Hentai is the word Americans use when speaking of sexually explicit adult animation from Japan. And while hentai is a Japanese word, it isn’t the word the Japanese use for this adult movie genre. Hentai comes in so many forms, and it’s wide-spread appeal has to be attributed to the fact that in hentai adult movies, ANYTHING can happen! There are many genres of hentai, some are your run-of-the-mill straight variety, others are more sci-fi and include vampires, monsters, and demons. A well-known sub genre is commonly referred to as “tentacles” and, yup, you guessed it — it features tentacles invading every orifice on a girl’s body (think The Evil Dead, without the bark ;). The girls are always ridiculously busty, their bodies curvaceous and perfect, and the fluids are ALWAYS flowing in abundance.
Often in hentai, the girls are depicted as innocent, as not wanting sex but acquiescing to it. And while there are plenty of hentai that intend on depicting rape, most of the time the girl’s “reluctance” has a whole hell of a lot to do with Japanese culture. Women are supposed to be shy, are supposed to resist, maintain their purity, and the large appeal of these adult movies (especially within Japanese male culture) is seeing these women try to resist the men but eventually break down and enjoy the pleasures of sex.
There are many, many sub genres to hentai, such as tentacles, lolicon (short for “lolita complex”, which depicts girls between the ages of 12 and 16), shotacon (same as lolicon, only with boys, often in homosexual situations), yaoi (gay), yuri (lesbian), samurai, bondage… there’s such a huge variety! For a country that can be very restrained about sexual matters, they sure know how to create animated adult movies!