Shame Drawn: Hentai History and Evolution

How did Japanese adult cartoons come about and why is there so much debate around them? It seems to us that hentai is a phenomenon that has appeared relatively recently, while in fact erotic images in Japan are hundreds of years old. What is hentai, how it arose, what happens and why it is equated with real pornography, read in our material.

It may surprise you, but the word “hentai” in the meaning that Western manga fans put in it is not used in Japan.

The word “hentai” describes a person, the action or condition of any sexual deviation. “Hentai” consists of two characters: hen (strange) and tai (behavior). That is, “hentai” in Japanese culture means sexual perversion and is usually used in a negative way. In other cases, they simply say “ero” (for example, ero-manga — erotic manga) or “seijin” (adult).

Hentai History at a Glance
It all started with 12th-century Buddhist scrolls, when a witty monk named Toba painted four humorous stories about animals that portrayed people and Buddhist monks. A manga with the participation of not only monks and animals, but with more frank plots (that is, maybe the monks and animals were there too) appears much later — in the 17th century, when engravings — shunga appear in the fine arts. Find more facts about hentai at the https://medium.com/@michaelv0ronov/5-unforgettable-facts-about-hentai-industry-ad058ff38b22

They tried to ban them, to punish fans of “non-standard creativity”, but all is meaningless, because, as you know, what people like will still remain in the masses. So shunga had a huge impact on the future of modern Japanese pornography.

Hentai, in the form in which we know him, appeared only in the 70s. His “ancestor” was a mangaka (the so-called artists who draw manga) by the name of Guo Nagai, who in 1969 painted the manga “School of Shameless”. There was no hentai in it, but there were erotic scenes, so the scandal in Japan, which was quite restrained at that time, was enormous. So Guo Nagai became the author of the world’s first etti — animated eroticism, which still does not reach hentai.

VCRs appeared in the 80s, which gave a new impetus to the distribution of hand-drawn pornography. And the Internet has served as the main popularizer of a frank anime that finally reached the continents.

Censorship and legislation
In many countries, the attitude to hand-drawn pornography is about the same as to the real one: that is, the import, purchase, distribution, manufacture and, in fact, “use” are regulated by the same legislation.

From World War II to the early 90s, it was forbidden in Japan to portray human genitals as naturalistic. So the creators, who adhered to a more traditional view of things, simply retouched the images, while others chose monsters, aliens and tentacles as their characters.

Artists also painted characters with a minimum of anatomical details. After the ban was lifted, hentai became more outspoken. In countries where hentai is not prohibited, there is still strict censorship of hentai involving minors. Either when they are transferred, they are changed to older ones (for example, a schoolgirl becomes a student), or some scenes are simply cut out.

There are still fierce disputes between defenders and opponents of hentai about whether it is possible to equate drawn pornography with real one. The former claim that the image of sexual activity equates it with “normal,” while the latter argue that these are fictional characters and no one suffers from hentai.

What is hentai
In this sense, few people are distinguished by such inventiveness, imagination and skill as the Japanese. Of course, categorizing hentai solely by its erotic component is wrong. In the end, it can be divided into genres: comedy, melodrama, science fiction and fantasy …

Tentacles
The tentacles are older than you think. A very common direction of hentai, in which the character copulates with phallic tentacles. In fact, the first embodiment of this idea was the famous engraving by the artist Hokusai “The Dream of a Fisherman’s Wife” in 1820.

Bara
This is manga for homosexual men, which is usually painted by other men. The bar’s characters are usually deliberately muscular: they have muscular bodies, hairy breasts and huge dicks. Typically, in a manga or anime, more attention is paid to sex than to the development of relationships between characters.

The name “bar” comes from the name of the first Japanese monthly gay magazine “Barazoku”, which has been published since 1971.

Shonen-ah
This is not really hentai, rather erotic. Relations between men are also at the center of this genre, but, as a rule, they are much younger — they are young men, and although there is a certain romantic relationship between them, they usually do not reach sexual contact. Fans of this genre are usually young girls.

Yaoi
Also a hentai about sexual relations between men, but in this case the target audience is heterosexual girls and women, so that yaoi’s drawing is rather soft and romantic, a lot of attention is paid to the development of relations between characters.

Usually in such a hentai, the characters are divided into Samee (giving) and Uke (receiving), that is, dominant and passive.

Yuri
Lesbian manga or anime, where the main acting heroines are girls and women.

Futunari
There were boys, there were girls, there were even tentacles. It was the turn of hermaphrodites. Yes, as we have said, the Japanese “know a lot about perversions.” This hentai focuses on characters who have a penis (sometimes this is a greatly enlarged clitoris), but the body is more likely female.

Eroguro
A rather frightening hentai trend that arose in Japan in the 1920s in the wake of the economic depression. Usually it depicts extreme forms of violence, the authors emphasize the aesthetics of murder, death and torture. He is also called a tough hentai. It has several main topics: rape, beating, torture, necrophilia, suicide, amputation and much more.

In most countries, including Japan, the attitude towards eroguro is acutely negative, the storage and distribution of such a hentai can lead to criminal liability.

Bakunu
The literal translation is “exploding breasts”, usually in this hentai they portray women with disproportionately large breasts.

Netorare
Hentai subgenre, when a woman systematically cheats on a man.

Hentai Sex Relations

Often the feeling attributed to female characters in hentai is shame. Japanese society has historically been very patriarchal, and hentai in this case was regarded as a harmless and safe way to satisfy your desires.

Often, female heterosexual hentai characters are fragile and defenseless, while male characters are dominant and severe.

Researchers’ views on gender relations in hentai are different. So, according to Professor Susan Napier, the problem of dominance and submission in hentai lies in the complex relationship of the sexes in Japanese society, where men and women fight for their place on the hierarchical ladder, and “men do not always appear at the very top.”