One thing anime fans always seem to have a strong opinion on is NTR, the fetish of having one’s romantic partner stolen by someone else. While many fans loudly decry the way the genre has taken over the hentai manga and anime industries, others defend netorare as being a valid category that tells stories many fans clearly respond to. Let’s examine the history of NTR and see why it’s devouring the hentai world!
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Where Did NTR Come From? Let’s Examine the History of Hentai Manga
While the “true” father of hentai manga (and tentacle porn) is ukiyo-e artist Hokusai, we have to give credit to the great Go Nagai for helping launch the modern world of 18+ ero comics. His influential Harenchi Gakuen introduced the “ecchi as comedy” genre, showing characters who were curious about sex for the first time. This early work paved the way for genre-defining adult manga like Urotsukidōji, La Blue Girl, and U-Jin’s Angel, which became famous all over the world.
But around the year 2000, there was a major collapse of printed magazines with the rise of the internet. This is why the JAV magazines J-List was once famous for all disappeared. Within a year or so, iconic porn magazines like Urecco, Beppin School, and Cream had all folded. Manga anthology magazines also saw a huge drop in their sales numbers.
The Origins of NTR: How Hentai Manga Saved Itself by Getting Experimental
The changes in manga distribution caused publishers to get serious about developing new genres that would appeal to fans and enable the companies to survive in the new business environment. Instead of aiming for vanilla appeal, publishers and artists got really specific, telling stories designed to elicit sharp emotional reactions from readers. Tales of cheating wives, of men returning to their hometowns to find their former childhood friends grown up and ready for breeding, and forbidden sex with younger sisters suddenly became popular. And slowly, so did manga that focused on stories about male characters having their girls sexually “stolen.”
What are the best NTR stories on J-List? Browse our products here!
Stories about cuckoldry, of course, were not new. Variations of the theme appear regularly in Chinese literature, Kabuki theater, and Western drama, where the NTR’ed husband is often the butt of jokes. The term netorare even shows up in Shakespeare, in the Japanese translation of Othello, long before modern hentai manga came along.
We know exactly when the word NTR was coined: July 18, 2001. It was on a Japanese BBS called Nebeya (“sleeping room”) in which members shared stories about people having sex outside their relationships. There was a discussion about how to abbreviate netorare so it wouldn’t be so clumsy to type. A member suggested NTR, and the rest is history.
NTR Stories Aim to Trigger Maximum Emotional Reactions
Let’s look at why NTR has become such an influential genre for hentai anime and manga.
- NTR stories aren’t just about a cheating partner, but go out of their way to focus on the emotions of betrayal the person being cheated on experiences. The combination of arousal and repulsion creates cognitive dissonance in the brain that can be oddly pleasant for some fans.
- The word netorare centers on a man who loses his partner to another. Netori is told from the point of view of the person doing the taking. Netorase is consensual cheating, because the husband has a fetish for that and wants to see his wife/girlfriend have sex with other men.
- There are sub-genres of NTR. For example, BSS, aka boku ga saki ni suki datta noni or “But I loved her first.” It focuses on extra-weak main characters who haven’t even confessed their feelings but have already lost out to someone else.
- The “final boss” of the genre is “funeral NTR.” Here, a wife enjoys sex with her lover while still wearing the black kimono of mourning for her husband, who has just died. Man, that’s dark!
I’m fascinated by the way netorare requires a focus on the emotions of the (usually male) protagonist. A very similar hentai genre, hitozuma, about “a person’s wife” who cheats, doesn’t seem to elicit the same strong reaction from fans despite being almost exactly the same kind of story.
Many Japanese Fans Hate NTR, Too
One of the things I love about working with J-List’s sister company, J18 Publishing, is making visits to hentai manga publishers to get new licenses. On one visit to a major publisher, I had a discussion with an executive about the large number of Western fans who seem to hate the netorare genre. He laughed and told me that Japanese fans have exactly the same reaction.
And yet… the popularity of the genre is evident in the sales numbers, so publishers keep bringing out new content, month after month. Love it or hate it, NTR is a pillar that keeps the lights on at our favorite hentai companies.
I always had a theory that the general dislike for NTR might have come from the strong reaction to the School Days anime. It featured a love triangle between Makoto, Sekai, and Kotonoha. The intense story told in the anime version — which is a totally separate story from the 20+ endings in the School Days HQ game — clearly angered fans around the world. Despite the universal hatred of the anime ending, JAST USA managed to sell a record number of copies of the game when it was released in English.
Another anime that made fans hate stories about cheating was Initial D, during Natsuki’s “compensated dating” arc. To this day, I find fans on the internet fuming at her cheating on Takumi with her Mercedes-owning “Papa.”
What Do J-List Customers Say About NTR?
Let’s find out what J-List customers think about the rise of netorare stories in manga and anime! (Memes are by me.)
People are still getting mad over fictional characters having sex? NTR is a story theme designed to make you feel something while reading. If fans are invested enough in the story to get angry, that means the author won!
Good art is good art. Even if it’s NTR.
No, I hate it because it’s frequently ugly, fat, or douches doing it. I’m an ugly bastard IRL, and I really don’t want to identify with some guy in hentai who’s got a better hairline than I do.
More like oversaturation, especially in hentai anime and manga. The plots have grown ridiculous, illogical, impossible, and just plain stupid. Multiple artists often recycle the same NTR plot. How many perverted track & field coaches can there be in Japan?
NTR has made me rage for several days in the past. I don’t like it at all. And yet, I keep watching.
Even More Comments from J-List Customers!
Rarely is NTR well-written. It’s an overdone genre as of late, with too many predictable stories. We need more revenge sequels, with follow-ups where we see how the men who were cheated on win their girls back, or otherwise find closure.
There’s nothing wrong with giving in to carnivorous urges. Such is life. Such is humanity.
NTR would be great, if not for the NTR part. It’d at least be better if there were stories where the cheaters faced consequences occasionally. I want something like The Laughing Salesman, but for NTR, where it’s just terrible people getting ironic punishments for being terrible people. (The cheaters, not the guy getting NTR’ed.)
“NTR Is Not Just Cheating…”
NTR isn’t just cheating. It’s the slow sexual corruption of the woman that is the true turn on, how she keeps wanting more despite knowing it’s wrong.
I’m fine with it when writers use it as part of good storytelling. When they deploy it only to provoke an emotional reaction, it feels cheap.
God, I love NTR. It tells some of the best hentai stories.
How dare others like something I don’t like? Disgusting!
Thanks for reading this blog post about the NTR genre and how it took over the hentai anime and manga industries. What are your thoughts on the genre? Which netorare stories are “okay” and which are not? Tell us in the comments below!
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