When I stumbled on the existance of hentai, it was in a search for flash games for anime I’d already been exposed to (Cowboy Bebop, to be precise), so I never had the sense of hentai being my exposure to anime. I suppose, reading this blog, that I should be grateful for that.

As I said, I’m pretty blasé on it, I think of it as mostly just another subcategory with its own subcategories. Romantic hentai exists, violent rape hentai exists, cosmic horror hentai exists. Even further, good romantic-, poor romantic-, good (perspectively) rape-, fail-quality rape-, well-done tentacle-, and weak tentacle hentai all exist. The same goes for good and poor harem, romance, sports, childrens’ or slice-of-life anime.

On the topic of what is ‘hentai’ itself, I think that’s not a clear distinction, either. Things like Fate/stay night or Utawarerumono have sex in them (at least, in their initial incarnations), but that doesn’t make them about sex, and certainly, there are things I would call hentai that, sex removed, could stand on their own. So I guess it could be said as where the focus in the storytelling itself lies, that distinguishes hentai from ero.

I think that anyone saying that ‘all anime is hentai’ or ‘all anime is for kids’ should be countered with similar statements, like ‘there are blue socks, so all socks are blue’ or ‘there’s porn on TV, so all TV is porn’.
Examples such as His and Her Circumstances and Koi Kaze (and I would like to add Living Game, among others), mentioned elsewhere on this blog, make me think even further: comments saying ‘everything with sex in it is porn/hentai’ should also be rebuffed. Off the top of my head, a counter could be found in ‘there is sex in James Bond films, so all James Bond films with sex/sex-implying scenes are porn’.

I thank you for time in reading this,
-CS

P.S. I feel I should arm anyone who agrees with http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouFailLogicForever for a compendium of logical fallacies. TVT is what linked me here, as well (to your Kegadoru post).

P.P.S. If you haven’t heard of Living Game, I suggest giving it a glance. I tend to mentally group it with Koi Kaze, but they’re not very similar.

have a good day ^^

However, I don’t think that people should box anime up with Hentai. It is true that Hentai is anime style b but to say that all anime is hentai just isn’t right.
There are a lot of anime and manga out there that are completely out of the realm of Hentai just like how a majority of TV shows are out of the realm of porn. I just think people should keep a more open mind about anime.

As to hentai tentacle rape having meaning, I disagree. Tentacle sex really isn’t all that new to Japanese culture. Some of the earliest examples date back to the Edo period and don’t have much meaning behind them other than what’s there. So, you’re correct when you see tentacle sex as a kind of art; it is.

@Matsu Zabi, I agree. Porn’s been around for millennium and it’s up to each individual to either accept it, reject it, or ignore it. Porn, in my opinion, will always be around in one incarnation or another. Hentai is just one of its latest.