I’m a big fan of language, and love thinking about why we use the words we use every day. One surprising thing I’ve noticed blogging about anime for nearly three decades is how many fans are careful to separate “anime” from “hentai” as if they were totally separate genres. Let’s explore why this might be in this blog post!
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Anime vs Hentai: Why Some Fans Treat Them as Totally Different Things
Every so often, I’ll post a sexy clip from an anime to the J-List X account. Because people complain if I don’t credit the “sauce,” I’ll reply with something like “Anime is Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid.” But when the clip comes from an 18+ anime instead, followers will sometimes reply, “That’s not an anime, it’s a hentai!”
This always confused me, because in my own personal dialect of English, hentai is just a genre inside the wider category of anime. We have dozens of sub-categories of anime to choose from, like mecha, shonen, sports, idol, etc. If it’s got sexy visual content but can still be broadcast on TV, it would be the ecchi genre. And if we see genitals and penetration, that makes it hentai.
But other fans would disagree. They would say, “What kinds of anime or hentai do you have in your DVD collection?” and debate how explicit an anime must be before it crosses into hentai. They treat the two words as if they were totally separate ideas.
Some reasons behind the Great Anime/Hentai Split:
- Gatekeeping. Some fans might separate anime from hentai to keep anime “pure” and pretend anime doesn’t have a sexy side.
- Separation of spaces. Since anime is something you can stream on Crunchyroll or Netflix, the 18+ varieties might feel like a totally separate thing. Hentai is something you buy from a store. (Preferably from J-List!)
- Just a semantic shift. For the same reason that Americans call carbonated drinks in a can “soda,” “pop,” “coke,” or “soft drinks” depending on their geographic location, certain fans have encountered the words anime and hentai being treated as different genres, and thought that was natural. But while the Great Soda-Pop Divide is geographical, for modern anime fans the Anime/Hentai Split spread through online forums and Reddit.
The Origin of the Term Anime
The term anime is a relatively recent invention, only dating back to the founding of the first anime-focused magazine, Animage. Before that time, Japanese would refer to TV animation as “manga.” Mrs. J-List (born in 1968) will still say something like, “Why are people on the Internet complaining about a few pantyshots? Don’t they know this is manga?” while discussing an anime on TV.
While most modern fans will define “anime” as animation made in Japan or other Asian countries, based on Japanese story source material, I’ve got some bad news for you. Inside Japan, the term アニメ will regularly be applied to all animation, including Disney. Sometimes I’ll be watching TV, and they’ll discuss the newest Disney “anime,” and my wife will wonder why I’m suddenly yelling at the screen.
Have you ever wondered why the Japanese call underwear “pantsu”? Read why in our blog post!
What Does Hentai Mean?
The word 変態 hentai originally meant “transformation,” such as an insect changing form through the larval, pupal, and adult stages. It must be a rite of passage for biology students to try to avoid giggling when they first hear this word while studying the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly.
Then came Psychopathia Sexualis, the landmark 1886 German book exploring human sexuality, including uncomfortable topics like fetishism and homosexuality. The book was translated in 1913 as 変態性慾心理 Hentai Seiyoku Shinri, or The Psychology of Abnormal Sexual Desire. It was the first time such subjects were openly discussed in a medical setting.
Soon “hentai” had developed a new meaning of anyone who was sexually deviant, like a chikan groping girls on a train, or (in a softer, more slang-ey usage) anyone who was behaving in a perverted manner. It’s important to note that that’s what the word means in Japan today, and it doesn’t refer to 18+ anime. Japanese would probably call that 18-kin anime, or possibly ero anime.
Where Does the Word “Ecchi” Come From? The Origin Explained
Once hentai had attained its slang meaning of any sexual deviant, it quickly got shortened to just “H,” which is pronounced ecchi in Japanese. The word first made it into print in a 1955 novel called The White Demon Fish. It hit the mainstream in the 80s, when dramas needed a way to have characters describe having sex while maintaining the delicacy advertisers required.
Today, the euphemistic way to say “to have sex” is “H suru.” The term softens the idea of sex, which is too direct for Japanese people to use in daily life.
Thanks for reading this blog post exploring the definition of hentai, and how some fans separate “anime” from “hentai.” Which camp are you in? Do you believe hentai is a subset of anime, or a different thing altogether? Let us know in the comments!
Let’s Chat
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J-List has another sale for you, this time giving you 18% off of all adult toys. This means amazing offerings from Magic Eyes, Toy’s Heart, Maccos Japan, and Tamatoys. You can also get 18% off of all personal ero lotion to get you through the rest of the year! Start browsing here!
