Ask John: Why is Hentai So Addictive?

Question:
Hentai is my life. Why is it so addictive? I saw Legend of the Overfiend and that set me off. I’m obsessed with it! Why is this so!

Answer:
For an open-minded individual, it’s no doubt that hentai can be addictive. It appeals to all of our most vital and primal desires and instincts. Humans are obsessed with sex. Regardless of how much certain religions try to suppress natural sexual desires, humans instinctively desire physical relations and the act of procreation. But humans also desire stimulation- feelings of love, empowerment, excitement, and sometimes even fear. Adult anime and manga address those natural human desires. In fact, hentai is a product of a society that largely does not try to suppress natural human sexual instincts, and artists that simply express their natural feelings and desires in the form of comics and animation.

Manga is essentially an unrestrained artistic medium. Whatever an artist can imagine can appear in manga. That’s why manga cover subjects ranging from politics to the most horrible acts of brutality and cruelty imaginable. Adult manga is fantasy, and the unlimited potential of manga allows creators and artists to indulge their natural instincts in a safe, non-harmful way. Rather than suppressing instinctual feelings of sexuality and violence, manga allows for a cathartic, vicarious release. Yet manga is limited by being a print medium. Anime brings sound and motion to the table.

Adult anime is likewise appealing because it indulges our utmost fantasies. Unlike reality, girls in anime are always young, attractive and fertile. Men are always handsome and powerful. Unlike real life sex that may be tainted by uncertainty or hesitation, there’s no bad sex in anime. Emotions are always at their most pure and unfettered in anime. In fact, feelings can have more impact in anime than they can in real life. The infamous “demon tentacles” of adult anime were created as a way to work around traditional Japanese censorship laws regarding the depiction of genitalia. However, the demon tentacles also serve another purpose. A lover’s goal is to satisfy both himself and his lover. The demon tentacles of anime can satisfy that urge in a way impossible in reality. The multiple monstrous appendages coming from a single man can completely engulf a woman, make the woman feel ultimate, overwhelming sensation impossible for any single man in real life. Likewise, a female viewer can watch hentai anime and imagine herself totally absorbed by her lover, pleasured in every way possible all at once by her lover. Adult anime thus satisfies subliminal cravings that are impossible to address in real life. Certainly, regardless of how compelling it may be, vicarious sexuality on screen or in print can never substitute for the reality of physical human contact, but it can be a highly entertaining diversion.

Japanese audiences recognize the value of adult manga and entertainment, which is why there are dozens of new hentai manga and anime released in Japan each month, and why adult anime in Japan is not criticized or abhorred the way it is in America. Of course, all things should be consumed in relative moderation, but for someone that understands the purpose and limitations of hentai anime and manga, hentai can be a very satisfying and enjoyable form of entertainment.