what is hentai

Hentai is a style of Japanese pornograph anime and manga. Like this site, A loanword from Japanese, the original term (変態 (listenⓘ)) does not describe a genre of media, but rather an abnormal sexual desire or act, as an abbreviation of hentai seiyoku (変態性欲, "sexual perversion"), and is also used to refer to persons who hold or do such desires and acts, often translated to English as "pervert". In addition to anime and manga, hentai works exist in a variety of media, including artwork and video games (commonly known as eroge).

The development of hentai has been influenced by Japanese cultural and historical attitudes toward sexuality. Hentai works, which are often self-published, form a significant portion of the market for doujin works, including doujinshi. Numerous subgenres exist depicting a variety of sexual acts and relationships, as well as novel fetishes.

HISTORY HENTAI

With the usage of hentai as any erotic depiction, the history of these depictions is split into their media. Japanese artwork and comics serve as the first example of hentai material, coming to represent the iconic style after the publication of Azuma Hideo's Cybele [ja] in 1979. Hentai first appeared in animation in the 1932 film Suzumi-bune [ja] by Hakusan Kimura [ja], which was seized by police when it was half complete. The remnants of the film were donated to the National Film Center in the early 21st century.[18] The film has never been viewed by the public. However, the 1984 release of Wonderkid's Lolita Anime was the first hentai to get a general release, overlooking the erotic and sexual depictions in 1969's One Thousand and One Arabian Nights and the bare-breasted Cleopatra in 1970's Cleopatra film. Erotic games, another area of contention, has its first case of the art style depicting sexual acts in 1985's Tenshitachi no Gogo. In each of these mediums, the broad definition and usage of the term complicates its historic examination.

Depictions of sex and abnormal sex can be traced back through the ages, predating the term "hentai". Shunga, a Japanese term for erotic art, is thought to have existed in some form since the Heian period. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, shunga works were suppressed by the shogunate. A well-known example is The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife by Hokusai, which depicts a woman being stimulated by two octopuses. Shunga production fell with the introduction of pornographic photographs in the late 19th century.

To define erotic manga, a definition for manga is needed. While the Hokusai Manga uses the term "manga" in its title, it does not depict the story-telling aspect common to modern manga, as the images are unrelated. Due to the influence of pornographic photographs in the 19th and 20th centuries, the manga artwork was depicted by realistic characters. Osamu Tezuka helped define the modern look and form of manga, and was later proclaimed as the "God of Manga". His debut work New Treasure Island was released in 1947 as a comic book through Ikuei Publishing and sold over 400,000 copies, though it was the popularity of Tezuka's Astro Boy, Metropolis, and Jungle Emperor manga that would come to define the media. This story-driven manga style is distinctly unique from comic strips like Sazae-san, and story-driven works came to dominate shōjo and shōnen magazines.

Adult themes in manga have existed since the 1940s, but some of these depictions were more realistic than the cartoon-cute characters popularized by Tezuka. In 1973, Manga Bestseller (later known as Manga Erotopia), which is considered to be the first hentai manga magazine published in Japan, would be responsible for creating a new genre known as ero-gekiga, where gekiga was taken, and the sexual and violent content was intensified. Other well-known "ero-gekiga" magazines were Erogenica (1975), and Alice (1977). The circulation of ero-gekiga magazines would peak in 1978, and it is believed that somewhere between eighty and one hundred different ero-gekiga magazines were being published annually.