Hentai illustration typical for eroges

Hentai (変態 or へんたい^?)  listen (help·info) is a Japanese word that, in the West, is used when referring to sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly those of Japanese origin such as anime, manga, and eroge. The word hentai is a kanji compound of 変 (hen; "change", "weird", or "strange") and 態 (tai; "attitude" or "appearance"). The term is used as a shortened form of the phrase 変態性欲 (hentai seiyoku) meaning "sexual perversion".^[1] In Japanese slang, hentai is used as an insult meaning roughly "pervert" or "weirdo".

The English use of hentai is more similar to the way the Japanese use the slang term エッチ (H or ecchi), which refers to any sexually explicit content or behaviour. The Japanese seldom use the term hentai to refer to pornography in Japan. Instead, terms such as 18-kin (18禁^?, "18-prohibited"), meaning "prohibited to those not yet 18 years old", and seijin manga (成人漫画^?, "adult manga") are used.^[1] Less official terms also in use include ero anime (エロアニメ^?), ero manga (エロ漫画^?), and the English acronym AV (for "adult video").

History[link]

The earliest association between anime and adult animation occurred preceding the release of Fritz the Cat when American distributors attempted to cash in on the publicity garnered from the rating by rushing out dubbed versions of two other adult animations from Japan, both of which featured an X rating in their advertising material: Senya ichiya monogatari and Kureopatora, retitled One Thousand and One Arabian Nights and Cleopatra: Queen of Sex, respectively. However, neither film was actually submitted to the MPAA, and it is not likely that either feature would have received an X rating.^[2] One Thousand and One Nights was the first erotic animated feature film, and at 130 minutes, it remains one of the longest animated films.

The Lolita Anime series was the first hentai original video animation (OVA), released in 1984 by Wonder Kids, which mainly focused on underage sex, rape, and bondage. Cream Lemon, which contained many themes found in hentai today, was released later that year by Fairy Dust and contained some in-depth storylines and classic (late 1970s to early 1980s style) artwork.^[3] The Brothers Grime was a three-video cartoon-pornography series produced by Excalibur Films in 1986, 1987, and 1988, using titles primarily from the Cream Lemon series, the most popular of Japan's erotic anime before Urotsukidoji.^[4]

Following the tentacle scene in Guyver: Out of Control in December 1986, the Urotsukidoji anime series by Toshio Maeda was released on OVA beginning in 1987 and released in America in 1992 by Anime 18. It is most famous for being viewed as the first in the tentacle rape genre, though only one scene in the first OVA actually contains any tentacle rape. Tentacle rape was not present in the Urotsukidoji manga, but was featured in a series that he would publish years later called Demon Beast Invasion. Demon Beast Invasion created what might be called the modern paradigm of tentacle porn, in which the elements of sexual assault are emphasized. Maeda explained that he invented the practice to get around strict Japanese censorship regulations, which prohibit the depiction of the penis but apparently do not prohibit showing sexual penetration by a tentacle or similar (often robotic) appendage. Maeda went on to create La Blue Girl, which departs somewhat from its predecessors by lightening the atmosphere with humor, lightly parodying the tentacle rape genre.

In November 1994, A.D. Vision released their first title, The Legend of Lyon, under its hentai label, Soft Cel Pictures. A.D. Vision put out 19 Soft Cel Pictures releases during 1995 and 12 through the first half of 1996, some of which were rereleases of previous A.D. Vision Films titles in their unedited form.^[4] Soft Cel Pictures shut down in 2005 and most of its titles were acquired by Critical Mass.

Critical Mass was created in 1996 when The Right Stuf made a deal with Manga Entertainment to release an unedited edition of Violence Jack, which they deemed too intense for their normal line.^[4] Critical Mass has since released a large number of hentai titles. Most of their titles are associated with The Vanilla Series, a series of hentai titles produced in Japan by Digital Works which are tied-in with eroge games of the same title. When Central Park Media went bankrupt in the year of 2009, the licenses for all Anime 18-related products and movies were transferred to Critical Mass.^[5]

Censorship is practiced differently in Japan and in the USA, due to their different laws. Japanese law discourages showing of genitals in hentai, while the United States is more concerned about forbidding the display of sex acts involving people under 18, so the characters in hentai have to look 18 or older. Hence, there are censoring mosaics in Japan, and scene removals and different ages of characters in America.^[4] While not featuring the censoring mosaics of the original Japanese version, the US release of La Blue Girl was edited during the initial VHS release and all scenes featuring Miko's companion Nin-Nin engaged in a sexual act were removed, probably to avoid the charge of pedophilia, in spite of the fact that the character is not a minor but a dwarf ninja. For similar reasons, the age of the heroine was also altered: initially stated to be a 16 year old high-schooler in the original Japanese version, she is an 18 year old college student in the US version. The DVD release contains this edited version.^[6][7] In the UK, the British Board of Film Classification refused to classify it, thus prohibiting its distribution.^[8][9]

Demographics[link]

As with other forms of Japanese pop-culture media, publishers of erotic media target material to specific demographic groups. For manga, the most typical divisions are:

Types which are pornographic by definition[link]

• ero-manga or seijin (成人^?, literally "adult"), aimed at (presumptively heterosexual) men
• ladies' comics (redīsu komikku or redicomi), originally meaning any manga for adult women^[10] (see josei) but now often applied specifically to pornographic manga for women^[11]

Types which often (but do not necessarily) contain pornographic content[link]

• gei comi or menslove (ML), often called bara in the West, for gay men
• boys' love (boizu rabu or BL), predominately aimed at the shōjo and josei markets (also see below)
• teen's love (TL), a more explicit type of shōjo romances, likewise aimed predominantly at the shōjo and josei markets
• yuri or girls' love (GL), which has long been a component of both men's ero-manga and shōjo gender-exploration but has more recently arisen as a genre in its own right, in both seijin and josei flavors (also see below)

Classification[link]

Lolicon art often blends childlike characteristics with erotic undertones

Hentai that features mainly heterosexual interactions occur in both male-targeted (ero) and female-targeted ("ladies' comics") form. Those that feature mainly homosexual interactions are known as yaoi (male-male) and yuri (female-female). Both yaoi and, to a lesser extent, yuri are generally aimed at members of the opposite sex from the persons depicted.

Yaoi commonly features males of ambiguous gender—in both physical appearance and, frequently, mannerism—called bishōnen, literally "beautiful boy". Some feature biseinen ("beautiful man"), males of more adult or masculine appearance than bishōnen. Less common are bara—larger, often heavily muscled and sometimes hairy males, the yaoi counterpart of the "bear" in gay pornography—as well as oyaji (meaning "daddy" or "uncle"), featuring middle-aged and elderly men; these types are mainly found in material aimed at gay men, which may be called bara or 'men's love' (ML), and is considered to be distinct from yaoi.^[12][13] Yaoi also extends beyond the hentai genre, since it applies to any anime/manga material that includes male homosexuality, except for that actually aimed at a gay male audience. In Western usage, yaoi is distinguished from shōnen-ai (literally, "boy-love"), in which two males merely express romantic feelings for each other without actually having sexual relations; however in current Japanese usage this term most commonly refers to pornographic shotacon for men. Women interested in Yaoi are called "Fujoshi" (腐女子), a pun which translate loosely as "rotten girl" or "rotten woman".

Yuri is very similar to yaoi, except that the focus is on female homosexual interactions. The characters in yuri are typically "bishōjo", meaning "beautiful girl" (this term is not specific to yuri but is applied generally to depictions of attractive women for a male audience; for example, in the term "bishōjo game"). Shōjo-ai ("girl love") is a western term for the female equivalent of shōnen-ai; in Japan these works are also called yuri. Yuri may be aimed at (presumptively heterosexual) male, heterosexual female, or lesbian female audiences.

Hentai is perceived as "dwelling" on sexual fetishes,^[14] including:

• Bakunyū, the depiction of women with large breasts. Literally translated to "bursting breasts".^[15]
• Futanari, depictions of hermaphrodites or transsexuals that have both phallic genitalia (penis with scrotum, only a penile shaft, or an enlarged clitoris) and vaginal genitalia, or, alternatively, a feminine hourglass shape including breasts combined with a penis and scrotum.
• Incest, sexual activity with legal family members; noticeably seen in The Sagara Family, a hentai computer game.
• Lolicon, depicts prepubescent or preadolescent girls.
• Omorashi (オモラシ / おもらし / お漏らし^?) in which individuals struggle with a full bladder before finally wetting themselves (also known as watersports).
• Shotacon, the depiction of young boys, either with other young boys or older men, or depicting young boys with older women (known as "straight shota" in western jargon).
• Tentacle erotica, the depiction of tentacled creatures and sometimes monsters (fictional imaginative or otherwise, also includes alien-like creatures) engaging in sex or rape with girls and, less often, men.

Hentai media[link]

Hentai manga on display at a Japanese bookstore.

• Adult anime, or hentai anime, is anime that relies primarily on sex.
• Adult manga, or hentai manga, is manga designed for purely pornographic purposes. Plot is still used to develop character and setting, but most of the time, the ultimate goal is to show scenes of sexuality with few exceptions. Adult manga is often sold in convenience stores, book stores, and magazine stores in Japan, and also other public places such as airports, and is far more prolific and accessible than the U.S. adult comic book market. It is usually distributed in digest format, containing several stories by different artists (e.g. an anthology).
• Adult CG artwork includes individual drawings by artists. Art can be available on websites, CD-ROMs, or in printed art books. CG artwork is used frequently in adult video games.
• Adult video games, or eroge, are games with a pornographic element. They can include bishōjo games that involve character driven plots, and can exist as sex simulations.
• Adult dōjinshi, or H dōjinshi, refers to a type of work that uses copyrighted characters presented in sexual situations. It usually refers to printed manga, but can also refer to any type of visual work depicting copyrighted characters, including video games, animation, and CG artwork. Familiarity with a particular character or setting can add a sense of relating to the character over a generic character used in mainstream hentai, making dōjinshi more appealing to fans of a particular work. Despite not representing characters and licensed properties as intended, companies often view these works as a free form of license recognition and advertising through dedicated fandom. Some manga artists create hentai dōjinshi with characters from their own manga, such as Maki Murakami creating dōjinshi of Gravitation.^[16][17]

Lemon[link]

In Western fanfiction circles, hentai-based works are popularly referred to as "lemon", based on a more popular hentai anime anthology series called Cream Lemon. Fictions referred to as "lime" are ones in which the characters do everything short of having sexual intercourse with each other.^[1]

See also[link]

	Pornography portal
	Anime and Manga portal

• Cartoon pornography
• Ero guro
• List of hentai authors (groups, studios, production companies, circles)
• List of pornographic sub-genres
• Panchira

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Aquila, Meredith (2007). "Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction Writers: New Narrative Themes or the Same Old Story?" Mechademia 2.
• Buckley, Sandra (1991). "'Penguin in Bondage': A Graphic Tale of Japanese Comic Books", pp. 163–196, In Technoculture. C. Penley and A. Ross, eds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. ISBN 0-8166-1932-8.
• McCarthy, Helen, and Jonathan Clements (1998). The Erotic Anime Movie Guide. London: Titan. ISBN 1-85286-946-1.
• Napier, Susan J. (2000). Anime: From Akira to Princess Mononoke. New York: Palgrave. ISBN 0-312-23863-0. 
• Perper, Timothy and Cornog, Martha (March 2002). Eroticism for the masses: Japanese manga comics and their assimilation into the U.S. Sexuality & Culture, 6 (1) pp. 3–126.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hentai

• Dictionary of Japan Sex

Statue of Rip van Winkle in Irvington, New York, not far from "Sunnyside", the home of Washington Irving

"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving published in 1819, as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. Written while Irving was living in Birmingham, England, it was part of a collection entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. Although the story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains, Irving later admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills."^[1]

Plot summary[link]

Dutch people playing nine pins (kegelen). Painted 1650-1660 by Jan Steen.

The story of Rip Van Winkle is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. In a pleasant village, at the foot of New York's "Kaatskill" Mountains, lives the kindly Rip Van Winkle, a colonial British-American villager of Dutch descent. Rip is an amiable though somewhat hermitic man who enjoys solitary activities in the wilderness, but is also loved by all in town—especially the children to whom he tells stories and gives toys. However, a tendency to avoid all gainful labor, for which his nagging wife (Dame Van Winkle) chastises him, allows his home and farm to fall into disarray due to his lazy neglect.

One autumn day, Rip is escaping his wife's nagging, wandering up the mountains with his dog, Wolf. Hearing his name being shouted, Rip discovers that the speaker is a man dressed in antiquated Dutch clothing, carrying a keg up the mountain, who requires Rip's help. Without exchanging words, the two hike up to an amphitheatre-like hollow in which Rip discovers the source of previously-heard thunderous noises: there is a group of other ornately-dressed, silent, bearded men who are playing nine-pins. Although there is no conversation and Rip does not ask the men who they are or how they know his name, he discreetly begins to drink some of their liquor, and soon falls asleep.

He awakes in unusual circumstances: it seems to be morning, his gun is rotted and rusty, his beard has grown a foot long, and Wolf is nowhere to be found. Rip returns to his village where he finds that he recognizes no one. Asking around, he discovers that his wife has died and that his close friends have died in a war or gone somewhere else. He immediately gets into trouble when he proclaims himself a loyal subject of King George III, not knowing that the American Revolution has taken place; George III's portrait on the town inn has been replaced by that of George Washington. Rip is also disturbed to find another man is being called Rip Van Winkle (though this is in fact his son, who has now grown up).

The men he met in the mountains, Rip learns, are rumored to be the ghosts of Hendrick (Henry) Hudson's crew. Rip is told that he has apparently been away from the village for twenty years. An old local recognizes Rip and Rip's now-adult daughter takes him in. Rip resumes his habitual idleness, and his tale is solemnly taken to heart by the Dutch settlers, with other hen-pecked husbands, after hearing his story, wishing they could share in Rip's good luck, and have the luxury of sleeping through the hardships of war.

Characters in the story of Rip Van Winkle

• Rip Van Winkle – a henpecked husband who loathes 'profitable labor'.
• Dame Van Winkle – Rip Van Winkle's cantankerous wife.
• Rip – Rip Van Winkle's son.
• Judith Gardenier – Rip Van Winkle's daughter.
• Derrick Van Bummel – the local schoolmaster and later a member of Congress.
• Nicholas Vedder – landlord of the local inn.
• Mr. Doolittle – a hotel owner.
• Wolf – Rip's faithful dog
• The Ghosts of Henry Hudson and his crew – Ghosts that share purple magic liquor with van Winkle.

Composition and publication history[link]

The first installment of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon included "Rip Van Winkle".

After a failed business venture with his brothers, Irving filed for bankruptcy in 1818.^[2] Despondent, he turned to writing for possible financial support, though he had difficulty thinking of stories to write. He stayed in Birmingham, England with his brother-in-law Henry Van Wart.^[3] The two were reminiscing in June 1818 when Irving was suddenly inspired by their nostalgic conversation.^[4] Irving locked himself in his room and wrote non-stop all night. As he said, he felt like a man waking from a long sleep. He presented the first draft of "Rip Van Winkle" to the Van Wert family over breakfast.^[5]

"Rip Van Winkle" was one of the first stories Irving proposed for his new book, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. Irving asked his brother Ebeneezer to assist with publication in the United States. As Irving wrote, "I shall feel very anxious to hear of the success of this first re-appearance on the literary stage – Should it be successful, I trust I shall be able henceforth to keep up an occasional fire."^[6] 2000 copies of the first octavo-sized installment which included "Rip Van Winkle" were released on June 23, 1819, in New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, published by Cornelius S. Van Winkle and sold at a somewhat expensive 75 cents.^[7] A British edition was published shortly after by John Miller, who went out of business immediately after. With help from friend Walter Scott, Irving was able to convince John Murray to take over British publication of the Sketch Book.^[8]

Literary forerunners[link]

The story is similar to the German folktale "Peter Klaus"^[4] by Johann Karl Christoph Nachtigal, which is a shorter story set in a German village.

The story is also similar to the ancient Jewish story about Honi M'agel who falls asleep after asking a man why he is planting a carob tree which traditionally takes 70 years to mature, making it virtually impossible to ever benefit from the tree's fruit. After this exchange, he falls asleep on the ground and is miraculously covered by a rock and remains out of sight for 70 years. When he awakens, he finds a fully mature tree and that he has a grandson. When nobody believes that he is Honi, he prays to God and God takes him from this world.

In Christian tradition there is the well-known story of "The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus", recounting a group of early Christians who hid in a cave about 250 AD, to escape the persecution of Christians during the reign of the Roman emperor Decius, fell into a miraculous sleep and woke some 200 years later during the reign of Theodosius II, to discover that the city and the whole Empire had become Christian. This Christian story is recounted by Islam and appears in a famous Sura of the Koran, Sura Al-Kahf. The story recalls a group of young monotheists escaping from persecution within a cave and emerging hundreds of years later.^[9] Irving, who wrote a biography of the Prophet Muhammad, may have been familiar with the story.

The story is also similar to a 3rd century AD Chinese tale of Ranka, as retold by Lionel Giles in A Gallery of Chinese Immortals, and an 8th-century Japanese tale, "Urashima Tarō".

In Orkney there is a similar folktale linked to the burial mound of Salt Knowe adjacent to the Ring of Brodgar. A drunken fiddler on his way home hears music from the mound. He finds a way in and finds the trowes (Trolls) having a party. He stays and plays for two hours, then makes his way home to Stenness, where he discovers fifty years have passed. The Orkney Rangers believe this may be one source for Washington Irving's tale, because his father was an Orcadian from the island of Shapinsay and would almost certainly have known the tale.

In Ireland, the story of Niamh and Oisin has a similar theme. Oisin falls in love with the beautiful Niamh and leaves with her on her snow white horse to Tir Na nOg – the land of the ever-young. Missing his family and friends, he asks to pay them a visit. Niamh lends him her horse, warning him never to dismount, and he travels back to Ireland. But three hundred years have passed; his family and fellow warriors are all dead. Some men are trying to move a boulder. Oisin reaches down to help them. The girth of the horse's saddle snaps and he falls to the ground. Before the watching eyes of the men he becomes a very, very old man.

Diogenes Laertius, an Epicurean philosopher of the third century, includes the story of Epimenides in his book On the Lives, Opinions, and Sayings of Famous Philosophers, in chapter ten in his section on the Seven Sages of Greece, precursors to the first philosophers. The sage Epimenides is said to have slept in a cave for fifty-seven years. But unfortunately, "he became old in as many days as he had slept years". Although according to the different sources that Diogenes relates, Epimenides lived to be one hundred and fifty-seven years, two hundred and ninety-nine years, or one hundred and fifty-four years old.^[10]

Adaptations[link]

Joseph Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle, 1896

The story has been adapted for other media for the last two centuries, from stage plays to an operetta to cartoons to films.

Actor Joseph Jefferson was most associated with the character on the 19th century stage and made a series of short films in 1896 recreating scenes from his stage adaptation, and which are collectively in the U.S. National Film Registry. Jefferson's son, Thomas, followed in his father's footsteps and played the character in a number of early 20th century films.

Composer Ferde Grofe spent twenty years working on a symphonic tone poem based on Rip Van Winkle, eventually reworking the material into his Hudson River Suite. One of the movements is entitled "Rip Van Winkle" and is a musical depiction of the story.

The 1960s Tale Spinners For Children record series included a dramatization of the Rip van Winkle story in which the name of Rip's daughter was changed to "Katrina" and the characters of Nicholas Vedder and Derrick Van Bummel were given more importance.

In the 16th episode of The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, which originally aired on January 16, 1965, Mr. Magoo (voiced by Jim Backus) plays Rip Van Winkle.^[11]

The story also inspired an episode of The Flintstones entitled "Rip Van Flintstone", which originally aired on November 5, 1965.^[12] In it, Fred falls asleep at the Slate Company Picnic and dreams he has awakened in Bedrock twenty years in the future, now a city with a population of 30,000. Besides a change in his personal appearance (Fred has grown a long beard, his hair has turned white and he needs a cane) he first finds out that Slate Company has gone out of business. Fred has been presumed dead and is now alone and forgotten; Barney has become a rich oil tycoon and Wilma has become a bitter old widow. The only one to remember him is his daughter Pebbles, now a full-grown woman who has married Bamm Bamm. Betty is mentioned in the dream sequence but not seen, implying that she has died. At one point during the episode, he even says, "Maybe I have fallen asleep for twenty years like in that Rip Van Winklestone story." However, Fred suddenly wakes up young again, realzing he was only momentarily dreaming.

A claymation version of the story was produced and directed by Will Vinton in 1978 and was nominated for an Academy Award Nomination for Short Subject Animation. The animated film was named Rip Van Winkle.^[13]

In the Faerie Tale Theatre children's television series hosted by Shelley Duvall in the 1980s, Francis Ford Coppola directed the episode "Rip Van Winkle" in which the Hollywood actor Harry Dean Stanton played the title role.^[14]

There is also an episode of the HBO show Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales For Every Child. They retold popular fairy tales by setting them in different cultures and settings and featuring voices provided by celebrities. For Rip Van Winkle they did a Feminist retelling of the story, given a 1960s twist, and told from the point of view of Rip's wife Vanna.

The TV show Wishbone showed the dog imagining himself as the title character, complete with the men playing ninepins and his mistaking the George Washington Inn for his old hangout of the King George Inn. It is set against the family meeting an elderly black woman who has not lived in her town since childhood, and her remarking at the change since her return makes her feel akin to Rip van Winkle.

The premise of the animated series Futurama where the main character Phllip J. Fry was cryogenically frozen from the year 1999 to 2999, was based on Rip Van Winkle.

Real life[link]

Similar events have happened in real life. The Russian Pioneer Psychologist Ivan Pavlov described a case of a man apparently sleeping 20 years, and there was another case in the Ukraine.^[15]

See also[link]

• Rip Van Wink from The Beano
• Rip van Winkle from Hellsing
• Rip Van Winkle Bridge
• Sleeping Beauty

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Rip Van Winkle

Sources[link]

• "Rip Van Winkle", illustrated by N. C. Wyeth (1921).
• "Rip Van Winkle", e-text from Bartleby.
• "Rip Van Winkle", audio version from 1946.
• "Rip Van Winkle", 1896 film.
• "Karl Katz", a comparison.

Other[link]

• Rip Van Winkle Study Guide
• Irving in Birmingham
• "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" – Irving's Fictions of Revolution
• A film clip of a 1896 Rip Van Winkle film starring Joseph Jefferson is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]