Hentai



""I've seen enough hentai to know where this is going.""

- Memetic Mutation

""Like three weeks before med school started, I got way into shoplifting and watching anime pornography — I mean, I'm talking some weird-ass cartoons, man.""

- Elliot Reid, Scrubs, "Our Stuff Gets Real" (S09E09)

Hentai (hen = 'weird', tai = 'perspective/view') is the misinterpreted Japanese word for "pervert" or "perverted", and is used by the western world to describe sexually explicit Anime, Manga/Doujinshi, video games (aka Eroge), and other Japanese media of similar nature. Sometimes these can have actual plots, but much of the time they are as devoid of such a thing as most western pornography. Hentai material can focus on tender moments between high school students who are discovering passion together for the first time. It can be sweet, tender, and airbrushed, or it can be ghastly, gory, grotesque things that'd horrify a Castro Street leatherdaddy.

Material that is less explicit or intense is called "Ecchi" ("H", pronounced "eh-chee").

It should be noted that both of these usages are specifically western. In Japanese, "H" is a catch-all term for all things naughty. It can be used as a noun, adjective or verb as the situation requires. When used to refer to porn, there is no implication of the degree of lewdness.

"Hentai", on the other hand, is not a word that is ever used to refer to porn in Japan, although in manga and anime it is used as an insult ("pervert"). Japanese people tend to find it extremely hilarious or just plain confusing that English speakers refer to Anime porn as "hentai"; of course, using the letter of a foreign language to refer to it is pretty baffling too. In general Japanese usage, hentai means "strange", "perverse", "transformation", "mutation" or "metamorphosis" and can refer to things that are entirely nonsexual. Note that there are two words pronounced "hentai"; the other means "strange shape" or "deformed"

It should be noted that "perverted" in this case can mean as to either manner of preferred sexual conduct or the desire therefore -- a man who excessively desires sex with women (or a woman) can be told off as "hentai" as much as a man with moderate desire for men (post-Meiji). (Western mediæval and Renaissance morés were similar: sodomy was often seen as being the culmination or product of an undifferentiated and excessive weakness toward the sin of Lust; old reprobates who were too slow to hire women were thought to hire boys.)

Definitely not to be confused with Sentai, though Rule 34 has made sure that there's some overlap between the two.

Hentai works can contain examples of the following tropes

 * All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles: A common assumption.
 * All Men Are Perverts
 * All Women Are Lustful
 * Always Female: A common but well justified assumption is that all victims of non-consensual sex are female.
 * Anatomically-Impossible Sex (H-manga often features the "sperm-flowing-into-the-womb" entry under this trope.)
 * Asshole Victim
 * The Bad Guy Wins: See Karma Houdini
 * Break The Cutie
 * Calling Your Orgasms
 * The Modest and Immodest Orgasms
 * Child By Rape
 * Cold-Blooded Torture
 * Date Rape
 * Depraved Bisexual: Women villains.
 * Dull Surprise
 * Everybody Has Lots Of Sex
 * Extra Parent Conception
 * Eyeless Face: The men in some works, for purposes of Audience Surrogate.
 * Fate Worse Than Death
 * Fan Service / Fan Disservice: YMMV
 * Genre Busting
 * Go-Go Enslavement
 * Good People Have Good Sex
 * Gorn
 * Gratuitous Rape
 * Green-Skinned Space Babe
 * I Have You Now, My Pretty
 * Intimate Psychotherapy
 * I Showed Her What A Real Man Is
 * Ironic Echo
 * It's Not Rape If You Enjoyed It
 * Just Here For Godzilla
 * Karma Houdini: This is very common in works that feature non-consensual sex scenes. Occasionally a thin justification is given to say that woman being raped somehow deserved it.
 * Laser-Guided Karma
 * Lolicon
 * Looks Like She Is Enjoying It
 * Love Potion
 * Love Redeems
 * Luminescent Blush: Essentially every female character during a sexual act.
 * Mind Rape
 * Murderers Are Rapists
 * Naughty Tentacles
 * Off-Model: Hentai as a whole doesn't have the best reputation for care put into animating it.
 * Polyamory
 * Positive Discrimination: Most men are portrayed as depraved. On the other hand the story has a way of portraying them in the sympathetic role often as a Anti-Villain or even Anti-Hero.
 * The Pornomancer
 * Rape And Revenge
 * Rape As Comedy
 * Rape Is A Special Kind Of Evil: Inverted.
 * Rape Is Okay When Its Female On Female: Although as far as examples of that trope go, hentai does tend more often to explore at least the physical consequences of such rape, like pregnancy, STD, etc... In the former case Futanari will be involved.
 * Rape Is Okay When Its Female On Male: As above, though it's usually Played For Laughs more than usual.
 * Refuge In Audacity
 * Revenge
 * Romantic Comedy
 * Rule 34
 * Screw You Elves: If the main character is a human, and there is at least one elf around, this will happen...in both ways.
 * Serial Romeo
 * Sadist Show
 * Sex Is Good
 * Sex Is Interesting
 * Sex Slave
 * Sexual Extortion
 * Villain Protagonist
 * Villain Sue
 * Your Cheating Heart: Usually brought upon by Blackmail.
 * Netorare: A subgenre that is meant to arouse sexual jealousy by playing on this trope.

Works

 * After School Sex Slave Club is exactly what it says.
 * Alien From The Darkness is Naughty Tentacles IN SPACE!
 * Aneki My Sweet Elder Sister - which, despite the title, only contains two stories with Brother-Sister Incest. It's more about younger men and older (read: big-sister type) women.
 * Angel Blade, which starts out with an ongoing developing plot of surprising depth (though that's not saying much), then more or less abandons it with Angel Blade Punish!. Halfway between pastiche and Shout-Out to Magical Girl shows, particularly Sailor Moon.
 * Angraecum, which is about two otherworldly girls in Nazi-esque uniforms crashing into a normal japanese boy's room to escape their totalitarian world. Coitus Ensues.
 * Another Lady Innocent, also known as Front Innocent: A hentai OVA directed by Satoshi Urushihara alleging to take place in Civil War Era American South where busty maids who give blowjobs and freely engage in sex involving other women is the norm. A second OVA was hinted at in the credits, but has never come to fruition.
 * Beat Angel Escalayer combines a Magical Girl, Intimate Healing, and Bigger Is Better In Bed... on a chick.
 * Beat Blades Haruka is somewhat related as sequel of sorts, with ninjas.
 * Bible Black. What the later series may lack in plot, it makes up for by using copious amounts of perversion.
 * Black Dog: Mangaka known for his Sailor Moon doujins.
 * Black Gate. Bible Black clone.
 * BLUE Series
 * Triangle Blue
 * Body Transfer. People switch bodies. They play with themselves, then later each other.
 * Boku No Pico, and its sequels, Pico to Chico and Pico x Chico x Coco, a Shotacon OVA. On 4chan /a/, requests for "anime recommendations" are met with a flurry of Boku No Pico recommendations.
 * Bondage Fairies. Two forest-police fairies in a lesbian relationship frequently wind up having sex with small animals and insects.
 * Bondage Queen Kate
 * Boys Empire, a nine-issue Shotacon hentai manga by Juan Gotoh.
 * Bride Of Darkness
 * Campus (anime)
 * The Cherry Boys: A Shotacon collection by Rio Yanagawa. Also A Good Name For A Rock Band.
 * Co-ed Affairs
 * Cool Devices
 * Cream Lemon is a long-running collection of a variety of different stories, all with their female characters having sex at some point; it's also the Trope Namer for Lemon fanfics.
 * Project Ako was originally intended to be a part of this series.
 * Dark Love, known in Japan as Kuro Ai. While it has a (albeit confusing) plot involving a guy who turns into a tentacle monster and tries to kill a Really Seven Hundred Years Old loli before they eventually fall in love with each other, it is mostly notable in its squickiness and utter depravity.
 * Darling: Manga writer marries model, gets commissioned to do an entire manga in one month or bad things happen to the woman who requested it. Costumes are bought, apprentices are recruited, bizarre things are thought of, the best powerup ever (at least in Hentai) is used many times, and Hilarity Ensues. A shining example of the increasingly uncommon lighthearted "romantic" subgenre of hentai anime.
 * Dawn Of The Silver Dragon: Porn With Plot, featuring lots of Naughty Tentacles.
 * Discipline: The Record Of A Crusade is an adaptation of an H-game that focuses on a School For Scheming. The rather fragmented (yet surprisingly coherent) plot involves a guy with certain special abilities going to a previously all-girls school where he and his female roommates decide to put an end to the tyrannical influence of the headmistress' spoiled sister. In the process they expose the illegal luxury brothel the headmistress is running using girls recruited from the school. It quickly goes from school life to spy flick.
 * Dinaranger: Zentai Hentai. Essentially Super Sentai / Power Rangers with every fetish fuel aspect turned up to the maximum. It focuses on a battle between the titular Dinarangers and the Zofa, your standard alien aggressors who want to take over the world using a technique involving intense sexual stimulation to turn humans to their side, and their first targets are the Dinarangers themselves... porn with plot (and fight scenes!) it's definitely an interesting example of its genre.
 * Dorei Ichiba aka Slave Market.
 * Dragon Pink
 * Dragon Rider
 * EL is an After The End sci-fi OVA series. It doesn't let that get in the way of a ton of sex scenes, however.
 * Elf Hime Nina
 * The Elven Bride
 * The End Of Summer. A prime example of Plot With Porn in the realm of Hentai.
 * The original Fate Stay Night. People get surprised at this. A lot. Though to be fair, the H-scenes are only a minor aspect of the game. The only main exception is Heaven's Feel when H-scenes DO play a pivotal role in the storyline. Doesn't stop people from thinking it's all-out hentai, though.
 * Fate Hollow Ataraxia is the fandisc sequel to Fate Stay Night.
 * Fencer Of Minerva
 *  Gibo(Stepmother's Sin)
 * The Guts! (Women At Work)
 * Guy Double Target
 * A Heat For All Seasons
 * Heisa Byoutou (Sex Ward)
 * Himekishi Lilia
 * Honey Blonde
 * I Dream Of Mimi (aka Buttobi CPU), which features a Robot Girl computer who upgrades her hardware by using protein from her master.
 * Ikusa Otome Valkyrie is another H-game based hentai series, with a perverted take on Norse mythology.
 * Imma Youjo may be perceived as either Deconstruction of hentai staples or simply Plot With Porn.
 * Itazura (AKA G-Spot Express): A group of nimble-fingered men introduce themselves to women on trains. It's based on a very real problem in Japan's public transit system.
 * Jiburiru. Intimate healing out the wazoo...or in the wazoo, as the case may be.
 * Kangoku Senkan... Or any official fan art made by Lilith-Soft/Black Nuye Kagami.
 * Kite
 * La Blue Girl
 * Lesson Of Darkness
 * The fan-made parody anime Lingerie Fighter Papillon Rose mixes Hentai and Sentai in equal proportions and pours the result liberally over a classic Magical Girl storyline.
 * Little Monica Monogatari is about a young man who returns after spending years studying abroad to rescue his hometown from the control of a mean ratty man and his thugs, the theater reduced into a strip-show house. All while enjoying amorous relationships with his childhood friend, her two sisters, and a stripper with a Catgirl theme and the ability to communicate with cats, aptly named Miss Meow.
 * Living Sex Toy Delivery is about a man who is gang raped by six women who then try to kill him to keep him quiet, and follows his quest for revenge against each of his former attackers. This anime is interesting because of the Rape Tropes it both inverts and subverts, and when they are played straight the protagonist is surprised.
 * Living With Monster Girl, a short series about a group of men that have mythological creatures for girlfriends or wives.
 * Love Doll (AI Doll)
 * Magical Twilight, a three-part OVA about two young witches (one sweet and caring, the other manipulative and impulsive) who are students at a witches school, whose finals involve the witches getting into the good graces of a human male.
 * Mahou Shoujo Ai, marketed in the states as Sexy Magical Girl. It starts out as a standard hentai plot with Dark Magical Girl and Tsundere heroine Ai fighting some sort of cosmic horror, i.e., tentacle monsters. While the first two episodes could stand alone as a series, the third is a rather jarring Wham! Episode which introduces heavy amounts of torture and an uncomfortable amount of gore.
 * Mai Chans Daily Life, an infamously prime example of High Octane Nightmare Fuel-grade Fan Disservice; do NOT click on the link if you are easily traumatized. There are no images, but there is text describing what happens, but it's under spoiler tags, so if you just want to find out what it is but are shocked by text, make sure spoilers are hidden. That said, if you are shocked by the very idea of Guro, or if your mind automatically creates sensory details, you will really want to stay away. You Have Been Warned.
 * Maids In Dream, a two-episode OVA (third came never to frution) about a guy having had an accident and awaking at a mansion occupied only by 6 different maids. Intimate Healing ensues. Typical hentai plot with pretty graphics but lacks a conclusion.
 * Makunouchi Deluxe, detective/Yakuza story.
 * May Not Miss Pervert Fall In Love
 * Mezzo Forte from the creator of Kite, both of which are not so much hentai movies as movies with two hentai scenes each. They are often sold with these scenes cut out as Mezzo's aren't related to the plot at all (one's a dream, the other is made crystal clear by dialogue) and Kite's are mostly to define the depravity of the bad guys.
 * Midaremau - The description alone sounds awesome:
 * In a secret tournament held at a school campus, one girl seeks vengeance for her sister by defeating the one who put that person on the shelf.
 * Mistreated Bride (Nikuyome ~Takayanagi Ke no Hitobito~)
 * Mofoku Tsuma
 * Moonlight Lady, a five-episode series with a rather intricate plot, which leaves most of its mysteries unexplored and has something of a Mind Screw ending.
 * Mystery Of The Necronomicon
 *  Natural (Teacher's Pet)
 * Night Shift Nurses, where the titular nurses are trained to be sex slaves. Explores virtually every fetish.
 * The Night When Evil Falls
 * Office Affairs (Me Chiku)
 * Ogenki Clinic. Dr. Ogenki and his nurse help a lot of people with their sexual hang-ups. Old school artwork and genuinely hilarious. The anime is notable for having Kikuko Inoue as the voice actress for the nurse.
 * Parade Parade
 * Petit Roid 3
 * The Pollinic Girls Attack
 * Pure Mail. Very short, but surprisingly plot-heavy.
 * The Rebis Dungeon (of the eponymous hentai doujin artist Rebis) collection of works is simply rife with futanari of almost any kind. Of note is that the artist is an avid WH40K fan, and his art takes place in his Warhammer RPG campaign, where his party are a group of Slaanesh worshipers, taken to the logical conclusion.
 * Rei Rei Missionary Of Love
 * Ring X Mama: Pro wrestling * porn.
 * Sailor Fuku to Strip: Sexiness ensues when a school girl inherits her Father's strip club.
 * Sex Warrior Pudding, which is English title of the the equally sensible Family Restaurant Warrior Pudding
 *  Shintaisou Kari (Princess 69)
 * Shintaiso [Shin] (Princess 69: Midnight Gymnastics) - Sequel
 * Shoujo Sect, which takes the basic premise of series like Strawberry Panic and Maria-sama Ga Miteru and runs with it. The manga also has exceptionally good artwork, even if you ignore the naughty bits.
 * Shoujo Senki Soul Eater (also called Ruin Arms Soul Eater) which is an H-game with an OVA released in late 2010
 * Slight Fever Syndrome
 * Slut Girl
 * Spaceship Agga Ruter
 * Spy Of Darkness is a continuation of the Darkness titled hentai series by Pink Pineapple (and released in English by Kitty Media), this time involving female spies attempting to track down a stolen rape-obsessed biological experiment.
 * Strange Kind Of Woman, a relatively recent anime based on a manga of the same name. For some reason, its title is often confused with the name of its creator, Hatsu Inu.
 * Taboo Charming Mother (aka Enbo) featuring parental incest with stepmom and aunt, and a surprisingly well-contrived plot for its genre.
 * From the same author comes Hana no Naku Ie. The first half is about a boy who's been sleeping with the mother of the boy who's been picking on him only to find out that boy is sleeping with his mother. The other half is the exploits a hentai writer and the girl who is his model (unknown to her). The second half is Lighter And Softer than the first.
 * Taimanin Asagi, or Anti-demon Ninja Asagi: A rather dark series, which is recognizable in that the animation style imitates the look of a shaky handheld camera, which tends to lose focus every ten seconds. Adapted from an H-Game, this one put out by the Lilith group.
 * Temptation, mostly known for Dan Green being the voice actor for the main character, a Doctor that is blackmailed into fucking young female students after giving into Temptation with one of them earlier. Also well known for the Narmtastic lines that he speaks, "Cluck Like A Chicken" being the most well known.
 * Tiny Boobs Giant Tits History is a one shot about a big sister as the main character suddenly growing breasts. Yes, there's Brother-Sister Incest in it.
 * Tokio Kidou Police (Tokyo Private Police)
 * Tonari No Oneesan (Girl Next Door)
 * Tsukihime: Like Fate Stay Night above, this one is VERY PLOT HEAVY and the H-scenes are a minor aspect.
 * Twin Dolls and Twin Angels: Twins Ai and Mai are priestesses who have to stop sex demons. They don't do a very good job.
 * Uchuu Kaizoku Sara is a sci-fi hentai with some mild fantasy elements with a woman called Sara Scorpion as the protagonist who is basically a space pirate. The story centers around her attempt to get a magical Laser Blade, but she gets captured, and Lampshaded Double Entendre ensues. Notable for having the only other futanari on futanari scene in any animated hentai thus far aside from Bible Black.
 * Under Grand Hotel: A yaoi manga about graphic prison rape.
 * Urotsukidouji (Legend Of The Overfiend): The work that kicked off the Naughty Tentacles genre of hentai.
 * Vanilla Series: A series of hentai based on H-Games.
 * Virgin Night, sometimes translated First Night, a collection of quite sweet stories about young people dealing with their emerging sexuality. One of the go to titles when you want someone to understand Japanese smut isn't all Tentacle Rape.
 * Viper GTS. Actually has a good plot. Used as an example in this Wiki under Noble Demons. The Horny Devils...
 * Viva Freedom. Young girl has sex with real life world leaders for world peace mixed with semi-educational stuff like how Valentine's Day came to be or who invented the airplane. The Foreign Fanservice pic if from this doujin.
 * Words Worth, a very lovingly drawn hentai based on a RPG campaign in five parts.
 * Yamatogawa is a relatively new mangaka who has done a number of one-shot and short series featuring lots of ridiculously explicit sex. What prevents him from being considered just smut is that he creates well-written, very good stories to go along with, most of which are downright hilarious, and he is an exceptionally good artist.