Virgin Night

An often praised erotic comic and the anime adaptation of its first chapter. The book, by mangaka Tanaka Yutaka -- known for his Slice of Life stories -- deals with several young people dealing with the emotions caused by their emerging sexuality. The book and anime alike are both held up as examples of both Hentai beyond Porn with Plot that doesn't lose sight of either the porn or the plot.

The title of the book, its first story, and the Anime, are sometimes translated as "First Night"

The book contains the following stories:


 * The title story, in which Yuzuru finds himself alternately eager to and fearful of taking his girlfriend Azumi's virginity;
 * Nadeshiko Innocence tells the tale of a man putting up a false front and the iron willed woman he's attached to;
 * A boy and his classically Tsundere childhood friend meet up on Christmas Eve and connect.
 * The First Goodbye is a bittersweet take on a Hot for Teacher scenario.
 * Spring Lift has a Ronin studying for exams being visited by his girlfriend, who's still in high school, while she's on Spring break.
 * Doubt illustrates the very real risk Communication Breakdown can run for a relationship.
 * The Second Time illustrates how having your first time with someone you care for only adds complexity to things-- and that this can be fun in itself.
 * Festival Song is a wonderful take on Childhood Friends getting a Relationship Upgrade.
 * Shall We? gives the old chestnut of two bored teens indulging in sex and gives it quite a bit of emotional weight.

Fansubs / translations of book and anime alike pop up irregularly on download and torrent sites.

There is actually a second volume of Virgin Night, but sadly it's even harder to find translated at this time:


 * Summer Story
 * Love Bubble
 * Let's Live Together, which actually has been translated (might take a bit of doing to find). A young couple get...distracted...while setting up their new apartment.
 * Our Sunday
 * Happy Date
 * Beautiful Onee-san
 * Watermelon Woman

"Asami: You love me in gym shorts, don't you?[...] I noticed when you would stare at me from the window."
 * Acceptable Breaks From Reality: While emotionally realistic, the art does tend to...exaggerate certain sexual responses for effect.
 * Spring Lift: Very few men, no matter how long they've gone without performing, could call on that many repeat performances. But you go with it, because in context, it's like all his sex scenes--awesome and emotionally real.
 * All Men Are Perverts / All Women Are Lustful / All Women Are Prudes: Actually rather actively averted. In fact, what gives the stories half their charm is the emotional depth beyond lust. And, point of fact, that the lust is part of the emotional depth.
 * Doubt makes a very strong case that assuming a woman must either be lustful or a prude is going to cause... problems in the relationship.
 * The Second Time sees Akira worrying his lady Satomi will think of him as a pervert or turn prude if he asks to have sex again.
 * Am I Just a Toy to You?: A critical part of Doubt.
 * A Man Is Always Eager: Gets a hammer taken to it in First Night. Yuzuru alternates between thinking he should toss Azumi to the bed and take control...and wondering if someone like him is even worthy of making love to her.
 * See also the All Men Are Perverts aspect for The Second Time; Akira is consumed with dread that eagerness on his part might wreck the relationship...
 * Animated Adaptation: The Anime of the first chapter. Done with near perfect pragmatism. You can see it or read it first and neither suffers.
 * Bittersweet Ending: The First Goodbye has one of Yutaka's few straight uses of this. All the more striking for not resorting to melodrama, and the accompaniment of his haiku-like narration.
 * Book Ends: Festival Song starts and ends with Hiro seeing Ranko riding up on her bike and saying "good morning" to each other. The second time is just a little different.
 * Shall We? begins and ends with a shot of Ami from behind. They each convey a slightly different attitude.
 * Boy Meets Girl: Shall We? is the only major instance of this. Nadeshiko Innocence flashes back to this part in a couple of frames, and the rest deal with characters who already know each other to some degree.
 * Buxom Is Better: In First Night, Yuzuru is frank with Azumi about her ample breasts being among his favorite features.
 * Calling Your Orgasms: Averted, mostly. Tanaka trusts his art to carry the moment. It does.
 * Cannot Spit It Out: Eve is what comes of Tomoe finally working her way around this (in the original Japanese, her reference to gaining courage can be interpreted as either Yuutarou overcoming his usual tendency to hide behind Tomoe in the face of danger, or Tomoe being able to confess her feelings for him). Her teasing Yuutarou in the beginning about how unlikely it is that he'll find a girl to date on Christmas Eve (even though he's looking for someone not as tsuntsun as her, Tomoe doesn't see any girl as thinking much of his timidity) is almost certainly the furthest she can bring herself until she's inspired and fortified by Yuutarou's own display of courage (read: she's hoping no other girl will deprive her of him).
 * Casanova: Saki in The First Goodbye seems to be this; her arm's scarred because the wife of a man she had an affair with attacked her with a carving knife. And at story's close, . Cue the pall of bittersweet uncertainty about the whole thing solidifying...
 * Caught with Your Pants Down / A Date with Rosie Palms: A student being caught by his tutor with his down indulging in said date kicks off The First Goodbye.
 * Akira in The Second Time after he succeeds in his first time having sex with Satomi.
 * The Chikan: Yuutarou protects Tomoe from one in the beginning of Eve...only to find that in his haste, he accidentally put his own hand where the chikan's was (probably while pushing it away).
 * Double Entendre: One that moves in the opposite direction than usual (well, not sexual->innocent, but sexual->not-merely-sexual) in the second part of Doubt. After the communication barricades that caused the debacle in the first part have been Dealt With, and the affectionate sex has begun, Motoko comments "Kissing when we're both naked is so amazing...so wonderful." It's a pretty fair bet that she isn't just thinking of absence of cloth veils, but interpersonal veils as well.
 * Fetish: Applied. Asami knows darn well how she caught her sempai's eye in the first place, and in Spring Lift... she's not afraid to use it.
 * Fetish: Applied. Asami knows darn well how she caught her sempai's eye in the first place, and in Spring Lift... she's not afraid to use it.


 * Gag Boobs: Notable in its aversion. Even the one woman in the anthology noted for being buxom is in realistic proportions,
 * Good People Have Good Sex: In a sense, a key Aesop of the whole thing--emotional honesty, respecting and paying attention to you lover can lead to very good sex indeed. And not doing so can ruin the moment, or make the memory thereof go sour.
 * Love Bubbles: They're there on occasion, but they're usually not easy to see--they're typically very faint, and they don't obscure the background (e.g. Let's Live Together while Ryouko is dousing Junya). The only really noticeable usage is at the very end of Happy Date.
 * Love Hotels: One is the setting of Shall We?, and the others using them can perhaps be inferred when not obviously set in one of the couple's rooms, apartments, a field...
 * Mock Millionaire: Hiroki tries to pass himself off as a scion of a family of business bigwigs in Nadeshiko Innocence, because he's so utterly ashamed of the fact that he's nearly the polar opposite (it may be implied in the beginning that he's a Ronin, but he might also or instead be a Starving Artist in training, given all the sketches of Nanako), and can't bring himself to "afflict" Nanako with the truth. He is so very fortunate Nanako could tell that his love and concern for her weren't illusory.
 * Modesty Bedsheet: Nanako at the beginning of Nadeshiko Innocence, since she finds it a little embarrassing for Hiroki to see her naked when they aren't actually making love (someone talk to her about afterplay...).
 * Mood Whiplash: Surprisingly avoided, unlike so much of Tanaka's other works. At least until you reach the end of The First Goodbye.
 * Poor Communication Kills: In this case, relationships--a lack of honesty on the teacher's part in The First Goodbye lends the whole thing its bitter sweet tone and makes it a firmly realistic Deconstruction of the Hot for Teacher trope; Doubt shows how assumptions between two people, no matter how in love, can be very destructive.
 * Nadeshiko Innocence works with the threat of a different sort of Poor Communication--Hiroki's Mock Millionaire stint. Because he can carry the loans and pawnings only so far, and he's wound up devoting so much time and effort to maintaining the facade, he tries to end the relationship with an excuse of going to America. His illusion threatened the maintenance of a relationship with a woman he truly loved. Good thing the woman in question not only never cared about his alleged wealth, but also suspected the real reasons, yes? The last page also shows how, with the facade gone, his relationship with Nanako is actually much happier for it. Long story short: Setting an illusion for any reason (non-sexual included) only dampens the relationship; honesty in all things catalyses and fortifies it.
 * Porn with Plot: Very yes on both parts.
 * Rape Is Love: Sporked very firmly in Doubt, which contrasts a horrible, forced moment that leaves both partners feeling dirty and hurt, and what happens when they actually open up with each other.
 * Relationship Upgrade: Several, in one very key sense. Eve and Festival Song show friends becoming lovers.
 * Slice of Life: We're not exactly talking about something unusual for humanity. That doesn't dampen its magnitude for those involved in it, though.
 * Smoking Hot Sex: Saki in The First Goodbye, but not Kou. Also Hiroki at the beginning of Nadeshiko Innocence.
 * Starving Artist: What Hiroki apparently really is in Nadeshiko Innocense.
 * And if you look closely, a lot of his sketches are of Nanako.
 * Their First Time: The whole plot of Virgin Night and Shall We? Eve and Festival Song lead up to it.
 * The Second Time pointedly opens with this being dealt with quickly, so it can get to the meat of how the introduction of sex changes a relationship.
 * Titles Always Lie: Somewhat. The "Virgin" in the title suggests a certain fetish that frequently pops up in hentai fare. No fetishization here, though.
 * Two-Person Pool Party: Summer Story. The pool, in this case, is some sort of seashore cavern/cove/something.
 * Water Guns and Balloons: Improvised version in Let's Live Together. Ryouko calls out to Junya, telling him an emergency has cropped up in the bathroom. Junya quickly goes in--and gets drenched by the showerhead Ryouko's wielding like a water pistol.
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: Modern but strong take in Nadeshiko Innocence.