in your savage season - which is airing in these months - the character of Sudou constantly addresses her friend Sugawara by calling her Sugawara-shi.

Considering that Sudou is everything but an otaku, what could this -shi stand for?

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    Would you mind defining "otaku"? I ask because 「オタク」 in Japanese has a much wider scope of meaning than "otaku" does in English.
    – user4032
    Sep 8, 2019 at 14:03

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In the real world, -氏 is definitely a strange name suffix among friends. But Sudō is a teenager girl in a literature club in an anime. Female teenagers generally like inventing a funny way of speaking, and being in a literature club means she is familiar with -氏 used in "serious" literature works. On top of that, this anime itself is mainly targeted at anime otaku, and a fictional character in such a work often speaks in a peculiar way, anyway, as you probably know.

By the way, you said "Sudō is everything but an otaku", but at least in Japanese, オタク can refer to nerdy people in general. An avid literature fan, a railroad fan and such perfectly qualify as an オタク in the broad sense, and a literature club is often considered an オタク系 club activity. Having a bit of the stereotypical otaku trait is not strange as a member of a literature club.

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  • Isn't the term 氏 used to indicate the prominence of a family?
    – Jack Bosma
    Sep 9, 2019 at 19:57

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