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So just what is "hentai"? The word hentai literally means "change in state" in Japanese. This in fact refers to adult perversion, and when referring to people means "abnormal person" (i.e. a pervert or sex-fiend). This word has a VERY strong (negative) connotation in the Japanese language, and isn't the sort of language you'd casually use on the street. It has however, become the standard term for referring to pornographic anime/manga on the Internet. So why am I making a page talking about Hentai? Well first off, it's better that people who aren't very familiar with anime/manga understand what hentai is. I remember when I first wandered around a Sailor Moon page wondering who this "Hentai" guy was, and boy did I get a surprise when I looked at his image gallery! (and trust me, naive mistakes like that are more common than you think). And the second thing, is that hentai has become something which is misunderstood by many people.

First things first, it's probably better to clarify the term hentai. Supposedly the word comes from the romanizaton of the Japanese reading of the Chinese word for pervert. Eventually the term hentai was expanded to mean sexual in general (not just perverse). Another take on the word hentai is the letter "H" (much like everyone who speaks English knows what the F-word is). "H" is of course the first letter of hentai, but generally comes across as having a softer tone to it as opposed to "hentai". "H" can be used as a common noun, such as H-suru (to do the "H" thing), kare wa H (he/she's got sex on his/her mind), and my favorite H-shitai? (you wanna "H"?). The third form of hentai is "ecchi" (which you can find on the Internet quite a bit). Many people know that ecchi also means pervert. Some people even know that ecchi is derived from the word hentai. But few seem to know that "ecchi" is just how you pronounce the letter "H" in Japanese. That's right, "H" isn't pronounced "H", it's pronounced "ecchi". To me spelling out ecchi in English is rather... ridiculous since it's just "H".

-:- in anime -:-

When it comes down to anime, hentai basically means pornography. Keep in mind that there is a HUGE gray area in what is hentai and what is not (just like the pornography debate). As a general rule of thumb, hentai refers to anime with extensive sexual overtones with actual sex taking place; be it graphic or not. This shouldn't be confused with anime with an erotic, yet non-hentai theme, or excessive fan service with no sex. H-anime comes in many various forms, just like regular anime. You could probably divide H-anime up in three categories: comedy, horror, and romance. Horror H-anime tends to lend itself to being more violent. It often depicts the more disturbing aspects of sexuality such as bondage and rape. Some H-anime titles take a more humorous approach. When not oriented towards sexual content, it generally attempts to be funny and not take itself very seriously. Some H-anime try to take the road less traveled in romance. These titles tend to be much more story driven and to some extent they de-emphasize the sexual content.

Probably the most notorious H-anime is "tentacle hentai". This is more often than not oriented towards the horror genre. "Tentacles" in this sense has a much more broad meaning in that it may come from any sort of monster, animated plant, alien, or even machine. If you use your imagination you can probably come up with a few more examples that may qualify, and there is probably more than a few titles that have tried it already. In the past tentacle hentai has had a reputation which people associated with all of anime. Thankfully as anime gained popularity these associations have been mostly forgotten. The cause of this was mainly due to the fact that anime was at first marketed as "extreme cartoons" in North America. In order to market anime as "cartoons that are for adults", the marketing orientation was towards very violent and often pornographic anime. In some sense you could say that H-anime was the first viable market for distribution in North America. For some people this was all they ever really saw of anime, and some still judge anime based on this initial marketing campaign.

Hentai anime varies in how good or bad it is, but much like other forms of pornography, it's plagued with no plots, and low budgets, which tips the scales heavily towards bad. Still, at times it is H-anime which has been by far the most daring in previously unexplored themes; sexual and otherwise.

-:- in manga -:-

And of course where would anime be without it's counterpart on paper: manga? The same can be said for hentai anime. H-manga can vary in quality from pathetic pencil drawings, to gorgeously rendered portraits. Unlike H-anime, there is generally as much good H-manga as bad (depending of course upon if your into that stuff in the first place). There is another term that comes into play here known as dojinshi. Dojinshi is a term for amateur manga which is often hentai, although it doesn't have to be. For aspiring manga artists, using sexual content is an easy way to boost sales in the hope that they will gain popularity. In many cases these artists may later move on to non-adult content once they make a name for themselves. One oddity of the H-manga market is the fact that much of the dojinshi market is taken by parody manga. In this form a well known title is redrawn by an artist and given their own storyline and often putting the characters in sexual situations. The Japanese publishing market has far less restrictions on it in this regard, making this form of manga possible. In some cases the artwork for a dojin title may actually exceed the quality of the title it was based off of.

-:- in games -:-

The least understood of all, are Japanese CG games. While there is a sort of definable point between hentai and non hentai in anime and manga, computer games in Japan has a vast spread over the gray area as far as adult content is concerned. Make no mistake that CG games in Japan can be as hardcore as their anime/manga counterparts, but there is a huge market for similar titles with little to no adult content. Some games are also very adult and sexual but have no sex.

Japan has a large market for what is known as a "date sim" game. These games sit in exactly the gray area between adult and non adult content. The goal of the game is often to play through a storyline and is often oriented towards winning the heart of a certain girl. These games often have a large female cast involved and the goal is to pick one in particular as the overall goal. What happens at the end is often what determines if the game is hentai or not, and in that respect many of these games attempt a romantic approach in their sexual content so may not even qualify as pornography.

Also adding to the confusion is the fact that many of these games are produced in anime form. However some very adult sexual titles are often produced with no adult content at all when converted to an anime. Others retain as much sexual content as their game source. In this sense, an anime may not really give many hints at ever having been an adult title in the first place.

final thoughts

Anime having the wide variety in topics that it does, pornography is a natural extension of Japanese Animation that H-anime fulfills. H-anime itself however also covers a broad spectrum of topics and adult nature. It can often be simple pornography, but it can also be much more subtle. H-anime is also misunderstood in that many people tend to simply group it all together despite the fact that hardcore bondage and high school romance titles tend to have little in common. Many also tend to label CG artwork as hentai as they are familiar with H-game titles, even if there is no adult content in the CG picture. One notable example that comes to mind was the (probably now defunct) "Hentai free" campaign, where pages claimed to be free of hentai content. This was probably due to many webmasters searching for unique artwork that was originally from a hentai/doujinshi source in order to distinguish themselves. The campaign had a tendency to rabidly label most anything as hentai if it wasn't by a mainstream artist. But this misses the point because by definition hentai indicates something perverse. If you take a simple picture from a hentai series that has no adult content, and is out of context; then is it really hentai at that point?

So hopefully you are now better informed about what hentai is. And with this understanding you should possibly be willing to give such a title a chance if it really does look like the story may interest you. On the other hand if you're looking for pornography then I'm preaching to the choir. Hentai can offer some good entertainment for those willing to look a bit deeper.

© 1999

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