Hentai Anime can be seen as much more than just pornography. The Japanese Culture and historical relation and perspective towards sex were influential into the development of Hentai. In other words, even when you can see plenty of sexual depictions today, one can see reflections of the idiosyncrasies of Japanese people. And how the Japanese have included sexuality in literary and graphic works even under Samurai rule. The Hentai anime shows some characteristics that have been influential for even Western sexual industry.
Origins of Hentai Anime and Manga
Shunga is a subset of Ukiyo-e, a woodblock prints and paintings. Literally speaking it means “picture of spring”. Spring being commonly an euphemism of love and sex initiation. And even the most popular of the Ukiyo-e artists have produced Shunga at some point. In the Muromachi era (The same period in when Mononoke Hime transcurred as well), Chinese medicine manuals were influential in the development of Shunga. In those manuals genitalia was usually displayed in an oversized manner.
In existence since the Heian period, shunga was offered to newly wedded women as a way to become familiarized with the male body prior to the first night. One Shunga is by far the most popular. And well known by today’s Japanese public. The octopus and the pearl diver.
The Octopus and The Pearl Diver
The most famous Ukiyo-e artist of all times created the Shunga known in the West commonly as The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife. Katsushika Hokusai published his three volume book of erotic shunga back in 1814. Kinoe no Yomatsu. Out of the works included in the original work, The Octopus and the Pearl Diver (pearl divers were traditionally women in Japan) became the most influential particularly in the Hentai works of the 20th century.
The popular image depicts a woman making love with two octopuses. The text accompanying the woodblock printed image describes the sexual pleasure between the woman and the octopuses. The scholar Danielle Talerico has noted how early Western critics have misinterpreted the work. Seeing it not as mutual pleasure. Probably because of the lack of proper translation. A survey in Japan has resulted in most Japanese seeing the image as a love scene between the woman and the octopuses.
Urotsukidoji by Maeda Toshio
Urotsukidoji is the most famous Hentai anime in the Tentacle genre. It is a pioneer work for Hentai Anime as a whole. Being popular in the West even as soon as the 80’s and getting a cult following during the last decade of the past century. But Maeda created his first Tentacle work back in 1976. SEX Tearing is a short story published six years prior to Urotsukidoji as an experimental work. It is the first Tentacle erotic manga and a first step towards Urotsukidoji and others of his own works like La Blue Girl.
Portraying of genitals in manga and anime has been illegal in Japan since 1907. Maeda Toshio has mentioned that since such depiction was illegal in the anime industry ”manga artists would use any trick to avoid the censorship. Clearly a tentacle is not genitalia”.
It is still today a genre of its own inside the Hentai Anime industry. But Maeda Toshio has embraced his role in the development of the movement. “I would like Tentacle Master inscribed in my tombstone”. The author opened his own website back in 2010. Offering a subscription plan in order to read his works. The subscription plan is not available anymore. But still you can check its galley and personal blog. “They call me Tentacle Master”. And he continued, writing in English by himself “I have been thinking nothing but tentacles… so my brain started to feel sick and tired. I got infected by a tentacle virus and escaped from my skull”. I cannot stop thinking this is the way he feels now after his 2001 biker accident that left him with limited ability in his drawing hand.