Ah, hentai. The perfect blending of everything that’s good about anime and porn. Because it’s animated, it’s not real sex, so it appeals to a much wider audience of potential fans. Also, anything that can be imagined can be shown, so it’s just as easy to create a fantasy story about sexy demons letting off some sexual steam as it is to create an engaging story about people in love eager to learn about sex with each other. I asked J-List’s awesome customers what their first hentai anime was, and here are some of the responses we got!
What Was Your First Hentai Anime? J-List Customers Reply!
One special anime that called a lot of fans into the hentai genre was La☆Blue Girl, an anime based on a manga by Urotsukidoji creator Toshio Maeda. J-List carried this on VHS back in the day.
Supernatural Beastwars Battlefront Adventure Kid was another influential anime about a boy who finds an old computer from WWII. When activated, the computer whisks him and his female friend to hell where they have all kinds of sexy time-traveling adventures.
A legendary hentai anime based on a game by Happoubi Jin.
A fun 1995 hentai OAV series from the golden age of VHS, this is a Pink Pineapple classic about four adventurers who go on a quest…and have lots of sex, naturally.
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Perhaps famous as “that crazy hentai that used a fish to represent sex,” Ogenki Clinic had three OAVs in the early 1990s.
Of course, it’s hard to get more classic than Bible Black, created by one of our favorite artists, Sei Shoujo, whose works we love to stock on the site. I don’t believe it was possible to get through the early 2000s without watching this anime or discovering the visual novel.
Another epic hentai game by Sei Shoujo was Starless, the story of a boy who gets the perfect job: to live in a mansion and service a family of perverted women sexually for a two-week period. While the Starless anime is great, we naturally feel the original game, which we publish, is significantly more fun to play. Find it on the site here.
(If you happen to be an aficionado of rock music from the early 70s and thought, “Isn’t there a song called Starless and Bible Black?” the answer is yes. The artist liked to listen to the music of King Crimson while drawing hentai, and took his titles from the song, which is on YouTube here.)
Discipline is another legendary hentai game and anime also by Sei Shoujo that many J-List customers encountered as early fans.
One 18+ anime that gave us all fetishes for sexy nurses wearing lingerie was Night Shift Nurses, from 2004.
One thing I’ve observed is that, in every era, there’s always one hentai anime that’s so famous, basically everyone has watched it, even the casual fans we encounter at shows like the San Diego Comic-con. In days past that throne was held by Urotsukidoji, and later, Bible Black. Then Oni Chichi, an anime that’s great fun to watch on Father’s Day, came along…
The late 80s and 90s was a very special time for anime. You could have a hugely experimental show with lots of action and violence, then slip in a hardcore sex scene, because why not? Kite was released in three versions: a censored U.S. release, a Director’s Cut that has 15 minutes of new footage, plus the original Japanese version, with its great sex scenes, kept intact.
Another genius series by Kite creator Yasuomi Umetsu, Mezzo Forte has a bang-up story and lots of gorgeous action to enjoy, in addition to all the sexy fun.
One thing I love about Japan is that there’s never any drama about what creators have made hentai in the past. In addition to making these great works, Umetsu-san has worked on such titles as Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Madoka Magica and Kizumonogatari.
We can’t talk about first hentai experiences with going over Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend, the Toshio Maeda-created anime that’s single-handedly responsible for the nation of Japan being associated with “naughty hentai tentacles” around the world today. Which is funny, because the average Japanese has no idea their country is associated with this aspect of anime at all.
You never forget your first hentai, and my first was the OG Cream Lemon, which we’d watch in secret at anime conventions in someone’s hotel room on a 6th generation VHS copy. Cream Lemon is a collection of different stories by various creators, all exploring various aspects of sex, whether it’s girls discovering the joy of yuri in Escalation — which our eroge Yukkuri Panic: Escalation is a direct homage — or a story about two lesbians in a mecha battle, or just about anything else you can imagine. Famously, the Project A-Ko! anime story was developed to be an episode of Cream Lemon, until the creators realized their idea was too good to waste on an adult anime.
Again, some really amazing staff worked on this important early hentai work, including Evangelion creator Hideki Anno back while he was in university, major anime director and storyboarder Hiroyuki Kitakubo, Ah! Megami-sama director Takeshi Honda, Dirty Pair and Gundam key animator Tsukasa Dokite, and more. No one cares if a famous creator has made hentai in the past, which is exactly as it should be.
What’s My Favorite Hentai Anime? It’s Complicated.
People laugh when they hear that I, founder of J-List and JAST USA, have only watched a smattering of animated hentai anime shows. The reason is that I don’t really like the quality of animation of most hentai productions you find from most of Japan’s hentai anime companies these days. Compare the color palette of traditionally animated hentai, as in the three-episode Sweet Home hentai OAV series, above…
…with the incredible softness and detail illustrator, Taichi Kiriyama was able to create with his “event” CGs (what sex scenes are called in the industry) from the visual novel, which JAST USA publishes. Coupled with the length and variety of sex scenes in the Sweet Home game (perhaps 8-10 per heroine’s route), with the overall length of the game (30-40 hours to clear), and add in the incredible quality of the girls’ voices in your ears through headphones while you experience each encounter from the point of view of the main character, and I greatly believe that a high-quality visual novel is superior to hentai anime. Do you agree or disagree with me?
Thanks for reading this post asking what your first hentai anime was. Do you believe hentai anime is the best, or are visual novels more fun to experience? What was your introduction to the hentai genre? Post your thoughts below, or on Twitter!
Our sister company J18 Publishing has a surprise for you: a new hentai doujinshi exploring the sexual allure of JK uniforms and more. Best of all, the book is in stock right now and ready for you to order. Find the new artbook here!