As anyone who knows me can attest, I am an otaku — a rabid fan of Japanese animation. Japanese animators have developed a range of animated classics, from kids’ stuff like “My Neighbor Totoro” to poignant war dramas like “Grave of the Fireflies” to slick sci-fi works in the vein of “Ghost in the Shell.”
However, I’m not going to be talking about any of these bona fide treasures. Instead, this article is about anime’s slightly saucier side, hentai (literally, “sexually perverted”) anime. Where a film by Oshii Mamoru or Miyazaki Hayao almost always shows up some of the best stuff Disney can offer, hentai is nothing more than low-grade whacking material.
I want to stress to all the zealous “fun police” reading (yes, both of you) that not all anime is hentai porn. Very little, in fact. We’re talking here about a niche market compared to the sales of mainstream anime. And, just to clear the air, I’m by no means a prude and enjoy a little “harmless visual stimulation” as much as most. I’ll admit it: I’ve watched some of the more talked-about titles, more or less to see what all the fuss was about.
The best way to describe the idea of hentai is to say this: Take the sickest fantasy you can, and then imagine it poorly animated and sold for $30. Just make sure your sickest fantasy includes demons. You’ll see why in a second.
Just looking at the boxes gives you a pretty good indication of the title’s contents. Take a look at the variety of hentai plots: “Angel of Darkness,” where college girls are violated by alien tentacles; “Adventure Kid,” where adventuring women are violated by computer tentacles; “La Blue Girl,” where a ninja girl is violated by demonic tentacles. And here’s an oldie but a baddie: “Urotsukidoji,” where everyone is violated by all kinds of tentacles. Yes, for some reason, makers of hentai in Japan are, for whatever reason, obsessed with tentacle violation. In other words, the variety and scope of stories that anime is famous for are nowhere to be found in hentai.
Further, if you’ve seen these shows, you’d know just how bad the production values are — starting with the animation. “Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro” these vids ain’t. A common animation term is “shot on twos,” meaning that in a typical 24-frame per second shot, most cels are held under the camera for two frames. This is common for TV animation, which can’t afford the expense of 24-fps motion.
Then, we have hentai. Most hentai shows I’ve seen look to have been shot on sixes or eights, not surprising given the low budgets and a stubborn insistence that there is only motion when the characters do the nasty or when the staff miraculously remembers that, yes, they are
indeed making an animated feature.
And speaking of the staff, nowhere else is there as much shame in the work that they do. Perhaps rightfully so, seeing just how low-rent these works are. Voice actors in Japan have successfully lobbied to have their vocal tracks suppressed on a number of older hentai titles, after the actors went into more mainstream (read: good) work. As an aside, it’s too bad that suppressing “Party at Kitty and Stud’s” wouldn’t help Sylvester Stallone’s flagging career.