On the censorship thing, are there different rules for video games? I have only ever seen one game (The Maid’s Story, which btw sucked) that was censored throughout. Do they just uncensor the English versions, or what?
Yes, I always wonder about that. Because the few I have are almost all of the rather sweet and romantic variety based on anime (i.e. one fan’s fantasy about Zelgadis and Amelia or whoever) and usually they have little to no censorship of this. Is it that doujinshi are not sold in the same way?
I don’t know if this rule has gone the way of all things or if it just applies to live action, but I have seen plenty of explicit, clearly drawn images of penises, fingers, tongues, tentacles and whatnot penetration vaginas. In fact, one of the more interesting features of hentai is “interior shots” where the penetrating whatnot is shown from a “cutaway” view moving around inside the vagina.
Some more hentai reviews –
Nine O’ Clock Woman – A young girl gets a great gig as a national news reporter for a TV network. She can hardly believe her luck, as all she has to do is be young and personable, read the news, and smile a lot. Well, you gotta give 'em points for realism here. Unfortunately, our reporter girl has a problem – she’s a compulsive masturbator, sneaking off to bathrooms and janitor’s closets to stir up her honeypot. One of her co-workers catches her at it, and with the amorality that’s typical of male hentai characters, her secretly videotapes her diddling herself and uses it to blackmail her into doing whatever he wants. There’s vanilla sex and bondage, but I think the whole point of the cartoon was the section where he forced her to wear a chastity belt with a built-in vibrator activated by remote control – while on the air. I think the fantasy was, “wouldn’t it be great to have one those vibrator/chastity belts locked on your favorite newsbabe, and a button on your remote control so you could crank up the vibrator whenever you liked and watch her sweat?” and also of course, “Wouldn’t it be sexy to BE the nine-o’clock woman and have someone remotely controlling a vibrator doohickey and have to fight off orgasms while reading the news before millions of people?” Frankly, it works for me – an intriguing plotline, good character development, and a fun sex fantasy or two.
Shusaku Replay/Isaku/Isaku: Respect – These cartoon series all have pretty much the same theme – a disgusting old janitor at a toney girls’ school gains control over the girls (In “Shusaku” by secretly videotaping them while going to the bathroom then using those tapes to blackmail them into becoming his sex slaves, in “Isaku” he just kidnaps his victims). Lots of forced sex, some bondage, lots of lesbianism, some enemas, peeing, etc. I didn’t like this one at all as Shusaku/Isaku never gets his comeuppance here, he’s kinda like Freddy Kreuger, he just keeps blackmailing and raping along. Then again, amoral male characters who succeed are not at all unusual in hentai. Also, not much plot and precious little character development in any of these – Isaku’s evil, the gals start out virginal and innocent, and end up slutty but real guilty about it.
Bondage Queen Kate – The movie opens with a shot of a woman in thigh-length boots and a sex harness hiking in the desert, and collapsing in the sand. She’s bondage queen Kate, alrighty. Kate is a space cadet – literally – whose first assignment consists of busting up a white slavery ring operating on a desert planet which is a lot like Dune – but is not Dune, even though it has sandworms. Kate’s role is to act as bait for the white slavers, and she does a pretty durned good job of it, and is kidnapped by the slavers in very short order. She’s tied up and raped by her kidnapper and his brother, so naturally she falls for her kidnapper big time – I mean, how can a girl resist such charm? The story has a lot of plot and character development, and probably should have run for more than two episodes. It’s actually a fun watch, just don’t take the ‘romance’ too seriously as the creators clearly did not.
That would have been the famous woodcut by Hokusai, c. 1820. That was the first image that came to mind when samarm brought up the tentacle stuff.
I’m at work right now, and googling for this image brings up a lot of sites that may not be work-safe to open. This site includes a fairly discreet image of it on their homepage.
Major importers of h-anime/manga/games material into the NA market that have the budget to do decent translations will seek out a “clean” uncensored version – or in some cases even commission the original creator to redo the frames/panels to their, um,’“full glory” (of course, all the while making sure the translation portrays everyone as “over 18 and in college”, no matter how obviously preposterous). But, historicaly the material was just as likely to be created censored right on the master cels/page galleys. In the case of the mentioned game, this may be still happening – but it’s more likely that the importer just got a cheap deal.
Evil Captor, you have too much time on your hands 
Evil Captor, some of my favorite Hentai:
Spaceship: Agga Reuter Done by the same people who brought us Tenchi Muyo! its one of the funniest hentais I’ve ever seen. Tons of gag humor, the star wars jokes are the best. Among the plot, the female characters are all playing this dating sim game at one point or another. The funny thing is, the character in the sim looks strikingly similar to Han Solo! Also the cartridge cover art of the game (which you see for a split second) looks more or less identical to the original Star Wars poster. The series is about a guy who helps various women overcome their own sexual hangups. I liked it because most of the sex seemed a little more consentual/enjoyable. And it was a very lighthearted series which didn’t try to take itself too seriously.
Kekko Kamen I must say I definitely am a fan of Go Nagai, and this is one of my favorite of his works. I don’t know if you’d classify Kekko Kamen as a hentai- the series is about a crime fighter who fights in the NUDE (well except for a mask, gloves and boots) and has a finishing move where she leaps in the air, spreads her legs, and sends mysterious blinding white light shooting out of her vagina, which dazzles and stuns her adversary, allowing her to jump on his shoulders (with her crotch in their face) which apparently paralyzes them with ectasy 
One funny thing about Kekko Kamen’s move is it shows a shot of her spread eagled doing this move while facing the camera, but her crotch is edited out with ASTRO BOY’s face and and the word ‘censored!’ below it.
Actually, JRD, I am writing all these reviews in a word processor and they’ll show up on my website sooner or later … probably sooner … so I’m getting dual use here.
I believe Italian artist Milo Manara(sp?) had something similar in his graphic novel, Click! Basic plot: uppity young woman is fitted with a neural device that makes her horny when a dial on a remote control is turned. The device is stolen by a mysterious someone, who then delights in following the woman wherever she goes and giving her spontaneous horniness at inconvenient times. The art is not really explicit, but the art is gorgeous, and some of the situations are a bit extreme (at one point, the girl turns to a dog for relief).
Sounds like you’d find it enjoyable. 
And of course there’s the fact that insertable vibrating eggs powered by remote control are available for sale on the Internet and are presumably being bought and used already by some people. I won’t say “many” because I don’t know how many, but I suspect its a popular fantasy for d/s fans.
:eek:
And of course there’s the fact that insertable vibrating eggs powered by remote control are available for sale on the Internet and are presumably being bought and used already by some people. I won’t say “many” because I don’t know how many, but I suspect its a popular fantasy for d/s fans.
:eek:
Thanks for pointing that out. My wife is a big Tenchi Muyo fan, she got the “Masquerade” hentai because they were done by the Tenchi Muyo people, I imagine she’ll be intrigued by Agga Reuter for the same reason.
Kekko Kamen – I must say I definitely am a fan of Go Nagai, and this is one of my favorite of his works. I don’t know if you’d classify Kekko Kamen as a hentai- the series is about a crime fighter who fights in the NUDE (well except for a mask, gloves and boots) and has a finishing move where she leaps in the air, spreads her legs, and sends mysterious blinding white light shooting out of her vagina …
I think in the US it would definitely be classified as hentai. Japan doesn’t seem to operate along the same rigid lines of classification that we do. That’s one of the reason I like hentai – there’s no telling what you’ll find in them. And in fact the hentai that are most like American porn, with plots that are just excuses for repeated sex scenes (like Shusaka/Isaku) are the ones I tend to like least.
That said, I don’t think I’d find Kekko all that titillating just because its lead fights in the nude. It sounds like it’s more of an anime than a hentai in spirit.
One thing I haven’t understood since coming to Japan is why a lot of the non-hentai, regular manga derived female anime characters are shown in hentai-type situations for brief scenes or in related merchandise. For instance I’ve seen a lot of films where the main female character is shown nude or having sex briefly, sometimes with normal males, sometimes with monsters or demons, yet this doesn’t fit into the plot at all. Or, I’ve seen merchandise (dolls, figurines, pictures, etc) depicting characters from certain series who are not usually in sexual situations, suddenly big breasted, nude, clutching at themselves, and whatever else you can imagine. And many of these films and tv series seem to be aimed at younger audiences! Is this just a way to get more adult attention, or is it like what we generally have in the US where they throw the obligatory sex scene into every movie even when it doesn’t work with the plot?
This reminds me…I must aquire and watch Blood: The Last Vampire. It’s not hentai whatsoever, but it takes place where I live!
Mysteries of the Necronomicon – This one has a very intricate, detailed plot that involves a ponytailed, sunglasses-wearing hero tracking down a mystery involving zombies and a remote hotel. It’s akin to an erotic thriller, except that in this instance the plot is the main thing in the story with the mostly vanilla sex scenes (XXX rated and explicit in some instances, but tending to be brief in duration) a side issue. Great animation, good character development, but graphic horror as well as graphic sex. Not for the weak of stomach, and it’s not all THAT Lovecraftian – no Elder Gods make any appearances – but it’s worth watching on its own terms.
Tragic Silence 1 – My taste does not generally run to vampire stories, erotic or otherwise, but this one is different enough that I liked it. In a remote mountain village, humans live in peace with a clan of vampires. The vampires take humans as their lovers, and drink their blood, but don’t do so to such an extent that they kil them or even harm them very much. But it’s an uneasy peace in many respects. The balance of peace between the vampire clan and the humans is upset when a human woman kills her vampire lover. It most powerfully expects a pair of young lovers, one of whom is a vampire, the other of whom is human. Sort of Romeo and Juliet with fangs. Lots of vanilla sex (but the plot is king), no kink (IIRC), pretty good animation. I’m looking forward to part 2.
Mei King – A young king must guide his kingdom through some harrowing times, as a bandit queen and an aggressive neighboring king threaten his kingdom. Meanwhile, his court is full of beautiful women who want sex and love. He does his damnedest for the beautiful women and his kingdom. Well, actually, he does a lot better by the beautiful women than by his kingdom, which gets pretty thoroughly ravaged by the bandit queen and the aggressive neighbor while he’s fucking just about his entire court. All ends happily though. There’s a ton of explicit sex, most of it vanilla, with one or two nonconsensual bondage scenes with explicit sex. There’s still a very involved plot, though it gets sloppy at times. A good solid hentai.
acrossthesea – ah, yes. Surely many of us have wondered about what the deal is with all the highly eroticized portrayals of someone who in the actual anime plot is a sickly catatonic.
In some cases it’s basically a way to milk the product for all it’s worth by appealing to everyone possible. So you will have merchandise with cute little adorable SD versions of Rei Ayanami in her fuku with PenPen, AND merchandise with hot, highly eroticised versions of a buxom Rei half out of her skintight plugsuit with a come-hither look, wearing her bandages as if they were lingerie – both put out under legit Studio Gainax license. Hey, it’s a tough economy…
Also, there SEEMS to be something of a tradition of leniency-in-copyright in Asia in general. This will result in a lot of material that is created in the same way as doujinshi – take-offs that are “tolerated” mostly because they legit owners don’t want to spend the time, money or trouble to fight them.
Within that environment, also, the rightful owners of the character may say: “hey, fanfic writers/artists are going to use these characters to make porn anyway – let’s make some legit money from exploiting them”. The anime companies don’t seem to be so uptight about “character integrity” as Disney or WB seem to be. Heck, the creators of the cute little children’s character “Hello Kitty” licensed a vibrator !
Besides, anime is known for what is called “fanservice”, essentially any gratuituous display of nudity/sex, fancy cars/weaponry, or in-jokes, for the sake of the fanboys. It’s traditional!
Agent Aika isn’t exactly what I would consider a ‘hentai’ anime, but it has the most fanservice that I have ever seen in an anime. There are tons of camera angles which are practically ‘upskirt’ shots, fight scenes where a woman will go flying and land in such a way that 3/4 of the screen is taken up by the woman’s rather suspiciously bulging crotch.
Interesting stuff guys… this makes fascinating reading.
Also, I couldn’t resist this:
BAND NAME!
(sorry!)
I am so completely buying this, today if possible. Thanks for the reccomend!
As I understand it, some copyright holders don’t just tolerate but encourage doujinshi, on the grounds that it builds the fan base for their product and tends to support it rather than undermine it. It’s kinda like the George Lucas approach to Star Wars fandom, actually promoting fan films based on Star Wars rather than attempting to suppress them, rather than behaving like the idiots who hold the Star Trek franchise.
I mean, they wonder why their ratings are slipping…
You’re welcome, let us know what you think of it.