Ask John: Is Hentai More Then Porn?

Question:
What is the Japanese take on hentai? Is it looked at as nothing more then pornography? The average hentai has a lot more work put into it then the average adult film.

Answer:
I’m really not very familiar with the live action pornographic film industry, so I’ll try to be as objective and fair as I can be when comparing it to erotic anime. Since I don’t know how much work goes into the creation of an average pornographic film, I can’t say that anime shows more effort than live action pornography. But I do have the impression that adult anime generally exhibits more artistic creativity than live action pornography. I have little doubt that there are live action pornographic films that are designed to be creative and entertaining movies that happen to include graphic sex. I know that there are anime such as Cool Devices OAV 3 that are just sex scenes with no context or story. So there are probably exceptions on both sides, but unlike most live action pornography, I do think that erotic anime does strive to be more than just sex scenes connected by dialogue.

My understanding is that erotic anime is not particularly mainstream or well known in Japan. It’s possible that average Japanese citizens, and even many Japanese anime fans don’t think about the artistic credibility of hentai anime because they don’t think much about adult anime at all. Within the anime industry, and within the genre of erotic anime itself, I think that there are examples which lend some credibility to erotic anime. Respected artists and directors including Satoshi Urushihara and Masami Obari have produced high quality erotic anime. Adult anime titles including Bible Black, Shintaiso Kari, Beat Angel Escalayer, Front Innocent, and Viper GTS exhibit artistic design and animation quality that’s far superior to many mainstream anime productions. Productions like Urotsukidoji, La Blue Girl, and Kite are compelling, entertaining, and respectable anime stories even without their graphic sexuality. And many titles including Gibo (“Stepmother’s Sin”), Gekka Bijin (“Maison Plaisir”), Jyousama wa M Dorei (“Queen & Slave”), and Shusaku investigate the psychology of sexuality and sexual obsession.

I’m not trying to suggest that the erotic anime genre is high art worthy of great respect; however, there are too many erotic anime that feature legitimate story and character development, and technical artistic excellence to justify dismissing the entire field. I assume that there are existing live action erotic movies that can accurately be defined as legitimate cinematic narratives that happen to include or focus on graphic sex and sexuality, but I assume that they’re a minority. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of erotic anime do seem to have legitimate story and character development, and work as stories about sex, or filled with sex, and not just as stories that exist solely to provide context for sex. If live action pornography may be characterized as “just” porn, than I do believe that erotic anime can be said to have slightly more redeeming value than pure disposable and empty pornography. At the very least, considering that hentai anime is hand drawn animation dealing with sexuality, hentai anime qualifies as literal erotic art.